Composition is KEY

Zombie thread resurrection..
While composition is key...Lighting is what makes an image magic!
Great subject...awesome composition..perfect exposer & focus....and ho hum average lighting = mediocre image. Period.
All of the above are meaningless without great lighting.
For me it's all about the light.
The difference between a technically perfect image and outstanding image that moves me is light.
In landscapes capturing what I call "Magic light" that often only happens most times for only a matter of seconds.
In the studio the great photographers have mastered their lighting techniques.
Be it soft lighting to flatter female subjects portraits .
Or dramatic hard lighting to bring out the character lines and masculine features in men or older subjects portraits.
Great architectural photography is both composition and lighting..
Anyway thats my experience...I could be wrong
Cheers
PQ
 
I agree. Composition is important, sure, but it's really the lighting that makes or breaks an image.
 
Sometimes especially shooting outdoors you can’t depend on lightning, you have to work with what you have such as your camera & lens. I’m mostly talking about film because it’s what I know. Knowing what you’re film speed /ASA was capable of was important to know, that’s why photographers carried 2 or 3 cameras, different film speeds in each one for different lighting, unlike a digital you couldn’t change the ISO on a film camera or I should say you had to set it to match what film you were shooting otherwise the built in light meter on the camera would give you false readings. Film cameras you had to bracket your aperture manually so at least you might have one pic that’s close to decent lighting. I used to depend on being able to close the aperture down to make up for pictures that weren’t completely in focus, close the aperture down, slow the shutter speed to make up for less light coming in an hope for the best. You could speed up or slow down the shutter speed manually while keeping in mind what film you’re shooting an how fast or slow the subject is moving. Slow shutter speed let’s in more light but if the subject is moving you could have a blurred subject. Back then, before before digital having big glass/ fast lens was the norm. Fast lenses gathered more light due to coating on the lens, throughout the whole lens an just being big. If you had deep pockets to afford fast lenses things were a bit easier. More light coming into the camera, less time fiddling around with aperture an shutter speeds. I engulfed myself in 35mm film, knew it back & forth, up & down but it simply didn’t pay the bills. It’s strange to say I’m having a hard time embracing digital, it’s easier, sometimes cheaper, sometimes not but the hardest part for me is getting myself into photography again.
All in all lighting is key but you can work your way around it with different programs & app’s. Filling the frame is just as important, have 3/4 of the subject & 1/4 blank & you didn’t notice it is bad. Even worse is when friends & family think you’re photography is fantastic but you think otherwise.
 
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Sometimes especially shooting outdoors you can’t depend on lightning, you have to work with what you have such as your camera & lens. I’m mostly talking about film because it’s what I know. Knowing what you’re film speed /ASA was capable of was important to know, that’s why photographers carried 2 or 3 cameras, different film speeds in each one for different lighting, unlike a digital you couldn’t change the ISO on a film camera or I should say you had to set it to match what film you were shooting otherwise the built in light meter on the camera would give you false readings. Film cameras you had to bracket your aperture manually so at least you might have one pic that’s close to decent lighting. I used to depend on being able to close the aperture down to make up for pictures that weren’t completely in focus, close the aperture down, slow the shutter speed to make up for less light coming in an hope for the best. You could speed up or slow down the shutter speed manually while keeping in mind what film you’re shooting an how fast or slow the subject is moving. Slow shutter speed let’s in more light but if the subject is moving you could have a blurred subject. Back then, before before digital having big glass/ fast lens was the norm. Fast lenses gathered more light due to coating on the lens, throughout the whole lens an just being big. If you had deep pockets to afford fast lenses things were a bit easier. More light coming into the camera, less time fiddling around with aperture an shutter speeds. I engulfed myself in 35mm film, knew it back & forth, up & down but it simply didn’t pay the bills. It’s strange to say I’m having a hard time embracing digital, it’s easier, sometimes cheaper, sometimes not but the hardest part for me is getting myself into photography again.
All in all lighting is key but you can work your way around it with different programs & app’s. Filling the frame is just as important, have 3/4 of the subject & 1/4 blank & you didn’t notice it is bad. Even worse is when friends & family think you’re photography is fantastic but you think otherwise.

I have been a photographer for over 42 years.
I graduated from Brooks with AS in photography and apprenticed 2 years with a PPA master photographer.
I learned shooting on 4x5 calumet view camera.
When I started out there was no auto focus, auto exposure, or auto anything.
I remember when the Nikon F came out and thru the lens metering was revelottionary and a technical achievement.
Chemistry was a required subject that all photographers need knowledge of.
A photographer needed to be able to set the exposer, focus and compose in the viewfinder all at the same time. And yes multiple bodies loaded with different films wrapped around your neck was the norm.
Great photographers learned to see like the film they were using.
You understood the exposer latitude, dynamic range and the limitations and strengths of the film you were using and what film to use when.
Sometimes on the fly you under exposed or over exposed depending on the light and then compensated in the darkroom by pushing or pulling while developing the film to get the image.
Shooting the image was only 1/3 of the equation. Knowing how to develop the film was a 1/3 and then pulling a great print was the other 1/3. If you could not learn to master all 3 you had no future as a professional photographer.

So I think I understand where you are coming from.
What I am confused about is what any of this has to do with composition or lighting.

I have seen more properly exposed, in perfect focus, properly composed images using the generally accepted "rule of 3rds" that were while technically perfect and also were utterly & completely unremarkable and 100% forgettable.
That is the problem with 99.9% of todays photographs.
Yes the cameras automation insures every capture is in focus, properly exposed and any composition can be edited to correct composition that was poorly framed at time of capture. What all of the automation in the world can correct for is crap lighting. You can't fix what was never present at the moment of capture.
Although with photoshop you can. But thats not photography to me. It is digital art and a completely different thing.
But thats just my view as always I could be completely wrong.
PQ
 
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Hello PQ,

Before Photoshop I used my hands under the enlarger light, as did Ansel Adams, see his contact prints and the final image.
He was at the 'cutting edge', making his own enlargers, working out the Zone system etc. By your own words this would count as art, what the camera saw was not what AA printed.

Ansel Adams and Photoshop, he would have taken to it like a Duck to water, got the source code (from Barney Scan) and wrote his own version. And then written books about it and made a tidy sum on the side selling the software.

It's what people at the 'cutting edge' of things have always done, it's in their DNA. Photoshop is the easiest, quickest photo editor ever, anything you can think of doing you can. AA would have said, "The file is the score and the edit the performance".

I would encourage anyone to make a start on Photoshop by beginning to use it as AA would have done with his hands under the enlarger light.

Hello MH,

I agree about the light, walk the same path for years having taken all the postcard stuff, find the gems that the light reveals, where you've walked past 100's of times.

padley.jpg


Cheers - J

[edit] I forgot to say that Photoshop is the greatest fun :) In my humble opinion photography should be; 0.1% camera, 50% imagination and 49.9% Photoshop, that's where the fun lies.
 
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This is interesting to me because I try like heck to NOT have to use a program to get the picture I want. I find the challenge of getting the camera/lens to give me the image I want right out of the camera is the most fun. Guess I'm more of a 'gearhead' than a photographer as I'd rather use the gear instead of a computer program to get results.
 
Hello OE

I too enjoy out of camera images and often refer to Levi Wedels site; 'Images found in the beginning' here is a link to Stephen Shores page: http://imagesfound.blogspot.com/2011/01/stephen-shore.html he started the so called 'Banal' genre of photography in the 60's, now he's recognised as the father of serious colour photography. I can bring to mind one of his; a small town street with shadows, con trails, wires etc all leading the eye diagonally from left to right, the guy is a genius.

There are 100's of photographers on the site and it's well worth visiting the archive regularly for inspiration.

Cheers - J

[edit] Using a similar technique in 2013 Paul Gaffney walked 3,500 Km across Spain and France: http://www.paulgaffneyphotography.com/We-Make-the-Path-by-Walking he called it a long distance meditation.

I do like Paul's pics and have done since I saw a copy of the book at a Photo Book meeting. BUT. I always recall the words of Rembrandt van Rijn who said, "There is more beauty in ones own village than can be appreciated in a lifetime" as true today as it was 400 years ago
 
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This is interesting to me because I try like heck to NOT have to use a program to get the picture I want. I find the challenge of getting the camera/lens to give me the image I want right out of the camera is the most fun. Guess I'm more of a 'gearhead' than a photographer as I'd rather use the gear instead of a computer program to get results.

How do you define "right out of the camera?" Are you referring to film or digital? Do you regularly print your pictures, or are you referring to a monitor view? The contrast capabilities of a print are much less than those of a monitor, which is less than a transparency, which is less than a negative or a raw file. I find if I scan an old negative, I can often bring a picture out of it that was nearly impossible with a chemical print, if only because of the simple but powerful universal shadow and highlight adjustments available in digital processing. Those tone sliders can often produce much or all of the adjustment that you wanted to do with dodging and burning before. (Of course, if you want to completely reverse the relative tone order of some areas, like making the sky darker than the foreground, then you need to fall back to dodging and burning.)
 
Hello all,

One can have lots of fun emulating the likes of, Julia Margaret Cameron, Anne W Brigman, Minor White and Don McCullin using Photoshop.
In 1994 Adobe introduced layers and one could make montages. I first came across them in 1998 and failed to create anything, failed for 13 years until in 2011 in anger and despair I threw everything else to one side to teach myself. It is at the same time the most difficult thing I've ever done and the most rewarding.

From this
01shf.jpg


To this allegory.
02shf.jpg


Cheers - J
 
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How do you define "right out of the camera?" Are you referring to film or digital? Do you regularly print your pictures, or are you referring to a monitor view? The contrast capabilities of a print are much less than those of a monitor, which is less than a transparency, which is less than a negative or a raw file. I find if I scan an old negative, I can often bring a picture out of it that was nearly impossible with a chemical print, if only because of the simple but powerful universal shadow and highlight adjustments available in digital processing. Those tone sliders can often produce much or all of the adjustment that you wanted to do with dodging and burning before. (Of course, if you want to completely reverse the relative tone order of some areas, like making the sky darker than the foreground, then you need to fall back to dodging and burning.)
SOOC digital.
I have printed some in the past but find ink to be pricey so I limit myself to looking on the monitor.
 
SOOC digital.
I have printed some in the past but find ink to be pricey so I limit myself to looking on the monitor.
COSTCO does a good job on prints, and cheap too. 12x18" for $4 last time I checked. You just have to be sure to permanently turn off their automatic color "correction" when you submit your files.
 
Hello PQ,

Before Photoshop I used my hands under the enlarger light, as did Ansel Adams, see his contact prints and the final image.
He was at the 'cutting edge', making his own enlargers, working out the Zone system etc. By your own words this would count as art, what the camera saw was not what AA printed.

Ansel Adams and Photoshop, he would have taken to it like a Duck to water, got the source code (from Barney Scan) and wrote his own version. And then written books about it and made a tidy sum on the side selling the software.

It's what people at the 'cutting edge' of things have always done, it's in their DNA. Photoshop is the easiest, quickest photo editor ever, anything you can think of doing you can. AA would have said, "The file is the score and the edit the performance".

I would encourage anyone to make a start on Photoshop by beginning to use it as AA would have done with his hands under the enlarger light.

Hello MH,

I agree about the light, walk the same path for years having taken all the postcard stuff, find the gems that the light reveals, where you've walked past 100's of times.

padley.jpg


Cheers - J

[edit] I forgot to say that Photoshop is the greatest fun :) In my humble opinion photography should be; 0.1% camera, 50% imagination and 49.9% Photoshop, that's where the fun lies.

I agree Photoshop (PS) is the digital darkroom.
I personally don't miss all of the chemicals (And the environmental and associated health risks) or spending hours to pull a perfect print and then trying to repeat it.
Using card board and my hands to burn in and doge the difference parts of an image.
Yep that was the way it was done in the old days along with a ton of filters.
When I started doing color commercial photography for print one had to shoot large format 4x5 or 8x10 chrome transparencies. There was no scanning the film to fix it in photoshop or darkroom tricks to fix poor lighting, composition, exposer or other problems. What you shot was what you got. Thank God for polaroid proofs.
There was manual retouching with air brushing but that was expensive and an art department specialty.
Shooting large format was time consuming, cumbersome & expensive and unforgiving.(still is)
But when you got everything right it was magic.

If one is dependent on photoshop to make great images.
I question if one is a photographer or a digital artist.
I have zero problems with photoshop, it is a tool that allows one to do wonderful things.
But agin that falls under the heading of digital art IMHO.
But PS just like ProTools in audio now allows just about anybody to be a recording artist.
One doesn't need to sing or play in tune or in time.
Don't worry auto tune and beat detective will fix it...but when they have to play live they can't hide what was fixed in the studio.
I don't have to worry about exposer ,focusing or other technical stuff .
Now the camera does it all for me and I can fix it later with PS.
You would be surprised how many professional photographers can't tell you what an f/stop is.
Has the digital darkroom and camera automation made the skills that used to be necessary obsolete?
I say yes.
Does the person looking at a final print or listening to finished song care about the process that when into creating an song or image? Most likely nope not one damn bit.
All they care about is does the image or song move them.
Do they connect with it on some level?
In the long run that is what matters.
The finished product is the bottom line not the creative process used to make it.
Just my thoughts I could be completely wrong.

PQ
 
Lots of nice discussion of nuts and bolts, but how about getting back to some examples of composition, the nominal subject of this thread?
"Mondrian Facade"
cr web 03 17 v mondrian facade.jpg

By the way, this one benefitted greatly from Lightroom in that it originally was shot from a very oblique angle to avoid a tree that was in the way. Before digital, it would have reqired a view camera with extreme tilt and offset adjustment to straighten as shown
 
Hello PQ,

Your words are correct, up to the the points you make in the last few sentences. The skills that are now unnecessary have been replaced by others. You seem to believe that the software does everything, it doesn't. Ps is like a set of artists brushes i.e. completely passive.

May I suggest you take some of your own images at random and blend them into some something harmonious, or meaningful.

Ps won't help you at all, you'll find that you have to rely on what's between your ears 100%. What you do need to know is how to use the simple tools that Ps has provided for the last 26 years. My biggest obstacle was fear; of making a fool of myself, which I did for the first two years and of not knowing the software which actually is quite easy.

This composition is called Timeshift

Timeshift.jpg



Cheers - J

My percentages above were incorrect I was being too kind, it is actually; 0.1% Camera, 0.9% Software, 99% Imagination. Changing from a final single image after 50+ years, to one made in layers is far more difficult than I realised.
 
Lighting and composition....
PQ

My reactions, FWIW:

The comment that the first one brings to mind is the use of the space on the left/upper left. I feel that the cloudy circular swirl recenters the eye to some degree, emphasizing the backwards bend of the model by comparison.

The second one looks like a classic portrait pose to me, except that the extreme rotation of the head disturbs me and overwhelms any consideration of the ideal placement of the model. Her eyes have a contemplative gaze out of the frame, but the head position with respect to her body would lead one to expect a dramatic look at the camera, as if something startling just occurred, or to say "I see what you're up to!"
 
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