COMPOSITION FOR THE FINAL PRINT
By
PAUL McKEOWN
(From a talk given at Baltimore Camera Club, 10/28/2004)
2. MANIPULATION
(OR - PONDERING YOUR PICTURE – THE ZEN OF PRINTING)
Now your photograph is in your hands. You’re looking at a proof, or a slide on a lightbox, or a raw file on a computer screen. This is where the techniques stop and the art begins.
Make a cup of tea, sit back with a beer, imbibe your libation of choice and just look. Don’t do anything, don’t think, just take a few slow, deep breaths and look.
Some things will gradually become apparent – like Michelangelo’s sculpture, where he took a block of marble and ‘freed’ the shape within – an image will tell you how it wants to be presented.
It can help to half-close your eyes, or to regard the image as you would a ‘magic eye’ picture where you defocus, and the picture within the picture becomes clear. As you do this, you will become aware of elements of design in your image becoming apparent.
Here, looking carefully at your raw picture, what you saw out in the field in that split second of time before pressing the shutter will often beg to be ordered, and made sense of. Very often your brain knew there was a picture there, but your eye didn’t quite have time to see it.
Here are a few things to watch for –
- Rule of Thirds / Fifths - I know I mentioned this before, but quite often a simple crop will make everything fall into place – be aware of the Golden Mean, it can be a very good guide to pleasing proportions in your images.
- Dynamic Diagonals – These make for very dynamic prints, and often simply rotating your original a little can bring out a diagonal that was previously buried.
- Horizontals – Usually bring a sense of tranquility to a photo. Again a little rotation can make a big difference. You almost certainly want to have a level horizon, especially for seascapes!
- Triangles – Another fairly dynamic shape, which has the advantage of keeping the viewers eye traveling inside the image, which is a good thing.
- Circles - If you can place or emphasize circular shapes or paths within your image, you will have a lot of success at keeping people’s attention, since it’s difficult for the eye to wander out of a circle.
# of subjects- If your image has more than one subject, be aware that, for some reason, odd numbers are better than even (two beautiful models is good, three is better…)
- Leading Lines – As mentioned leading lines are a great way of making the viewer follow a path through the image, but they should lead to something, otherwise the wandering eye will wander straight out and off somewhere else!
Ideally they should run up to the subject, or from the subject to a destination. Leading lines don’t have to be actual tracks or lines; they can be implied (a mother gazing at a baby, groom looking at bride, etc).
- S-Curves – Are a very elegant form of the leading line – country lanes, rivers, ski tracks etc can all be of help here.
A FEW, MORE PHILOSOPHICAL, THOUGHTS
The art of composition doesn’t always have to be about physical things – shapes, lines objects – all the best images have good composition plus a little something extra.
- Imagination – you don’t always have to tell the whole story in your photos. The art of understatement should be a part of your philosophy. Leave ‘em wanting more – let the viewer use their imagination to complete the picture. This could be a slice of time– what just happened? - what happens next? - or perhaps something intriguing just out of shot – our subject is the reaction of people in the shot.
- Question – Make the viewer work – why did he take this shot? – what did he see that should interest me? The Devil’s in the details, sometimes. Of course, if you’re too subtle, our gentle viewer will get bored, give up and go home.
- Message – No doubt about it, images are a powerful tool. Commercials, politicians, propagandists all would be nothing without imagery of the highest quality. For instance, think of Nazi Germany –you are probably envisaging the images of Leni Riefenstahl.
Now while you definitely don’t want to work for Hitler, it’s a valuable skill to be able to make images whose composition imparts a message.
BASIC TOOLS FOR DARKROOM AND LIGHTROOM (COMPUTER) MANIPULATION
I’m pretty sure all the following techniques can be used (with a deal of work) in the traditional darkroom. I know they are very effective, and relatively simple to achieve in the Lightroom.
- Crop, Crop, Crop! – The most basic tool of all, perhaps. Can bring out the picture within the picture, fine tune and balance an already good image, or eliminate distractions at the edge (or maybe just elevate an average image to something better ).
- Brightness – The classic well lit or backlit subject against a dark background. Conversely, just as effective can be a Silhouette against a properly exposed BG.
- Hue & Tint –Saturating, or changing the color of the subject can give it prominence.
Red, orange and yellow are all colors that catch the eye, and can make a small item stand out against a large background.
- Selective Focus – If your background is too sharp and elements are distracting, then try a little judicious masking and blurring, leaving the subject sharp.
- Saturation – or de-saturation of the whole image can bring a dead or overly garish image back to life.
- Local Contrast – A subject with the full range of contrast against a more muted (less contrasty) background again reduces the importance of background distractions.
NEXT - PRINTING