C
Preface
I had these ideas in my mind for quite a while, but fairly recently they got verbalized all of a sudden.
Note to mods
While this post has no shots in it and, generally speaking, can be applied to various types of art, I would like to keep it in People section since this is what I do most and this is where I *think* it would be most helpful. Having said that, feel free to move it to a more appropriate section if you feel like it.
A now, without any further ado:
A "C" Theory
A practical guide to how to Create and to Critique
What makes or breaks an image? How can you tell a good one from a great one, or a decent one from a bad one, not just because "you feel like it", but in a rational, objective way?
Having spent a lot of time analyzing commercial and amateur photography, as well as my own, I came to a realization that there exists just a few aspects - which, by a strange coincidence and a caprice of English language can all be described by words starting with "C" - that do just that.
Those aspects are:
Let's cover those one by one.
Concept
An image without a concept is a snapshot. Maybe a glorified one, taken with a mongo camera in a mega studio with uber lights, but still a snapshot. There are no thoughts and no story behind it. Somebody accidentally pushed a button. There is nothing to talk about.
Connection
Or, maybe, a set of connections. Connection between a subject and an environment. Connection between multiple subjects. Connection between a subject and a viewer/photographer.
Break any of these invisible lines, and the image starts breaking apart almost instantly, invoking various hard-to-answer questions.
Why has been this subject placed in this scene?
What are those two people doing close to each other?
Why is a man juxtaposed to a pot of petunias?
What does this whole scene have to to with me, its viewer/photographer?
Cohesiveness
"The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing".
In various cultures there are similar sayings, denoting - and ridiculing - an obvious conflict of interests and a lack of cohesiveness.
In photography cohesiveness is a glue that holds an image together. It comes in variety of forms and shapes, from paying attention to tiny details to ensuring the color temperature is right. Pose, expression, outfit, background, lighting matching each other and the subject; all those variable should work together, not against each other.
Composition
No, I'm not going to talk about the rule of thirds, negative space and dead center. These are rules you can make or break at will, their very applicability depends on the concept and context of the picture.
Instead, we're going to talk about lines, that define the flow, and areas, that define the shapes. These two are intrinsically entwined, you rarely can change one without affecting the other.
Construction
This aspect defines basic lines of the image. These lines control the all-important "flow", the way we humans look at it, first as a whole, then at more and more details.
If the lines lead our eye to the most important parts of the image, let it go around, explore at different levels - the construction is solid.
If, however, the lines appears out of of the blue and terminate at dead ends, our eye is forced to "reset" and begin reevaluating the image from scratch. A few of these trips from nowhere to nowhere - and a viewer would lose any interest and switch to a more interesting activity.
Same, if not worse, happens with the lack of lines. With no visual guide at all, our eye would try to comprehend the image randomly, thus leading to the very controversial reactions, or more often, viewer's inability to comprehend this image at all.
Closures
Take the image and mentally make it black and white. Not grayscale, mind you. I'm talking about pure black and pure white, with nothing in between. Like a rubberstamp filter in PS. Don't try to justify what color goes where. Do it as your guts tells you to do. Now - look at the resulting areas. What did you get?
One big blob in a center of the frame? Three disconnected blobs? Or did you get a beautiful mosaics of sculpted shapes, a puzzle, created in a way that removing a single piece literally ruins the picture?
Limbs going away from a body and coming back up create that type of mosaics. People connecting to, but not dissolving into, poles and walls create those shapes. The more closures you have, the more dynamic and active your image is. The less... well, you get the idea.
Conclusion
The C theory doesn't cover everything in photography, even in people photography alone. You have to know optics, mechanics, physics and electronics to understand your camera, know your poses and your lighting to make sure your portrait is technically sound, know your computer and your software to create a proper rendering of your idea captured in a raw file... But that aside, I hope these basic concepts would help you to analyze others' work and create beautiful images of your own.
Thank you for reading! :thumb
Nikolai Sklobovsky
I had these ideas in my mind for quite a while, but fairly recently they got verbalized all of a sudden.
Note to mods
While this post has no shots in it and, generally speaking, can be applied to various types of art, I would like to keep it in People section since this is what I do most and this is where I *think* it would be most helpful. Having said that, feel free to move it to a more appropriate section if you feel like it.
A now, without any further ado:
A "C" Theory
A practical guide to how to Create and to Critique
What makes or breaks an image? How can you tell a good one from a great one, or a decent one from a bad one, not just because "you feel like it", but in a rational, objective way?
Having spent a lot of time analyzing commercial and amateur photography, as well as my own, I came to a realization that there exists just a few aspects - which, by a strange coincidence and a caprice of English language can all be described by words starting with "C" - that do just that.
Those aspects are:
- Concept
- Connection
- Cohesiveness
- Composition
- Construction
- Closures
Let's cover those one by one.
Concept
An image without a concept is a snapshot. Maybe a glorified one, taken with a mongo camera in a mega studio with uber lights, but still a snapshot. There are no thoughts and no story behind it. Somebody accidentally pushed a button. There is nothing to talk about.
Connection
Or, maybe, a set of connections. Connection between a subject and an environment. Connection between multiple subjects. Connection between a subject and a viewer/photographer.
Break any of these invisible lines, and the image starts breaking apart almost instantly, invoking various hard-to-answer questions.
Why has been this subject placed in this scene?
What are those two people doing close to each other?
Why is a man juxtaposed to a pot of petunias?
What does this whole scene have to to with me, its viewer/photographer?
Cohesiveness
"The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing".
In various cultures there are similar sayings, denoting - and ridiculing - an obvious conflict of interests and a lack of cohesiveness.
In photography cohesiveness is a glue that holds an image together. It comes in variety of forms and shapes, from paying attention to tiny details to ensuring the color temperature is right. Pose, expression, outfit, background, lighting matching each other and the subject; all those variable should work together, not against each other.
Composition
No, I'm not going to talk about the rule of thirds, negative space and dead center. These are rules you can make or break at will, their very applicability depends on the concept and context of the picture.
Instead, we're going to talk about lines, that define the flow, and areas, that define the shapes. These two are intrinsically entwined, you rarely can change one without affecting the other.
Construction
This aspect defines basic lines of the image. These lines control the all-important "flow", the way we humans look at it, first as a whole, then at more and more details.
If the lines lead our eye to the most important parts of the image, let it go around, explore at different levels - the construction is solid.
If, however, the lines appears out of of the blue and terminate at dead ends, our eye is forced to "reset" and begin reevaluating the image from scratch. A few of these trips from nowhere to nowhere - and a viewer would lose any interest and switch to a more interesting activity.
Same, if not worse, happens with the lack of lines. With no visual guide at all, our eye would try to comprehend the image randomly, thus leading to the very controversial reactions, or more often, viewer's inability to comprehend this image at all.
Closures
Take the image and mentally make it black and white. Not grayscale, mind you. I'm talking about pure black and pure white, with nothing in between. Like a rubberstamp filter in PS. Don't try to justify what color goes where. Do it as your guts tells you to do. Now - look at the resulting areas. What did you get?
One big blob in a center of the frame? Three disconnected blobs? Or did you get a beautiful mosaics of sculpted shapes, a puzzle, created in a way that removing a single piece literally ruins the picture?
Limbs going away from a body and coming back up create that type of mosaics. People connecting to, but not dissolving into, poles and walls create those shapes. The more closures you have, the more dynamic and active your image is. The less... well, you get the idea.
Conclusion
The C theory doesn't cover everything in photography, even in people photography alone. You have to know optics, mechanics, physics and electronics to understand your camera, know your poses and your lighting to make sure your portrait is technically sound, know your computer and your software to create a proper rendering of your idea captured in a raw file... But that aside, I hope these basic concepts would help you to analyze others' work and create beautiful images of your own.
Thank you for reading! :thumb
Nikolai Sklobovsky
"May the f/stop be with you!"
0
Comments
Moderator of the People and Go Figure forums
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Awesome job!
-joel
Link to my Smugmug site
OK, let's put this theory to a test, shall we?
Submit your image (which you believe is good) and try to analyse it according to all those C-s.
For the composition part, please also provide an additional image with an overlay of lines and areas/closures - draw them as you think they are going.
Who's first?
Yes, ma'am!
Very well written.
I need to read this several more times and digest it.
Sam
Did you not include Creativity on purpose or did I just add another C?
My comment about that would be don't be afraid to be creative with a purpose and to find your own voice and character. Avoid snap shots, but do the composition the way you think it should be done, not the way people say to do it. But have a reason for the changes and trials.
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Thank you Sam, glad you liked it!
Brad,
by all means feel free to add Creativity to the list.
For me it's more like a part of Concept, but I can see that it can be considered separately.
You have done a very good job of putting this all into words and into one place....easy to find.
I like that you devoted most of the text to the image itself, and very little to gear and processing.
IMO, the gear, and knowing how to operate it measure up to only a small portion of what is needed for a successful portrait. The posing, the "right" angles for the subject, and surely all of your "C"s are what give the image substance.
...Okay, I said the gear is of little importance.....well...excepting for knowing how, and having the tools to manipulate light....whether it be natural or artificial.
Again, nice job on "vocalizing" this.
Jeff
-Need help with Dgrin?; Wedding Photography Resources
-My Website - Blog - Tips for Senior Portraiture
Jeff
-Need help with Dgrin?; Wedding Photography Resources
-My Website - Blog - Tips for Senior Portraiture
Thanks, Jeff!
I hear you about the gear and light knowledge. That's a huge piece, but, mostly on a technical side, although more often than not technical flaws do have conceptual consequences and thus can ruin the image on a variety of levels.
Reminds me of a scene from this weekend... I was shooting the local reenactment (I will do separate post on that since I didn't have time yet to cull 2,000+ frames I brought back) wehn I spotted two pink-clad "miss teen somethings" (with ribbons and tiaras) escorted by a lady in her late twenties with some sort of rebel-like dslr in her hands. She was herding the girls around the camp and posing them here and there. It took me a gargantuan amount of self-restiction NOT to approach her and ask is she had any idea what she's doing. Shooting them for a couple of feet (lloks very nice in portaits). Shooting them from her eye level. Placing them in a direct sun. Placing them in a spotty foliage. Placing them against the sun with no fill flash... Luckily I had an important gathering to attend (morning officers call/scenario meeting), so I went off and lose them out of my sights. Otherwsie I'm not sure if I could hold myself restrained any longer...
So yeah, "know thy gear, know thy light, know thy posing...". One has to know a lot of things to produce a technically decent image. But when the technical side is covered, the next level is Content. And here is where, I hope, my C theory may come in handy.
C-theory is the net. You still have to go out and fish ;-)
You already did some work (Construction), let's see about the rest!
Ha, that's not the first time I've been called a Ma'am
"Tap tap, excuse me Ma'am...oh, sorry Sir!"
:ivar
Actually, for a while I thought you were a female and more recently started to think you were a guy from some your posts but I was still not 100%. It's hard to tell from your avatar.
Moderator of the People and Go Figure forums
My Smug Site
Nik, lots of great info here!
looks great
sounds great (I read it out loud!)
the logic is great
has enough jargon and complexity to give it a sciencey feel
it's something you can learn and apply (if you don't forget it!)
has disclaimers, so has a contemporary, cautious ring
when I was a boy an artist was someone who was struck by something from another realm and catapulted from their garret into notoriety and plenty of food and women, or else tragically dug up after death when all of that was irrelevant to them
now, an artist writes job applications and funding submissions as their major activity, has a house on mortgage and a family, who will mourn them decorously when they die and expect never to hear of them again
someone can learn to drive a vehicle across a map to get where they want to go and arrive
someone can be driven as a vehicle for making a map to learn how to arrive and keep going
zen says what is not sayable is made known by saying
by your elegant, eloquent words you have reminded us how lost we are in this very familiar, describable world
... and congratulations on your 18,000th post!
Neil
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
Appreciate the toughtfull comment!
Thank you!
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