Have you ever been walking or driving along and something catches your eye? No matter how important your destination, you stop and gaze with wonder at what you see. If you photograph this little nugget it is called a grab shot but what is it that makes it special? You might have been by that very spot thousands of times and never noticed it until this very moment. What is it that made you stop?
Maybe it was the light, shadow or the color, more than likely though it was a combination of all of the above. The arrangement of these individual elements sometimes come together in unexpected ways, creating for us unique a composition that is both captivating and inspiring. Oddly enough, the scene may never again look the same but for that brief moment, it is enough to get us to forget about what ever we are doing and "stop to smell the roses".
This illusive convergence of events is sought by artists and advertising moguls alike. Capturing the viewers’ attention and keeping them in the moment long enough to allow them to escape within what they see. If you have experienced such a convergence, you might want to be able to recognize why it happened later so that you can actually capture it and keep it photographically.
The pundits and techies will tell you that there are “rules of engagement" for why these moments happen. Achieving them as a goal is harder than it seems especially when they are applied to an image before you snap the shutter. Like most artistic rules, these rules are fluid, ever open to interpretation by their users. They were developed by those that find it necessary to evaluate those illusive yet captivating compositions, with the hopes of bringing some order to that which seems to occur naturally. By dissecting the images, their features and flow, these image pundits have created a rule set to follow that explains why the images look the way they do. Like some paint by numbers canvas, we are supposed to apply their rules to these striking anomalies, so that the natural order of things makes sense. Or do we? The rules here are a great way of explaining what you are seeing to others. But when to apply them is the problem that most people run into.
These standard rules of engagement are of course, the rule of thirds, your image’s foreground middle ground & background, balance, positive & negative space, symmetry, complimentary and opposing colors, highlight & shadow, direction of light, framing also known as cropping, the subject, their position, their relationship with the other elements, their interaction with both the elements and other subjects within the scene and the paper or other media it is presented on. Have I left anything out???
Imagine if you will capturing everything in a split second and still try remember to apply all of these rules? Man, my head hurts just thinking about doing that. The long and short answer here is that you’ll miss the shot. Remember these are loosely forged rules developed to help dissect an image not create it! While knowledge of these rules is helpful to the success of an image at creation, the dissection doesn’t happen prior to the shot taking place. Most photographers are mindful of the rules of good composition. Some are excellent technicians but poor artists because they spend too much time following the rules before the shot. Others are poor technicians and great artists because they feel their way through the image and sort out the technical stuff later. The perfect scenario is to use both processes in equal proportion. We have told students for years that photography is the perfect marriage of art and technology, figuring out how to use both sides of your brain at the same time is the real challenge.
Think of it like driving a car. There are tons of rules for driving & unlike the rules of composition; the rules of the road are very inflexible. Yet driving is another example of art meeting technology. The next time you are driving, seriously think about all of the rules of the road; coming to a complete stop, using your turn signal, allowing 1 car length between you and the driver ahead of you, using your lights at dusk, not running that yellow light, maintaining the correct speed, the list goes on and on. You will likely find that your driving skill will begin to deteriorate as you concentrate on the rules of driving rather than actually driving.
For this same reason, you don't apply all of the rules of good composition before pressing the shutter button. A great image starts with the visualization. This begins with that moment we are stopped in our tracks by something stunning. Now all you have to do is capture it with skill. That skill is simply working WITH the rules and feeling your way through the creation of your vision.
A wise man once told me that it isn’t the arrow; it’s the Indian that makes the shot. I carry a point and shoot camera everywhere I go. The reason is simple; you never know when you are going to come across a vision that will stop you in your tracks. When I do experience this art on the go, I stop, pull out the camera and take a photo. Yes I realize that I won’t be shooting through the worlds greatest lenses or recording my image on the biggest cMOS chip available on the market. However, I also realize that I have taken the time to stop and smell the roses and that the wise man was right.
Your camera is a tool, just like the brush of a painter you use it to express the art you see and feel. Take each image and composition as it comes, apply the necessary rules as you go. When you do this you will find that the images you create will captivate others as they did you. People will look with wonder at the scene before them just as you did. Not because of the applied rules of composition or the fantastic camera that you used to produce the shot, but because you took the time to stop and smell the roses on their behalf. - Aloha
