The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression

I’m drawn to corn lilies (false hellebore) like bears to honey. Their forms resemble those of slit canyon walls. Allowing the background to softly echo and oppose the foreground forms, with much out of focus, makes an effective portrait of this plant.

Figure 3-15. Corn Lily Curls

With large format cameras that feature movable parts, you can change the plane of sharp focus from one that is parallel to the film and lens planes (which are parallel in fixed cameras) to one at an angle. For example, by using tilts and swings properly you can focus on a receding plane, such as a road going off to the horizon, and obtain complete sharpness from the nearest point to the horizon line at maximum aperture. By using these camera movements, you can obtain the best compromise plane of sharp focus before closing the aperture down, at which time the depth of field increases perpendicular to the plane of sharp focus, both above and below the initial plane: above the plane for every below the plane. It is often possible to obtain full sharpness with large format cameras when it would be impossible otherwise. Numerous source books fully discuss the use of these movements, but instruction from an experienced large format user is the best way to learn them.

Sometimes you may want to have objects fade out of sharpness. Perhaps you want a flower in sharp focus close to the camera with distant objects appearing blurred. In that case, simply focus on the flower and close the aperture just enough to get its various parts into sharpness. Everything else will turn into soft-edged blurs that may be thoroughly out of focus and indistinguishable.

I have heard of painters lamenting their inability to create the soft edges and subtle gradations of tonality or color that are the hallmark of soft-focus photographs. Soft focus can be a striking effect, indeed, when well executed. But it must be employed with the greatest care and understanding of its unique effect. Unfortunately the soft-focus aspect of photography is rarely used well despite the fact that it is so frequently employed. Too often, limited depth of field is used as a cover-up to mask unwanted background distractions rather than as a compositional device to create unity among forms and tones. This is especially common in 35mm photography and less so in larger formats. Evidently, many photographers feel a blurred distraction in the background is acceptable whereas a sharply defined distraction is unacceptable. Both are distractions, and both are unacceptable.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed can be chosen to create a variety of effects. Photographs of moving objects, such as a flowing river, have astonishingly different visual and emotional impacts depending on shutter speed. With a fast shutter speed of second, the individual drops in a small cascade may show up clearly. At ½ second, they disappear and are replaced by soft, flowing lines from level to level in the cascade.

At second, the tonalities and even the textures of water and rocks may merge. At ½ second, the flowing lines of the moving water differentiate it from the stationary rocks. There may be other situations in which variations of shutter speed are the only effective way to separate objects.

Years ago, Wynn Bullock produced a series of time studies of the ebbing and flowing of the ocean surf on the Pacific coast. The exposures were several minutes in length, allowing the waves to move in and out many times. The effect is surrealistic. Objects that were alternately covered and revealed lie isolated, looking like apparitions surrounded by clouds of dry ice. In viewing these photographs, I was led to deep philosophical questions about the nature of reality. Is reality the scene as it would have appeared at -second shutter speed? Would reality have been 1 second? Or is reality the lengthy rendition that Bullock revealed? Wherever reality fell for me, my questioning of it while studying Bullock’s prints expanded my world and my thinking. His images extended my horizons. To me, that is the essence of creative photography. His method was unconventionally long shutter speeds. Simple enough, but it took a great deal of insight.

Anything that moves within the image area can be altered via long exposures (moving water, clouds, vehicles on a road, people walking across a plaza, etc.). Drawing on the idea of Bullock’s images of moving water, I tried to apply the idea to clouds. In Figure 3-16, I put a three-stop neutral density filter on my camera to prevent overexposure; then I made a 15-second exposure of fast moving and newly forming clouds at this exceptional summit in the Canadian Rockies. The long shutter speed conveys the impression of tumultuous activity in the atmosphere, exactly my intent in making the photograph.

Most of the time photographers are concerned about eliminating movement in their images. Landscape photographers may wait a long time for a breeze to stop so that leaves, grass, or branches stop moving. Portrait photographers try to make sure that their subjects do not blink or move and harm the image. Surely this is appropriate at times, but there may be more latitude for movement during the exposure than some photographers allow. We have all seen photography in which moving cars are blurred streaks, or experimental photographs in which movement is incorporated into the image. With film cameras, the look of the image cannot be determined until the negative or transparency is developed. With digital cameras, it can be seen almost instantly. It may be worthwhile to experiment with shutter speeds and open yourself up to visual experiences that can be attained photographically, such as Bullock’s extended surf exposures, but that cannot be seen with the eye.

At sunrise, clouds were flying rapidly over the western slope of Mt. Rundle while others were being created off the eastern cliff face. A three-stop neutral density filter and a small lens aperture allowed a 15-second exposure, producing an image my eyes never saw.

Figure 3-16. Clouds at Mt. Rundle

Sometimes movement can create a surprising departure from reality as we perceive it. Try photographing a tree at 1-second shutter speed (or longer) on a windy day as a gust sweeps through the branches. The branches and leaves may appear as a series of swirled lines, but the lower trunk may appear sharp and unmoving. It could prove to be an opening for other creative thoughts.

Relationships

We have now run through all the elements of composition (except light and color, which are covered in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6). We have looked at them as individual entities separate from one another, but we have briefly mentioned them in relation to the others. In reality, compositions invariably combine these elements to create the total visual effect. They cannot be considered as isolated entities in practical usage.

Lines interact with other lines and forms, within and without patterns. Textures play off one another. Lines radiating out of forms create balance or imbalance; forms relate with other forms to create movement, depth, and variation of pattern. Tonal variations superimposed over lines, forms, and textures create visual interest.

Note

The relationships within an image become the essence of a fine photograph.

Of course, in well-crafted photographs these elements (lines, forms, etc.) are not abstract things but real things (tree trunks, faces, clouds, buildings, shadows, etc.). A good artist relates real things to one another as abstract elements to see if they work together successfully, or if they fail.