Les Jones

Photos > Another New-to-me Photography Web Site I Like

Luminous Landscape. Enormous depth here with lots of good reads.

The Premo Dope

- Understanding Exposure
- Ansels Adams' Zone System
- Polarizing Filters
- Understanding the DSLR Magnification Factor
- Understanding Lens Diffraction
- Stiching Together Panoramas
- Blended Exposures
- Understanding Histograms
- Mirror Lock-up

I wrote the other week about the value of cropping photos. Here's the really killer stuff: Understanding the Art of Cropping and What Photography Isn't, in which photography is defined as the art of exclusion (emphasis mine):

A photograph is not a painting. An obvious statement but also one that can be helpful in understanding what photography is, as opposed to what it is not.

A painter starts with a blank canvas and adds what he thinks should be seen. This can be either from a scene in front of him, or from something that springs from the painter's mind's eye. If the painting is taken from reality, such as a landscape, items are included or excluded based on the artist's preference and vision. No one ever says to a painter, "Why didn't you include that telephone pole"?

The photographer, on the other hand, starts with whatever nature has placed in front of him. His task as an artist is to remove that which doesn't compliment his vision. (This is even the case when so-called documentary photography is being done. Taking a photograph is inherently an exercise in editorial decision making.)

I'm reminded of the probably apocryphal story of Michelangelo being asked, while he was sculpting his David, "How do you know what to carve away"? His response was reported to be, 'I simply remove everything that doesn't look like David." So too the photographer must remove everything that doesn't look like what he or she wants the photograph to contain. The photographer, by excluding, creates.

The photographer makes his choice of what to include, or not, through a number of means. Positioning of the camera is the first one, and choice of lens is the second. Together, these allow the photographer to determine perspective. The use of camera or lens movements, such as tilts, swings and rising or falling film and lens standards permits a further range of control.

Later, whether in the electronic or the chemical darkroom, the next stage of exclusion takes place. While many photographers slavishly adhere to either the format of the film size that was shot, or the paper size that they print on, I believe that a photograph wants to be a certain size or shape. Sometimes only after living with an image for a while can this determination be made. (I often will crop an image several different ways and put small versions of these on the screen or on a large print. Usually after a while the proper cropping will suggest itself.)

Worth a full read, and worth visiting the art of cropping link for evocative photos from Marrakech.

See also:
- Behold the Power of Cropping Photos