It’s been a busy year of business, social media, web design, Photoshop explorations, etc. What I have not done a lot of is use my cameras. It’s time to get back to that.
As I think on photo making in a broader sense, my mind comes back, again and again, to one of the finest photo exercise books: Designing a Photograph by Bill Smith. It is published by Amphoto Books, a great publisher of photographic and educational books. I also love the books by Bryan Peterson, and his Learning to See Creatively is another great book on using the building blocks of art and design to make stronger photographs.
I was referred to Designing a Photograph by one of my great photo mentors, Blaine Pennington. The moment he mentioned it to me, I put it on the “buy it” list, and did so in short order. It is one of the resources I have gone back to over the years when I feel stuck or bored or uninspired. A pro shows up, no matter what!
Designing a Photograph was written in the 80s and updated in 2001, but since it deals with photo and composition basics, that age does not matter at all. There are lots of books that cover this kind of material, but I love how Bill breaks it down. Does anyone remember those awful John Hedgecoe books that seemed to be everywhere in the 80s? Oh, how I hated them and him! Would I’d have had this as my basic instruction!
The first section is a discussion of the elements of good composition. The rest of the book breaks it down further and includes exercises to get brain and eye working together and thinking in new ways. Mr. Smith kind of sums up with the thought, “Look before seeing.” I’d add, “Think before looking”. At least, sometimes.
Have a natural and intuitive eye is great, but being able to use all the elements of composition to create more impact from strong subjects and any impact from initially boring seeming subjects separates the serious from the dabbler, no matter the strengths with which we begin our photographic journeys. Having a good eye made me lazy, lazy,lazy for years. Turning pro was a rude wakeup and took some major effort over a period of years to move my work forward.
Do yourself a favor, and at least start studying and playing with the elements of composition.
One last exercise that I thought was in this book but that I must have gotten somewhere else. It is kind of a “bringing it all together” exercise. Make a series of images (I did most of my formal education back in my film days, so we’d have said a roll of film, but… 36 images or so should do it) of an incredibly simple object. By simple, I mean an egg or a number two pencil or an eraser. Edit this session down to five to ten images. What do you see?
You would not believe some of the photo essays that I have seen come out of this exercise. The egg and the pencil in particular stand out and are why I always think of them when sharing this exercise. Did I learn this from a book or from one of my teachers? I can’t recall. But, if you really try to include some of the powerful tools that come out of the study of composition (as included in Designing a Photograph, et. al.), you can make magic, or at least images of which you might be surprisingly proud.