photography

photography is a new discipline for me. i know basically how words work on a page, and how pictures work in panels, and how they both work together, but putting something in a frame to stand all on its own is something new.

for what seemed at the time too long, i was always asking my photographer friends, "what's the difference between a picture, and a picture of a thing?" their answer, most of the time, would be "what?" it is a strangely worded question, and still one that makes me think. to rephrase it, "what makes a good picture/ what makes a good picture different?"

a friend of mine told me that there were two schools of thought: one that focused on the moment captured, and the other on composition. he used the soldiers raising the flag at iwo jima as an example of "the moment," but we never got around to settling on a good example of composition.

the way i look through the lens is a combination of both moment and composition, however most of my photos fall more under the composition section; i was told about the way the frame is/ can be split into thirds, and this being the main compositional technique available to me at this time, is the one i find myself using most often. there is also the matter of the angle of the photo, which i've been playing with recently. it's a strange thing to set up the frame (sorry, can't think of a better word) in such a way that the geometry of the surroundings play an interesting role in the end result.

i know the concept of looking at the world through the crosshairs of a gun (the way audubon did) which sort of works with static energies and finality, and i know the concept of looking at the world with the intent to open it up and spread its workings around, and now i'm learning about looking at the world through a lens of something like reproduction and exact communication. all this is strange to me, this trying to adapt myself to work with the camera, or vice versa. i feel the burden of objectivity in a whole new light. it feels oddly empowering, i suppose.

[originally posted 3/19/07]