photographic surface

[Charles Twist]

This is the message from Sandeha in the other thread. I thought I'd copy it here to launch a separate discussion.
Charles

If I have one problem with this kind of discussion it's that I find it hard to resist. I feel like Snoopy watching his dinner arrive ... grrrrrh.

Blame it on a Fine Arts degree. And the truth is I wish I had studied Design rather than Fine Art and the accompanying philosophy. On the one hand, 'art' (be it photography or needlepoint) is simply what people do. On the other, since we listen to music that has rhythm and don't listen to music that lacks rhythm (OK, so some folks get a turn-on from atonal noise) there is sure to be something (some element, the proverbial je ne sais quoi) that makes some artwork interesting or pleasing to some, or most, or at least to a few people, or even just to oneself. And some artwork less so.

And you can apply that to why and how you photograph; why one image satisfies more than another, and whatever it is that prompts you to think you could do better next time. I see composition as rhythm, and irrespective of whether your bag happens to be colour, or line, or texture, or tone, we humans respond to rhythm.

I suspect that most of our responses to rhythm are conditioned in the womb. Even if you accept that some of our responses may be the acquired tastes of adulthood and education, I suspect that the range and selection of rhythms that please or disturb probably changes very little during a lifetime.

Ole's comment is a great one, I think ... significant feedback enhances Ole's life. I'd put money on it that Ole won't be cutting his ear off any time soon.

So anyway, preamble done. My purpose in most of what I do, and that includes making images, is creating and/or finding rhythms. My difficulty (certainly in photography) is developing a visual language that supports the rhythms that generate life-enhancing feedback.

[Charles Twist]

Sandeha,
Some interesting ideas!
I did philosophy at school, so I know what you mean about not resisting - ah the benefits of a French education! I actually rather liked it. And it's interesting to have the twin French-British perspective on it. Anyway, to the nub of the matter:
I actually disagree about the fundamental importance of rhythms in the arts. Yes they are there, but it's not what makes me tick (so to speak ). I much prefer to talk about the photographic surface in terms of a 2D surface which is then covered in areas of "colour, or line, or texture, or tone". I like to explore that ambiguity between it being little more than a 2D surface and the fact that a photograph represents a 3D real world. What is interesting though is that both your approach and mine have an identical requirement: that the elements be well defined.
In music, percussive instruments are ideal for setting a rhythm because they are so clearly delineated. (I must point out to you that most percussive instruments are idiophones and not easily tuned to form a diatonic scale. As such, alone, percussion is essentially atonal. And conversely, there is nothing to stop a tunable instrument from being played without rhythm.) In photography, for both of us, the elements of the composition must also be clearly delineated in order to contribute to the overall composition.
I have no objection to rhythm being part of a composition, but I disagree that rhythm is necessary to make a picture. Rhythm basically boils down to subdivision in to blocks (of space or time). But isn't it essential that this subdivision be repeated in order to create the rhythm? What happens if you create a picture with a single rock and a single cliff, like:

It seems to me that rhythm depends on structured repeats of structured blocks and sub-blocks. Or do you have another vision of rhythm?
Now, it happens that I am one of those people who get a kick out of atonal noise (I also have few friends) and one of the things to come out the 20th century scene is the exploration of rhythm. I think that some folk working with random numbers actually succeeded in destroying any rhythm, simply because of the lack of repetition. A lot of contemporary drone music works on a beat almost too slow to be perceived. There is also some lovely stuff done with polyrhythms (I invite anyone to give Ligeti's Kyrie a listen - pure genius). Maybe you can get some inspiration from that lot. In the meanwhile, I leave you this other picture which reminds me of a polyrhythmic score - once you look at the picture as a 2D surface.

I look forward to hearing your comments - Sandeha's and anybody else's. Thanks,
Charles

[Tom Perkins]

You'll have to give me a bit of time to digest your post Charles, fascinating stuff, but I have to say, those are extremely noisy scans .

[sandeha]

You have the advantage, Charles. I received my French education in the mountains of the Ardeche rather than at the Sorbonne!

Clearly you appreciate the importance of defining one's terms, so you'll also forgive (I hope) if I appear to backtrack a little for the benefit of precision. I have 'captured' the word rhythm from music, but would then prefer to leave music outside of this discussion. Though I should add that as a sax player I follow what you say ... I know of one jazz drummer who has been described as a 'melodic' player, and Gamelan could never be described as 'mere' percussion.

Rhythm just seems to be a better word than composition; it feels more descriptive to me and carries more apt associations. Piet Mondrian was passionate in his use of the term 'dynamic equilibrium' and I use it, too, though the word rhythm may be more immediately accessible. I'm just now flicking through some of Mondrian's writings and can quote, "Throughout the history of culture, art has demonstrated that universal beauty does not arise from the particular character of the form, but from the dynamic rhythm of its inherent relationships, or - in a composition - from the mutual relation of forms."

And from that, I have to disagree that rhythm "basically boils down to subdivision in to blocks (of space or time)". A rhythm may be repeated in a following phrase, but a rhythm can nonetheless exist within a single phrase - it is that 'mutual relation'. To my eye, the single rock and cliff relate to each other in the image because you have forced them to. You have created the relationship by framing, but at the same time you have generated a rhythm that echoes.

I find your other point regarding the 2D and the 3D equally interesting and equally important in discussing images. At times, the challenge in photography is to make the subject come alive, to become more than just a 2D graphic representation, allowing us to forget the surface and the frame. At other times, the challenge may be to render down the subject and remove any sense of depth, creating a purely formal graphic arrangement. Or even to flicker between the two states as happens with relief sculpture (sometimes called 2.5D) and in your second shot. But ... I also worry that the potential for trompe d'oeil, and the question of whether an image succeeds because it is graphic or because it is representative, can lead us away from the meaning of the image rather than towards it. (By 'meaning', I include the artist's intentions as well as any meaning the viewer lays upon it.)

The other day I came across a portrait of Keith Haring (master of zero-space graphics) by Annie Leibovitz, in which Haring is camouflaged by his own graffiti. It's very much a 'now you see him, now you don't' portrait and it leaves me wondering which of them, the painter or the photographer, was the true inspiration behind the setup of the shot.

Well, I should end by saying that space and depth are as important to me in photography as they were when I worked in sculpture, and that the light that moulds form is a primary tool in my own exploration of rhythm.

Thanks for the lead in, Charles. I look forward to reading more comments and perspectives from people here.

[Charles Twist]

Hello Sandeha,
There is not much I can add to that.
I am fully aware of the concept of dynamic equilibrium as used in the 1920's art world. It's all to do with assigning values to specific elements of the picture and then balancing large areas with small values against small areas with high values. It's the reason a person in the picture adds so much: they have a high value so you can make them very small relative to the scene. Not only will you give scale, you will introduce dynamics. The same goes for the b*st*rd in the red jacket; or in fact anything red, however small, generally draws a lot of attention to it - as Mondrian knew.
I think it is a shame to equate rhythm and composition. They are two different words and they may as well have different meanings. Talking of relations makes me think of ratios and subdivisions into blocks. What you describe is almost more like a meter in music or in poetry. In fact visual artists are the awkward ones as they are the only ones to insist that a single expression of the meter is tantamount to a rhythm. Scientists, musicians and even mere mortals would disagree. The problem I have is that a single expression of the meter could just be happenstance. It could be more to do with the scene than the artist, especially so for photographers as opposed to painters. You don't know for sure that the rhythm is deliberate until the meter has been repeated a couple times.
There is also the matter of actually being able to perceive the meter. I think we're agreed that the meter is determined by the position or timing of elements with high values relative to the background low values. A high value is either common to all - eg a sudden increase in sound volume or clearly delineated area of bright colour - or highly personal - "oh look that's Bertie!". (I think that is close to your encompassing definition of meaning ("the artist's intentions as well as any meaning the viewer lays upon it.").) Determining the high values as defined by the artist is very hard for anyone unfamiliar with their work. Determining common high values requires knowing your intended public.
What is interesting about the two pictures I posted, is that the top one is closer to your idea of rhythm, and the bottom closer to mine. The rock + cliff picture can easily be quartered or thirded to show that the different elements fall in sections or on axes. I feel that is as artificial as what you describe in relation to trompe l'oeil, as I did not intend it and it detracts from the picture. It's just the way it happened; it was imposed upon me by the disposition of the scene and my stipulation that the elements should be clear. A while back, I typed up some notes on the matter of composition, which you might like to peruse. I thnk they're very relevant to this discussion. Any comments welcome (naturally).
Thanks for the Harting reference. Good fun, although more to do with Gestalt than 2D-3D. I put up the ref to Rousse on this forum which I gleaned from the French forum. If anybody else has anything to offer in this respect, please let me know.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Charles
PS Tom: we don't all have the latest and nicest kit. Take it easy - that's a sore spot.

[sandeha]

Hi. I remember once writing "composition is rhythm", but I'm not trying to suggest that rhythm and composition are wholly interchangeable terms - rather using rhythm to explain composition. I find rhythm as evident in the first shot as in the second while, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that the first might be dynamic but should not be described as rythmic. Well, if we work with differing aims perhaps we are likely to use different definitions.

You'd probably find Rudolf Arnheim's book "The Power of the Center" interesting (if you don't already know it). I found it more useful for my purposes than, say, Gombrich's "Art and Illusion" and less arcane than some of Paul Klee's writings (which I read so long ago I barely remember now). But there are many who have proposed systems to try to illuminate what the heck is going on. Arnheim used the term 'vector' to describe the weight and volition of an item within a composition, and proposed centricity and eccentricity as two distinct spatial systems in the context of framing - the frame (mostly rectangular or square) being a key feature of composition in the graphic visual arts.

So how to describe what happens within the frame? Ratios exist and can be measured just as relative weight can be. The vector, by contrast, can be perceived by the artist and the creative viewer, but rather than being a visible element it is implied. Take the first two notes of the theme music from "Jaws" - if you delete everything that follows those two notes alone are still going somewhere. Translate those notes into splotches on paper and the operating principle appears (to me) to be the same. You create a dynamic relationship ... but where you identify compositional blocks, I hear music.

What then is the purpose of composition? This is not a question attempting to evaluate 'thirds' or the Golden Mean - they exist. But what is the purpose of composing at all? What do photographers seek when they juxtapose specific elements in a landscape? What does "please" really mean? Perhaps we need input from a specialist in brain chemistry ... though you are quite right, I think, Charles, to highlight the divergence between common and personal values. It may be that one's personal values will carry no evolutionary weight unless they encompass some values that are common to many.

I must go burn some film ...

[Charles Twist]

Thank you Sandeha for the complementary information. That link covers a lot more ground than my single efforts - nothing like team effort. I have known Gestalt for a good while and it has influenced my thinking quite considerably. I can see the rules of Gestalt in both the above pics. I didn't know about Arnheim (which goes to show the level of my ignorance) but he seems to fit fairly squarely with my concerns. I'll see if I can find a copy of his book. (He died only recently BTW)
As to the two pics, I don't see any dynamic equilibrium in the second one for there are no clearly identified patches. I see it as being understood by the analysis of its rhythm though - the repetition of small, similar patches. For the first pic, I am loath to talk about dynamic equilibrium. There are clearly identified patches (rock and cliff) but they have very similar values and sizes: the equilibrium is near enough static. The only way you could talk about dynamics is by referring to the old idea of placing patches on a diagonal in order to introduce movement. Interestingly this diagonal is framed by the cloud at the top and the shore detail at the bottom, which are elements with secondary values.
What you ask in your final paragraph are very personal questions. I wouldn't be surprised to know a good many insecure folk not wanting to venture there (it is pretty unpleasant to have one's ideas pilfered while one is still developing them). Anyway, one idea I am keen on is how to show the foreground detail. There is a standard style popular in LF circles which consists of huge rock in foreground with a bit of context behind it (the context usually being the reason mere mortals visit the place). I actually find that the ill-defined stuff around the rock tells a lot more about the place, since there is more of that than there are isolated rocks. And LF film can really pull the detail out. So I am happy to give 1/4 of the picture over to that. As you say, everyone to their own. (Going back to music, I associate this loosely defined patch with a droning sound. I like the rich tonalities, the fine-grained textures, the subtle variations.)
There is a more general question behind your last paragraph though: the origin of what is pleasing to the eye. I have this question: does the photograph have to show a pleasing subject in order to be pleasing itself? I have shown pictures of 60's style architecture (concrete and fibre-glass'R'us) to friends, with the usual response being that the result does nothing for them. When pressed, they'll say the colours are nice, the technique good, the composition is not even unpleasant; no, it's the building itself which is considered ugly, and whatever contrivances I think of, it will remain so in their eyes and my picture will be tainted by the ugliness of that building. I could get some serious flak for this suggestion, but could it be that those who have taken a lot of pictures with much thought (most of us LF'ers) are more likely to see the picture's beauty as deriving solely from the arrangement/ representation with no influence from the subject's inherent or potential beauty (or lack thereof)? (1) How much of that pleasantness do the thoughtful photographers (acting as spectators of their own of other people's work) derive from technique and consensual principles of composition, how much from the beauty of the subject, how much from the input of the photographer? (2)
Part of my problem with a lot of composition talk, is that it tends to come after the picture was taken, almost as a justification. As I said earlier in regard of rhythm, when looking at a single picture, it will almost always be possible to find a composition, even though it could have been happenstance or forced upon the photographer by the subject. Is it possible to distinguish between a deliberate, thought-out composition and the operation of hazard and necessity? If the latter is the greater influence upon the composition etc, can one really took about the beauty of a picture, or should one solely talk about the beauty of the subject?
Finally, among whom should the common values be found? Do we have a duty to educate? Do we have a duty to be simple? These questions also influence how we take a picture.
I look forward to hearing your views and reactions.
Charles

Notes/afterthoughts added later:
(1) Corollary: does one start to lose touch with the hoi polloi, because one is seeking beautiful pictures rather than beautiful subjects? Is that right or wrong?
(2) Corollary: Do we thoughtful LF'ers tend to like pictures for reasons that Joe Public would not recognise? Is that right or wrong?

[Rob 5419]

What is interesting about the two pictures I posted, is that the top one is closer to your idea of rhythm, and the bottom closer to mine.

Oh dear. Why is it when I look at the images (and this is strictly at the images, and nothing to do with the photographers behind the images, in the top one, I fail to see 'rhythm' at all, and when I look at the bottom, all I see is contrived repetition?

The rock + cliff picture can easily be quartered or thirded to show that the different elements fall in sections or on axes. I feel that is as artificial as what you describe in relation to trompe l'oeil, as I did not intend it and it detracts from the picture. It's just the way it happened; it was imposed upon me by the disposition of the scene and my stipulation that the elements should be clear.

Err...come again please?

I'm not sure I follow.

At the end of the day (or is it, at the start of the day?), a photographer imposes his own thinking schema on the image.

For instance; in the two images, both can be halved. That they share this similarly, does not go to any extent, to suggest why viewers for the most part, would prefer the first upper image than the second lower image. The analysis according to halving;quartering, or third-splitting an image seems to struggle with me: if the first upper image is inverted and laterally reversed, its composition is equally similar to the lower second image, with the rock structure occupying a similar position in the composition to the traffic signage, and the row of traffic posts leading to the centre of the image, paralleled in the ray of light shafting towards the centre.

Such thoughts seem overly expansive on the analytical front: structuralism suggests that the composition (or rhythm, for those who prefer this term), interacts with the content of the image, to create an experience of the image in a way that only structure and content can. Structure can be informed by the content and vice versa. Whereas I can 'visualise' rhythm in the rhyme and metre of poetry, it seems like a synaesthetic attempt; at best, a metaphor, to try to describe in the relations between content and form within an image.

On the otherhand, I can visualise images which reflect 'the rhythm of nature'. That is, after I have sifted out images which reflect 'repetition' in nature. The 'dynamism' in this 'rhythm' of nature, seems to arise, from the interaction, between land and water; between rock and surface; sky and earth and so on. Not in terms of repetitive organisation of the viewfinder to capture a row of trees, or a neat pattern of dandelion flowers in a static decorative style.

On both hands, I'm still at a loss to express what this might be. Which is why photographs are great for viewing.

Part of my problem with a lot of composition talk, is that it tends to come after the picture was taken, almost as a justification.

Is this view not, the mother critic of all critical appraisal?

Notes/afterthoughts added later:
(1) Corollary: does one start to lose touch with the hoi polloi, because one is seeking beautiful pictures rather than beautiful subjects? Is that right or wrong?
(2) Corollary: Do we thoughtful LF'ers tend to like pictures for reasons that Joe Public would not recognise? Is that right or wrong?

Entering into a subculture (of LFers as opposed to Joe Public), there are conditions for entry. Appreciating the LF culture - its views, its equipment, its organisation and its methodology - these are nuances which Joe Public might not think twice over. Perhaps our subculture risks alienating us from that of Joe Public, although Joe Public can be easily shaped to enjoy LF images with the right conditions. Maybe our taste (which remains alongside Joe Public) need not be so esoteric and individualistic (no.5) although most of us will find ourselves on a continuum, in relation to, or out of touch with Joe Public:

1. I can try and photograph beautiful things
2. I can try and photograph beautiful things in a beautiful way
3. I can photograph not beautiful things
4. I can photograph not beautiful things in a beautiful way
5. I am (incomplete), therefore I photograph

Having shot weddings all my working career, I think I subscribe to no.4

The question of right or wrong is a moral one. The question of beauty, is an aesthetic one. Unless, the poster accepts, that aesthetics, is a branch of ethics, then the question bears no relation to Joe Public

[Charles Twist]

Hello Rob,
The pictures are there to be knocked around, so don't worry about taking chunks out of them. We will all gain from it.
Part 1 - rhythm
I agree with you, in that in the first pic, I see no rhythm; however, the second reminds me of a polyrhythmic score and in that sense contains rhythm. Er, rhythm is a contrived repetition, isn't it? Yes there are natural rhythms, but in the realm of human endeavour, it will be contrived almost by definition.
BTW, for the sake of clarity, I wish to state that I don't find the second picture beautiful. It appeals to my curiosity and playfulness - that's all.
Anyway, I'll stop there on that topic, to let Sandeha get a word in.
Part 2 - critique
That sentence wasn't a criticism of critics. I think critical analysis (by ourselves or others) plays an important role. It necessarily comes after the work of art has been completed, just as compositional analysis seems to. These analyses allow us to judge the result of our effort and inform us the next time we are out shooting. It enables progress.
Part 3 - photography and morality.
Are you sure you want to start a thread on this topic?
What I will say, is that subordination is not the only type of relationship. Aesthetics and Ethics can be related, ie touching or even communicating, without one being a branch of the other. And just as it is possible to talk about the interface between photography and philosophy, so we can talk about the interface between Aesthetics and Ethics, branching out into either side. What I will also say, is that the photographer has to make a choice of what s/he will photograph and how. To what extent is that choice limited?
One chap on the French forum, J-L Llech, said, the photographer alone bears the responsibility of his/her choices (True or false?). The non-commercial photographer has more freedom usually on this one, and s/he can exercise his/her free will. Whether s/he imposes his/her free will on the image, is another matter. It is a part of it, yes, but I find that the subject imposes many restrictions. That interaction between passive subject and photographer raises ethical questions. How far am I allowed to go in order to remove or diminish the restrictions imposed on the pure expression of my free will? Do you or don't you photoshop out that electricity pylon?
Then you can go even further in your paranoia. There is the matter raised earlier in this thread, of knowing whether that free will really is free or actually conditioned by the society the photographer lives in. If we find the photographer has had ideas imposed on him, then that must raise ethical questions. Likewise, one can talk about how the photographer should treat their public.
I think there is a lot of photography that can be discussed in light of moral choices. Over to you.
With all due respect to the respondent , why must Aesthetics be a branch of Ethics to relate the perception of Beauty to Joe Public? That smacks of non sequitur.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Charles

[Rob 5419]

Hi again....back onto rhythm vs repetition.


When my kids had not grown, they would bang on their drums. Years of this torture reminds me how I regularly hear 'repetition'. On a good day, perhaps a distant memory back to his school concert, he transforms his banging repetition, into a rhythm. I experience the latter as a rhythm, and the former as repetition of noise.

What's the difference? Is it my experience? Or are there conditions where simple repetition, itself is a mechanical act, and insufficient as an 'inspiring' factor, to be approximated to anything like 'the rhythm of nature' in a photograph?

If a repetition is contrived, do I sense too much of the photographer's (cognivistic embellishment, pretentious abstraction, or futile effort) at hand? If a repetition falls into order, through its Gestalt with the arrangement of the composition in the image, then I detect a 'rhythm'.

In the same way, that the boy's banging drum and repetitions, become transformed, not by the banging rate, nor by the speed, but by something else, that is going on around him; the orchestra. The symphony. The collaboration of the elements around him, rather than a piecemeal lone voice in the desert.

I'm sure there is a context in which photography can be described as 'rhythmic' and in step with strong Bolshevik influences, and or tainted with Bohemian waltzes. I suppose I'm not really sure when I'm talking about approximating my ideas on composition, with a musical metaphor, because I have no better way to describe the language of the image itself.


The comment about critical approaches was made in jest..
This isn't the realm of most photographers, and if anything, our (my) relationship with critics tend to be sour! Because critics use a language which confounds the simplicity of an image; because it demands that we use association areas of our brains which have not been formed (which is why we remain preverbal and eternal Peter Pans chasing a world of escaping imagse). Also because most critics don't say nice things about our egos which have not quite detached from 'ownership' or self-identification with an image.

Regularly an issue with my work when reviewing proofs: "this sucks". "next - this sucks." "next - this sucks." "this sucks." wait! this doesn't suck too badly. maybe it'll do. "this sucks this sucks." "hey - is it possible my Hasselblad sucks, and I don't?" "This sucks." "Next" - and so on...

Part 3 - photography and morality.
Are you sure you want to start a thread on this topic? Smile

Hellenic philosophy has always maintained a relationship between aesthetics and ethics: beauty and truth, and the discovery of truth, through beauty, and vice versa, is the more common form in which its arguments have been retained in modern thinking. Unfortunately we tend to be aware of the proximal root, not the deeper root in which aesthetics draws its source. Viewed from the Hellenic perspective, aesthetics (beauty) will always have its truth dimension. How it is possible to talk about an area of existence, in which self-expression is not subjected to ethical analysis?

I don't like name-dropping authors, however sometimes an author can clarify a thought. Aesthetics, encapsulates the discovery of the arts, as a process of knowledge or a a form of coming to know something. A place, a scene,a person. The knowledge dimension through the visual field, is predicated in the study of aesthetics.

However you are aware of Platonic ideas, and ideal forms, and the unmasking of the ideal form, revealing the Absolute, whether beauty or its sister truth, is an act of discovery: aesthetics is a pictorial approach to understanding philosophy (Gilson's views on aesthetics). If art expresses a dimension of existence, the very 'act' of existence, then a link between aesthetics and ethics can be unmasked .

If not, then the proposition just goes over one's head: thus the non-analytical slant.

One chap on the French forum, J-L Llech, said, the photographer alone bears the responsibility of his/her choices (True or false?).

Well er...he says a lot more than that, but he's next to impossible to paraphrase! What else does he say...

je photographie pour me sentir aimer et souffrir. Je photographie pour me prouver que je suis vivant.

I do like to be a drama queen, no?! But in all seriousness, he isn't going to be letting go of his Leica M6 anytime soon. Even in the admission of dramatic responsibility for pushing the little shutter button, there is some give:

Vous seul le savez - et encore, pas toujours. Vous pourriez aussi bien être incapable de dire pourquoi ce jour là vous avez éprouvé l'irrésistible pulsion de faire cette photographie.

I think J-L L in all fairness, recognises that there are instinctual (unthought of) processes, which precede cognitivising about we shoot; about what we choose to shoot. In this respect, if the photographer's own free will, is subject to pulsions beyond his knowing and control, and he cannot just leave that little shutter release alone, then he is not wholly responsible for what he shoots. That's why we have paparrazzis. Now what was the relation between aesthetics and ethics again?

[sandeha]

Any three-way discussion is bound to be fraught with danger, but the directions that this discussion has taken are interesting (to say the least!) But it is now so wide ranging I can only pick up a few points here and there - inevitably the ones that concern me most.

I've been wondering how to address this, Charles ... "it will almost always be possible to find a composition, even though it could have been happenstance or forced upon the photographer by the subject." Not the first bit, but the suggestion you had already made earlier that the subject might in some manner control the eventual photograph.

Perhaps you were thinking solely of the moment in which the shutter is clicked. But if I flip through my portfolio I can see the images I have taken and presented, and also (in my mind's eye, of course) the scenes that are not present because I chose not to make images from them. Conscious decision-making and subconscious reactions to stimulus combine in the creative process - happenstance has a much lesser role, I think.

I'm not too interested in beauty as such, nor do I put faith in the anthropocentric concept of an ideal form in the manner of the ancient Greeks. There are forms and perspectives that interest and stimulate me, and they cut across all the normal divisions of genre. A street scene, a landscape, or a still life of flowers might all carry the same relevant balances for me ... is this a sense of "beauty" that is personal to me? My own private truth? I don't know, but I sometimes suspect that I don't relate to colour in the way that most people do ...

Naturally then, I want to be able to take worthwhile shots of any subject. Worthwhile, in that they satisfy my criteria of what my life has come to be about. As it happens, when not describing myself as a "Retired Pirate" (it's a joke, really) I describe myself as an educator, as that is my day job. Though whatever one's roles among people, failing to educate would, I think, be to negate the purpose of life.

I agree that the photographer is subject to conditioning by culture in society, and that this must impact on the individual's output. It is also true (no doubt) that the photographer has very little control over how an image is received, used, or understood ...

[Charles Twist]

Sandeha,
I wasn't suggesting you shoot randomly . (i) I suspect that shooting randomly will still produce a picture in which a composition will be detected given the will to do so. (ii) I feel that sometimes there are arrangements of forms that come out in the tranny that were not meant by me. (iii) The shape and colour of the elements are not determined by me; I can at best adjust them. I also feel that the arrangements of the 3D elements in the real world oblige me to react in a certain way in order get a landscape photograph that satisfies me (for whatever reason). We're agreed that the not-shown locale informs the picture (see http://www.lf-photo.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=475&start=15 )
That's a great sheep picture. The grass in the foreground does a wonderful job of hiding the bolts...
Rob: nothing much I can add to that post. 'Contrived' to me means artificial or forced: that's what we humans do: we force the elements of nature into an arragement that is unnatural. We also remove them from their context by framing. This is true for both visual and acoustic elements. You must try some rave music one day - you might enjoy it... but then again...
Charles

[Rob 5419]

Contrived' to me means artificial or forced: that's what we humans do: we force the elements of nature into an arragement that is unnatural. We also remove them from their context by framing. This is true for both visual and acoustic elements. You must try some rave music one day - you might enjoy it... but then again...

Yes - that is particularly the element which breaks my grasp of any natural rhythm. Like in the second image of the leading bollards; the contrived arrangement is a connivance of structures - and a mindless rave dancer would go ecstasy all over something like this.

Not sure if the concept of an 'unnatural arrangement' adds much utility. Lines, diagonals, circular, Z swings - all geometric abstractions, yet perfectly at home in nature too.

Maybe I find 'filtering' a more refined concept than 'contrived' with respect to composition. In composition, I seek to filter out unnecessary data. A structuralist would argue that the function of such filtration is to strengthen the foreground Gestalt; elucidating the Gestalt in the image, instead of leaving it buried and undiscovered in a heap of excess data.

[Charles Twist]

To paraphrase a quote: Is there much merit in aping the rhythms of Nature? Shouldn't we be doing what we can to introduce a little (or a lot?) of ourselves in the rhythms?
Filtering, as you describe it, happens whether you are seeking to introduce rhythm or not. I mean: it is necessary but it is not sufficient.
I think we have different visions of and purposes for rhythm, so we'll have to agree to disagree.
Charles

[sandeha]

Someone once quipped that in painting you add while in photography you subtract.

No idea of the source of that one, but I imagine the subtraction and exclusion of the irrelevant is part of what you both mean by filtering. Is that idea rooted exclusively in traditional modernism?

My guess is that I am something of an unreformed modernist myself (or do I just lack a sense of humour?) but ... I am as much interested in assemblage as in stripping down to essentials. I would not have taken that shot of the landscape without the sheep, anymore than I'd have bothered the sheep without the landscape.

My assumption is that this is not merely an issue of an appropriate backdrop or context for a portrait, but recognising (usually from several possible negatives) an arrangement that fits my (compositional) criteria of graphical rhythm, or (im)balance, within the frame.

Do such images 'describe' the personality or the psychology of the photographer in any way? Or is that just too fanciful?