Something to Think About
When I head out to the San Diego Convention Center during Comic-Con this month, I’ll have have a mission in mind.
Last year I took plenty of snapshots (uno, dos, tres, cuatro).
This year, I want things to be at least a little different. Rather than snapshots, I want to do compositions. Sure, I’ll probably do plenty of snapshots as well, but I want to produce something more. But, I don’t see myself as ready for it. At least, I didn’t until I read this comment by PhotoNewt at the Digital Photography School forums:
As others have mentioned your problem is that this photo has no clear subject. There is a difference between taking a snapshot and making a photographic composition.
A snapshot (and there is nothing wrong with taking snapshots when needed) is a quick photo intended to document a place or a moment. This is not a creative composition and is what most of us shoot around family events and during vacations. Knowing about composition and photographic technique will make your snapshots much better than those of other snapshooters in the family.
A photographic composition is an artistic rendition of a subject, it begins by selecting a subject, then deciding what you want to say or accentuate on that subject, then deciding how are you going to compose it — all of this BEFORE even setting up the camera. This mental process will lead to the proper selection of exposure parameters, color balance, filters, viewpoint, distance to subject and others to achieve the look that you have already composed on your mind.
In my humble opinion, if you need to analyze your photo after the fact to define what the subject is, is a snapshot!
Wow. That says a whole lot to me about where I’ve been lacking. I can immediately apply this to photos I took at Glen Arbor Park today.
Here, the subject was “that area over there”. End result? It’s just a snapshop, no matter how it’s looked at.
And what do I have here? The subject is…the plant up close? That can’t be it, as it gets cut off awkwardly, and the green of the background plant fights the green of the foreground plant.
Again, what is the subject here? The plant on the left? The trunk of the tree on the fight? They appear to be locked in an eternal struggle to be the subject of the photo.
Even though this one is also snapshot level, I think it has potential. I actively wanted to highlight the path going into the forest. That was my subject I wanted to take a photo of. As a subject, however, the path is horribly under-represented. The bright sky also interferes. If the path took up 2/3 rather than 1/3 of the bottom of the photo, at the expense of the sky, then maybe the photo would have turned out a little better.
Finally, this is my “I got lucky that it looks fairly decent” snapshot. No subject in mind here, either, except for “that area there”.
When taking a photo of an object, such as a toy, it’s easy to say, “The toy is the subject.” When taking a photo of scenery, however, it’s easy to say, “The subject is this scenery,” as if that’s all it takes.
I’ll be sure to take subject into consideration the next time I’m photographing nature or buildings. I’ll keep PhotoNewt’s words in mind when I photograph trains and buildings during my return trip to the San Diego Convention Center.