How to reveal significance...

Saw this a while ago, it's a bunch of crock. Perfect example of a layman who makes a hen out of a feather, who has no artistic talent and can only attribute things to "technique", hcb would be laughing.
 
I think there's almost nothing in what he's saying. Especially the dark and light and his examples of that, but also the lines he finds that seem so random (in the formal sense of that word, not how my children use it.) But I got to see some HCB pictures and that's always nice. That one in Salerno of the boy in shadow in the empty courtyard was one of the first of HCB's I saw when I was a teenager. It was in the chapter on photography in the 1958 edition of the Encylopeedia Britannica: it was given the title "The Intruder."
 
Some of the stuff on Adam's blog may be overly basic concepts in composition that folks have learned in Year 1 Art School (contrast, repetition, movement), but it's worth highlighting for those who didn't undertake any formal training. The insane amount of lines over an image kills me, though. It's overanalyzing good composition--happens with da Vinci all the time. I'd argue that composition should be felt out through experience, not drawn out in hard lines of analysis. However, I guess it's a more scientific and exoteric approach (if we're to make that dichotomy) for a beginner.

"I hope I never see the day when photo stores sell little schema grills to clamp onto our viewfinders; and the Golden Rule will never be found etched on our ground glass."

Guess who said that?
 
Wow, some of you are really harsh with his analysis.

I don't see anything wrong, his interpretation of a picture is as valid as yours or anyone else's. At least he's generous enough to share it and have enough courage to share it publicly.

You don't have to agree to appreciate the effort.
 
Very interesting article. I agree with most of his analysis but to be honest fail to see some of his points, for instance that the greatness of the forth last picture (the two men on the street) would lie in the two parallel lines, or diagonals as he calls them.

The picture of the sleeping man under the shadow of the tower works wonderfully thanks to a shadow play ("rule" 3), but despite the subject being neither much brighter or darker than the shade area he is in ("rule" 1). Good to analyse the reasons why we like or dislike images, so we hopefully get better, but are we (is he) overanalysing a bit sometimes?
 
I really enjoyed that article. Thanks for posting. I think the only way to work out if it is valid analysis is to analyse your existing favorites and see if rules apply. I for one will go for a walk later and pay conscious attention to diagonals and see what I come back with. Liked his comments on impatient photographer, that often applies to me.
 
The sinister diagonal and it's reciprocal seemed to work for me. Took this shot yesterday and liked it enough to post to flickr. Wharf's edge and Ferry seem to be on reciprocal diagonals. So merit in it for me.


Auckland Ferry Races? by BigHausen, on Flickr
 
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As someone pointed out, the analysis of images in terms of diagonals etc is routine stuff in intro art history/art courses, but that doesn't make it less amusing.

However, to attribute "significance" to "composition" is a stretch. It implies that mediocre analysts can produce significant images.

IMO the big "significance" question has entirely to do with the way others view a photo, or our photos. If we want to produce work that's "significant" to informed/perceptive viewers we can only get there by sharing our work (prints) with those viewers, taking that chance. If we content ourselves with scattering images into Flickr or keeping them entirely to ourselves we shouldn't pretend we're dealing with significance.

"Significance" in that big sense isn't the only important goal. If one's goal is a pleasing, well-designed image, that's arguably worthy in itself.
 
The theory and analysis are quite sound, mostly, but suggesting our Henri had time to consider all that, organise, and frame all of that and maintain the clear spontaneity of the pictures is a mistake
 
Sparrow said:
The theory and analysis are quite sound, mostly, but suggesting our Henri had time to consider all that, organise, and frame all of that and maintain the clear spontaneity of the pictures is a mistake
Click to expand...

Not certain I altogether agree with you there Stewart. I am still trying to understand if it was to do with his early geometric disciplining in art class that instilled these things in him, that it became his nature.

I'm still mulling it over.
 
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