Hallway Viewing
This post is about composition. Not composition per se, but about the role composition can play in an image and how profoundly subtle composition can affect your appreciation of an image. Actually, it’s more about how to better study the composition of a particular image, because recently I was reminded of one of those ways.
Photographers have used a variety of techniques to evaluate how effective (or missing) composition is from an image. Perhaps the easiest example to cite is one that Joe Cornish uses. He will often flip an image 180 degrees and examine it to see if it has balance and/or flow within the image. Yeah, he looks at it upside-down. It really shouldn’t be too surprising, because doing so helps disassociate the “what is it of” of the image, reducing it to its basic graphic elements and tonal values. Perhaps that’s why it seems that 4x5 images are so well-balanced - you’re always viewing the images upside-down on the ground glass. Another technique is to use a viewing filter, which basically eliminates all colors (except for the coloring of the filter) and lets you better see, and evaluate, the tonal relationships between the various elements of the image. Both techniques are effective.
Well, last Friday I took one of my work-break trips upstairs and stopped dead in my tracks in the hallway leading to Ann’s office. She working on one of her images from the Painted Hills, and from a distance (later measured to about 7 meters - 23 feet US) all I could see was this elegant S shape that flowed through the image. It had reminded me of one of the techniques I would use when printing in the wet darkroom to evaluate tonal values - step back towards the other end of the room and look at the print. If it looks tonally balanced, you’ve probably got it right.
Composition is not much different. Composition works on many levels and one of them is from a distance. One way of judging the overall composition is to look at it from a distance, unimpeded by the details of the image or even its subject matter. If the composition is right, that will reveal itself and, just as importantly, if it is off, that too will become apparent.
What was so stunning about Ann’s image though was, as in-your-face obvious as the S-curve was from a distance, as one gets closer to the image, the flow from that S-curve becomes less and less obvious and the details of the image start taking over. The colors and textures of the image grab your eye; other lines and patterns lead your eyes to focus on other elements.
But that doesn’t mean that the overall S-curve composition isn’t working in the back of your mind. It is. It’s there, tying it all together adding a sense of depth and order to the infinite chaos of nature. Walk to the back of the room and look at the image, you should see what I’m talking about.
That’s what’s remarkable about Ann’s image. Its primary organizing composition is not readily apparent up close, yet it gives structure for the image. It doesn’t so dominate the image as to not let you escape its grasp. And by being so subtle, it allows other compositional techniques to play a role, making the image more complex and interesting over a longer viewing.
Photography can be like candy - really tasty, but not long lasting and quickly exhausting itself. Photography can also be like a great meal (or scotch, music or . . . you name it), subtle and complex, giving you more and more as you take the time to experience it. The more compositional layers one has, the more different photographic qualities that are carefully included in the image, the more likely you’ll enjoy looking at an image for the 10th time as much as you did the first.
Ann’s image was a good reminder of that.