Composition

[stamper]

Quote

Composition  is the organization of elements within a frame that leads to the strongest, clearest, cleanest, simplest, most well-balanced and therefore best picture. The best composition is the strongest way of seeing a subject.

Framing is what you do by zooming in and out, by moving the camera up and down and left and right, and by rotating it to any angle, including vertical and horizontal.

Framing has almost nothing to do with composition, but sadly, few photographers realize this. Framing can't do much of anything to change the relationships between objects.

Unquote

This is from Ken Rockwell's site. I haven't posted it to bash him. Surely framing plays a bigger part than he alludes to? By zooming you can cut out some of the compositional elements thus making it a different composition? Any thoughts?

[Rob C]

Hi stamper

I think the quotation is really both sides of the same argument well mixed.

Composition can be looked at in several distinct ways, the most glaringly obvious two ways being the difference between arranging something or selecting something.

In the first case you start with a blank canvas and make something from nothing; in the second instance you start from the position of what already exists and try to make a formal sense out of it.

You can combine both, clearly enough, but then they become part of the same thing and semantic distinction a nonsense.

But isn't that what columnists are obliged to do?

Rob C

[RSL]

Stamper, Ken Rockwell does wonderful work helping beginners and more advanced shooters understand that the value of a photograph has very little to do with photographic equipment. I don't know of anyone else out there who explains that as well as he explains it. He also does some excellent testing and reviews. Once in a while he comes up with a good -- occasionally even an excellent -- photograph. But, generally speaking I'd say that Ken's grasp of composition leaves something to be desired. As you suggested, framing is an integral part of composition, which is why it's far better to frame on the camera than in post-processing. When you're looking at the scene, your composition options are limitless, but when you crop most of your options are gone.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... By zooming you can cut out some of the compositional elements thus making it a different composition? Any thoughts?

Let me try to rephrase and simplify it: zooming is a lazy man's composition  . And I am as guilty of it as the next guy (it is just too damn easy and convenient to do so with zooms).

Yes, it might create a "different" composition by excluding/including elements, but is it really the best composition you could get from the scene and that view angle? More often than not, changing your viewpoint (i.e., camera angle) and where you stand (also known as "zooming with your feet") produces a better result, especially with wide angle lenses.

[RSL]

Slobodan, I agree with everything you just said, with one exception. What you said is exactly why when I'm shooting on the street I prefer a 50mm prime lens (sometimes a 35) on a full-frame camera. The prime lens forces me to do what I ought to do.

The one exception: Sometimes you can get interesting perspective effects from a long lens -- in a situation where you also want the ability to work at 50mm or less. Then, a zoom is the best tool.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... The one exception: Sometimes you can get interesting perspective effects from a long lens -- in a situation where you also want the ability to work at 50mm or less. Then, a zoom is the best tool.

Russ, agreed. My comment was not against zooms, but against using zooms as a "lazy" way of composition.

In my view, zooms are best seen as a collection of fixed-length lenses, with the benefit of not needing to actually carry them all and switch. My ideal workflow with zooms would be to start with a focal length I think is the most suitable for the scene (and I even might determine that by quick zooming back and forth), and then start working on the camera angle and standpoint. But here is a catch: in landscape photography, this is often done on a tripod, and once the camera is there, it is so much easier (but wrong) to zoom, rather than lower/raise tripod head, or (god forbid) change the length or angle of tripod legs, or its position. And once again, this is especially true with wide-angle lenses.

[fredjeang]

IMO, and not denaying the zoom utility, the primes have a really strong advantage, but much more chalenging. They oblige to move physically on the scenery.
Moving physically has the consequence to be part of the scenery, and therefore being involved deeper.
Even if you are strict with yourself and let's say you use the zooms as a fixed focal lens, soon or later there is this temptation to play instead of dispacing physically.

Since I started to do street photography, about six months ago, I now only take one prime in my bag. Or a 50mm or a 28 o 24mm. Sometimes a 16mm, rarelly.
It is way more difficult but that is where I learn most, and much more rewarding when it works.

Just a thought: if you can do street with one prime and get great results, you can do anything else. I really realise this more and more.

Cheers.

[stamper]

A good point about the primes. I have three that I rarely use because I have fallen into the trap of zooming and not moving. Recently my photography has stagnated so using the primes again will hopefully get me going afresh.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

A good point about the primes. I have three that I rarely use because I have fallen into the trap of zooming and not moving. Recently my photography has stagnated so using the primes again will hopefully get me going afresh.

Stamper,

Do try the primes. I think it will tune your eye up in short order.


The way I use zooms now (after experiencing the laziness too many times in the past) is that I generally pick the focal length that I think is right for a scene, and then walk as needed until things fit. Looking at recent EXIF data I find that there are only about three focal lengths that I use for 99% of my pix.

Good luck, and show us some new prime shots!

Eric

[alainbriot]

If we did not frame then there would be no photograph... we would just be looking at the entire scene, the entire world... Framing is what we do to select the specific "section", or "piece", of the world that we want to make into a photograph, an image.

Also, "the strongest way of seeing" is actually Edward Weston's definition of composition, not Ken Rockwell's

[stamper]

The more i think about it the more I realise that framing either through zooming or moving closer, or further away, is important. Alain's comment is spot on. I now wonder why Ken posted this comment considering his experience? Not bashing him. Possibly to stir up a reaction?

[RSL]

Possibly to stir up a reaction?

Stamper, I look in on Ken's site every day and read his What's New. Sometimes Ken just gets carried away and shoots from the hip. I suspect that's what happened. He certainly knows better than that.

[fredjeang]

Stamper, I look in on Ken's site every day and read his What's New. Sometimes Ken just gets carried away and shoots from the hip. I suspect that's what happened. He certainly knows better than that.

I'm also looking from time to time on Ken's website. I have a different feeling about him than many members here. Rockwell has a lot of exagerations, his familly pics are unbearable etc...but he tells also
good stuff and have some interesting reviews. Not all his content have the same value, they can sometimes be extravagant. But to reach the point that I had a Lu-La member writting me one day because
I put a KR link on one post and that guy had to take a shower because he felt contaminated...
Lots of sensitivity for me.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... framing either through zooming or moving closer, or further away, is important... why Ken posted this comment considering his experience?...

Well, it is not "either... or". Moving closer/further away is not framing, at least not as defined in the original quote. Moving your standpoint is changing the relationship between subjects.

Nowhere in the original quote I found anything to suggest framing is not important. Ken, in his signature hyperbolic style, is only accentuating the difference between changing your standpoint (i.e., composition) and changing your camera position within that standpoint (i.e., framing).

And we can continue to bicker about those semantic differences (i.e., defining what framing is), but the crux of the matter is that moving one's butt is, as a minimum, different, and usually superior to zooming (especially with wide angles).

[RSL]

moving one's butt is, as a minimum, different, and usually superior to zooming (especially with wide angles).

Hear, hear!

[stamper]

[quote name='Eric Myrvaagnes' date='Jul 11 2010, 02:37 PM' post='375656']
Stamper,

Do try the primes. I think it will tune your eye up in short order.


The way I use zooms now (after experiencing the laziness too many times in the past) is that I generally pick the focal length that I think is right for a scene, and then walk as needed until things fit. Looking at recent EXIF data I find that there are only about three focal lengths that I use for 99% of my pix.

Good luck, and show us some new prime shots!

You asked for one. Taken during the week with a Nikon D700 and a 50mm Nikon 1.8  An exposure of f/1.8 It is a well known pedestrian bridge in Glasgow, Scotland.

[attachment=23201:Suspension.jpg]

[Rob C]

I used to catch the 57 bus from Clyde Street - or was that the 38? Western SMT - maybe the 38 was the Corporation? Two routes to the same beautiful destination: Rouken Glen.

Godammit! Is that a lump in my throat?  Are the brothers Fazzi still there, selling wine by the measure and hams from Parma to die for? I remember parking the X1/9 there, at the foot of the steps, as my wife would go inside and do the buying and I evaded the malice of the traffic wardens... I also remember turning left off Clyde into the street leading to St Enoch Square and a frigging great Corporation bus doing the same thing but cutting in on my right, its central entry gap catching the right rear corner of my then brand-new Humber and the driver of the bus telling me I wasn't supposed to get angry at such moments... I always knew those Council bastards lived on another planet but crapped onto ours. Does Waves still exist?

Happy memories best savoured as such. It's sad but true: you can never go home again.

Rob C

PS  I have the same two bits of stuff - mine is manual, is yours af? It's probably the cheapest, sharpest lens I have - but then, the original 2/50 was a cracker too.

[fredjeang]

Stamper,

Do try the primes. I think it will tune your eye up in short order.


The way I use zooms now (after experiencing the laziness too many times in the past) is that I generally pick the focal length that I think is right for a scene, and then walk as needed until things fit. Looking at recent EXIF data I find that there are only about three focal lengths that I use for 99% of my pix.

Good luck, and show us some new prime shots!

You asked for one. Taken during the week with a Nikon D700 and a 50mm Nikon 1.8  An exposure of f/1.8 It is a well known pedestrian bridge in Glasgow, Scotland.

[attachment=23201:Suspension.jpg]

Stamper, I like this picture.
Funny, the Nikkor 50 1.8 has a very similar bokeh to the Canon 50 1.8

[Rob C]

Actually, I really like that sort of photograph and, if anything, it requires a pretty cool eye for detail. For example, if you had missed the pedestrian, the entire balance would have been shot, probably even more so than with a fully crisp image where detail can distract from/disguise the basic feeling of balanced 'weights' which is that gut emotion that tones and compositions are all about.

Good thinking.

Oh, I was chatting about your bridge with my bro'-in-lo' on the mobile this morning and he tells me there is now another small bridge fondly called the 'wee squinty' because it eschews the right-angle approach to crossing water. Curious; maybe the same late architect from Spain that did the Houses of Parliament (I think they are called) in Edinburgh?

Rob C

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Actually, I really like that sort of photograph and, if anything, it requires a pretty cool eye for detail. For example, if you had missed the pedestrian, the entire balance would have been shot, probably even more so than with a fully crisp image where detail can distract from/disguise the basic feeling of balanced 'weights' which is that gut emotion that tones and compositions are all about.

Good thinking.

I agree! Excellent shot, and the pedestrian balances it nicely.

Those two bolts and nuts look as if they are about to jump out and grab anybody walking by.


Eric