Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: colinb on November 21, 2008, 10:03:22 am
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It occurs to me that most of what humans know about composition in
images is known by painters and that they've spent a long time
accumulating, refining and classifying that knowledge. What I need is
someone with a fine-arts background to tell me what textbooks stand as
the canonical references and tutorials for composition. Are there a
couple of books that are read by every first year art student in the
English speaking world?
FWIW, I come to this question having recently bought and goggled at a
book by Saul Leiter [hat tip to TOP]. These are photos that are
clearly taken by someone who has found a different way to look at
things than the one I know about. Perhaps he learned it while becoming
a painter...
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Note sure if they can be considered "canonical", but these two I use and find useful:
"Pictorial Composition, An Introduction", by Henry Rankin Poore
"Picture This: How Pictures Work" by Molly Bang