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Kill The Clutter and other great advice
Stormdancing
Registered Users Posts: 917 Major grins
Recently on another thread there was discussion about how backgrounds have an effect on your photos, not only composition, but exposure. Very interesting and informative. It reminded me of some great advice written by CJ Morgan on Canon 10D Yahoo Group. I have asked his persmission to post it here and he has generously agreed. Thanks CJ.
Dana
**************
Written by CJ Morgan
Alright, let me suggest four five different ways to both strengthen our photographic observational skills and improve our image making. These are: kill the clutter; think graphic design; dark on light & light on dark; be mindful of relationship, and; shoot not object, but rather appearances. KILL THE CLUTTER Few of us suffer from images which are too clean, too simple, too dynamically boring. It does occur once in a while (although that is a study for another time). Mostly, however, most of our images suffer because they just have too much "stuff" in them. Or more to the point, too much meaningless stuff; many of our images just suffer from too much clutter.
When it comes to raising the camera to shoot, most of us already know full well what it is we want to photograph. Heck, even as an 11 year old kid with a camera, I knew how to do that.
But what I didn't pay attention to as an 11 year old kid was all those other things that were getting into my frame -- the great multitude and sea of visual distractions which distract the eventual viewer of the photograph, diluting the visual impact of what I wanted to show.
And so it was that somewhere along the line (although I can't remember exactly when) it finally dawned on me that if I was going to make stronger visual images, I needed to pay more attention to EVERYTHING that was going on frame space, and to then make decisions which would help rid (or at least minimize) all of those visual distraction.
And so it was time to start "living in the viewfinder". Now that label came from those years back of attending photography club meetings, sitting in dark basement of some church, each of critiquing (and basically verbally ripping apart) each other's slide images (an activity which was sometimes just two steps short of just throwing tomatoes at the screen).
In any event, here we are, sitting in the dark church basement, looking at slide photographs on the big screen, carefully looking at all the errors and mistakes of each others photographs.
And someone would pipe up and say, "too bad that telephone pole is sticking out of the person's head in that photograph." And the photographer would say, "Yeah, I noticed that too as soon as I saw the picture."
Except that the time be noticing such things isn't while you're sitting in the dark of the church basement, but rather you're living in the dark looking through your viewfinder.
And then I thought to myself, "Well, there really isn't much difference -- I can be carefully observant of my images after the fact, or I can pretend that my viewfinder is that dark church basement, and be observant of what's going on in my images before I actually take the picture."
And that's where the whole idea of "living in the viewfinder" came from -- pretending that our viewfinder is like our sort of private screening room, and being carefully observant while we're looking in our viewfinder to see what visual distractions can be removed from our photos BEFORE we press the shutter.
Now all that might not mean much to anyone else, but for me, this idea of "living in the viewfinder" did leaps and bounds to help make me more observant of all the junk that was cluttering up my images. And from that, it put me on the road to looking for all the different ways and means of helping rid my images of distracting clutter.
Indeed, this whole idea of "living in the viewfinder" became so much of a practice that I even found myself mumbling the chant "kill the clutter, kill the clutter, kill the clutter" over and over again. It became like a mantra of sorts, "kill the clutter, kill the clutter, kill the clutter."
Now that doesn't mean that we can always kill 100% of the clutter of our images. I mean in the most practical of terms, sometimes our momentary shooting circumstances do not allow for that 100% degree of perfection.
Nevertheless, if our effort and our chant is to "kill the clutter" then most certainly we will make efforts to try to minimize visual distractions, and whatever distractions we can get rid of does indeed serve to make what remains visually stronger.
Now I bring up the idea of "Kill The Clutter" because even though all of this thinking started years ago, it is certainly one idea or one concept that stays with me today and is still part of my shooting process each and every time I go photographing, even if nobody else around me hears me chanting. So if the underlying idea of "Kill The Clutter" is still being used by me each time I photograph these days, then I figure it's probably something worth knowing.
*************
THINK GRAPHIC DESIGN
I have two ways of perceiving the world: one is what I might call my "everyday vision", and the other is what I might call my "photographic vision."
"Everyday vision" is what I might use when I go to the backyard looking for shovel... so I can get on with my work of digging a hole.
In contrast to that, my "photographic vision" will have me more interested in what the light is doing to the scene, where the shadows are falling, and all the graphic elements of a scene or object: lines, forms, colors, shapes, patterns, textures, etc.
When I want to dig a hole, I just want to find the shovel. My thinking is purely utilitarian -- where's that darn tool so I can get on with my hole digging work?
But when I'm using my camera, because images are composed of their parts, my thinking has me paying attention to the graphic elements.
These are the building block for my image -- is as important to me as perhaps choosing bricks is to a house builder.
And so when I go about my work making images, my thinking in certain moments shifts. One moment I might be looking at rivers, rocks, and trees. And then the next moment, my perception shift as I'm looking at that same scene, for now I'm looking not at objects, but rather at their underlying forms, their graphic qualites, the building blocks that I'm going to pick and choose to use for the image I'm about to contruct.
And so now I'm seeing that scene entirely as lines, shapes, patterns, colors, forms, textures, etc. And so I no longer see a "bridge" but rather lines and triangles:
http://www.pbase.com/image/27426364
Or no longer see "flowers", but rather textures and patterns of colors:
http://www.pbase.com/image/27691231
Or no longer so much see a "face" but rather curves and circles and lines:
http://www.pbase.com/image/28134755
And so this too makes us more attentive to what we observe and how we compose... not just looking at objects, at "things", but rather also looking at a scene for it's underlying graphic forms -- because these are the building blocks for the construction of our images.
Now don't get me wrong. Utilitarian thinking and using our "everyday vision" is very useful and very practical. For example, admiring the wonders of lines, shapes, patterns, colors, etc. probably isn't the best thing to do when the scene before you is a Mack truck which is about to run you down. On the other hand, once you've situated yourself out of harms way, looking at the Mack truck in terms of its graphic qualities will perhaps serve well to help construct a better photograph of it.
**************
DARK ON LIGHT & LIGHT ON DARK
Now this might be a sub-section of the previous section on THINK GRAPHIC DESIGN.
But I'm making special note of it here because it's one aspect of our image making which really deserves special attention -- and all the more so because making photographs are about taking a two dimensional world and turning into a two dimensional image.
Simply put, it boils down to this: if you want the things you photograph to stand out more, to visually communicate stronger, then consider the effect of putting lighter objects against darker backgrounds and darker objects against lighter backgrounds. And all the better if you can apply this more than once in the same image.
For example, consider the hair in this image:
http://www.pbase.com/image/26874334
... the light part of the hair against a relatively darker background and the dark part of the hair against a relatively lighter background.
Now there's an infinite number of ways this can all get used, but the essence of the matter here is that playing with our light or our camera position, we can compose light against dark and dark against light... and effectively make make images where our subject matter stands out with more visual impact.
**************
BE MINDFUL OF RELATIONSHIP
It seems to me that most of the images we make are either about a subject and its environment or about a subject and its details. In other words, most of the images we make isn't so much about object, but rather about relationships.
And when we start to think about our image making in terms of "showing relationships" then often times its hard to just think of an "object" without giving some due consideration to its relationship to other "objects" within the space of the image we are about to make.
And once we start paying more attention to not just an object but also to it's spacial relationship to other objects in our scene, then we really start cooking in terms of using the space within our frame rather than otherwise being non-obserservant to all the other "stuff" in a scene that our "everyday vision" would normally just have us ignore.
So we don't necessarily have to be mindful of relationships. But deliberate efforts to do so will most likely having us not so much just looking at "things" but rather considering all of the space within our viewfinder and within the image we are about to construct.
************
SHOOT NOT OBJECTS, BUT RATHER APPEARANCES
Remember that shovel in the backyard that I was earlier talking about?
Well, it looks pretty much the same to me morning, afternoon, and evening, or whether I find it on a sunny day or a cloudy day.
It's still the same old shovel, still just as useful at all those times for digging a hole. And so regardless of the time of day, so long as it's bright enough that I can see that shovel, it always looks the same to me.
But when I go out with my camera, that very same shovel is going to look completely different in the morning, then it will in the afternoon, then it will in the evening, then it will on a sunny day, then it will on a cloudy day.
Every day the shovel is still the "shovel" -- still the same tool for digging my hole.
But when I go with my camera, it is not the usefulness of my shovel that I'm concerned with, but rather its appearance under the momentary light.
Now many times the light in the backyard makes that shovel look like "same old, same old." But once in a while, the momentary light is such that the ordinary appears extraordinary. And that's the moment to photograph.
And the lesson from all that making extraordinary images of even ordinary subject matter comes not from looking at "objects", but rather from paying attention to appearances -- the observation of how things look in the momentary light.
And indeed, if we are in such circumstances where we can control the light (rather than just wait for it), then we can even take something as ordinary as a toilet and make it's appearance look more than just ordinary:
http://www.pbase.com/image/26060464
So if we're wise, our thinking when we go shooting isn't so much to look at "objects" but rather to look at "appearances" -- how objects look in the momentary light.
************
So there you have it -- five different ways to both strengthen our photographic observational skills and improve our image making: kill the clutter; think graphic design; dark on light & light on dark; be mindful of relationship, and; shoot not object, but rather appearances.
And if all else fails (and once in a while that happens too)....then and only then turn to "Plan B" -- use the rule-of-thirds. :-)
Hope that's of some help, CJ ---
Dana
**************
Written by CJ Morgan
Alright, let me suggest four five different ways to both strengthen our photographic observational skills and improve our image making. These are: kill the clutter; think graphic design; dark on light & light on dark; be mindful of relationship, and; shoot not object, but rather appearances. KILL THE CLUTTER Few of us suffer from images which are too clean, too simple, too dynamically boring. It does occur once in a while (although that is a study for another time). Mostly, however, most of our images suffer because they just have too much "stuff" in them. Or more to the point, too much meaningless stuff; many of our images just suffer from too much clutter.
When it comes to raising the camera to shoot, most of us already know full well what it is we want to photograph. Heck, even as an 11 year old kid with a camera, I knew how to do that.
But what I didn't pay attention to as an 11 year old kid was all those other things that were getting into my frame -- the great multitude and sea of visual distractions which distract the eventual viewer of the photograph, diluting the visual impact of what I wanted to show.
And so it was that somewhere along the line (although I can't remember exactly when) it finally dawned on me that if I was going to make stronger visual images, I needed to pay more attention to EVERYTHING that was going on frame space, and to then make decisions which would help rid (or at least minimize) all of those visual distraction.
And so it was time to start "living in the viewfinder". Now that label came from those years back of attending photography club meetings, sitting in dark basement of some church, each of critiquing (and basically verbally ripping apart) each other's slide images (an activity which was sometimes just two steps short of just throwing tomatoes at the screen).
In any event, here we are, sitting in the dark church basement, looking at slide photographs on the big screen, carefully looking at all the errors and mistakes of each others photographs.
And someone would pipe up and say, "too bad that telephone pole is sticking out of the person's head in that photograph." And the photographer would say, "Yeah, I noticed that too as soon as I saw the picture."
Except that the time be noticing such things isn't while you're sitting in the dark of the church basement, but rather you're living in the dark looking through your viewfinder.
And then I thought to myself, "Well, there really isn't much difference -- I can be carefully observant of my images after the fact, or I can pretend that my viewfinder is that dark church basement, and be observant of what's going on in my images before I actually take the picture."
And that's where the whole idea of "living in the viewfinder" came from -- pretending that our viewfinder is like our sort of private screening room, and being carefully observant while we're looking in our viewfinder to see what visual distractions can be removed from our photos BEFORE we press the shutter.
Now all that might not mean much to anyone else, but for me, this idea of "living in the viewfinder" did leaps and bounds to help make me more observant of all the junk that was cluttering up my images. And from that, it put me on the road to looking for all the different ways and means of helping rid my images of distracting clutter.
Indeed, this whole idea of "living in the viewfinder" became so much of a practice that I even found myself mumbling the chant "kill the clutter, kill the clutter, kill the clutter" over and over again. It became like a mantra of sorts, "kill the clutter, kill the clutter, kill the clutter."
Now that doesn't mean that we can always kill 100% of the clutter of our images. I mean in the most practical of terms, sometimes our momentary shooting circumstances do not allow for that 100% degree of perfection.
Nevertheless, if our effort and our chant is to "kill the clutter" then most certainly we will make efforts to try to minimize visual distractions, and whatever distractions we can get rid of does indeed serve to make what remains visually stronger.
Now I bring up the idea of "Kill The Clutter" because even though all of this thinking started years ago, it is certainly one idea or one concept that stays with me today and is still part of my shooting process each and every time I go photographing, even if nobody else around me hears me chanting. So if the underlying idea of "Kill The Clutter" is still being used by me each time I photograph these days, then I figure it's probably something worth knowing.
*************
THINK GRAPHIC DESIGN
I have two ways of perceiving the world: one is what I might call my "everyday vision", and the other is what I might call my "photographic vision."
"Everyday vision" is what I might use when I go to the backyard looking for shovel... so I can get on with my work of digging a hole.
In contrast to that, my "photographic vision" will have me more interested in what the light is doing to the scene, where the shadows are falling, and all the graphic elements of a scene or object: lines, forms, colors, shapes, patterns, textures, etc.
When I want to dig a hole, I just want to find the shovel. My thinking is purely utilitarian -- where's that darn tool so I can get on with my hole digging work?
But when I'm using my camera, because images are composed of their parts, my thinking has me paying attention to the graphic elements.
These are the building block for my image -- is as important to me as perhaps choosing bricks is to a house builder.
And so when I go about my work making images, my thinking in certain moments shifts. One moment I might be looking at rivers, rocks, and trees. And then the next moment, my perception shift as I'm looking at that same scene, for now I'm looking not at objects, but rather at their underlying forms, their graphic qualites, the building blocks that I'm going to pick and choose to use for the image I'm about to contruct.
And so now I'm seeing that scene entirely as lines, shapes, patterns, colors, forms, textures, etc. And so I no longer see a "bridge" but rather lines and triangles:
http://www.pbase.com/image/27426364
Or no longer see "flowers", but rather textures and patterns of colors:
http://www.pbase.com/image/27691231
Or no longer so much see a "face" but rather curves and circles and lines:
http://www.pbase.com/image/28134755
And so this too makes us more attentive to what we observe and how we compose... not just looking at objects, at "things", but rather also looking at a scene for it's underlying graphic forms -- because these are the building blocks for the construction of our images.
Now don't get me wrong. Utilitarian thinking and using our "everyday vision" is very useful and very practical. For example, admiring the wonders of lines, shapes, patterns, colors, etc. probably isn't the best thing to do when the scene before you is a Mack truck which is about to run you down. On the other hand, once you've situated yourself out of harms way, looking at the Mack truck in terms of its graphic qualities will perhaps serve well to help construct a better photograph of it.
**************
DARK ON LIGHT & LIGHT ON DARK
Now this might be a sub-section of the previous section on THINK GRAPHIC DESIGN.
But I'm making special note of it here because it's one aspect of our image making which really deserves special attention -- and all the more so because making photographs are about taking a two dimensional world and turning into a two dimensional image.
Simply put, it boils down to this: if you want the things you photograph to stand out more, to visually communicate stronger, then consider the effect of putting lighter objects against darker backgrounds and darker objects against lighter backgrounds. And all the better if you can apply this more than once in the same image.
For example, consider the hair in this image:
http://www.pbase.com/image/26874334
... the light part of the hair against a relatively darker background and the dark part of the hair against a relatively lighter background.
Now there's an infinite number of ways this can all get used, but the essence of the matter here is that playing with our light or our camera position, we can compose light against dark and dark against light... and effectively make make images where our subject matter stands out with more visual impact.
**************
BE MINDFUL OF RELATIONSHIP
It seems to me that most of the images we make are either about a subject and its environment or about a subject and its details. In other words, most of the images we make isn't so much about object, but rather about relationships.
And when we start to think about our image making in terms of "showing relationships" then often times its hard to just think of an "object" without giving some due consideration to its relationship to other "objects" within the space of the image we are about to make.
And once we start paying more attention to not just an object but also to it's spacial relationship to other objects in our scene, then we really start cooking in terms of using the space within our frame rather than otherwise being non-obserservant to all the other "stuff" in a scene that our "everyday vision" would normally just have us ignore.
So we don't necessarily have to be mindful of relationships. But deliberate efforts to do so will most likely having us not so much just looking at "things" but rather considering all of the space within our viewfinder and within the image we are about to construct.
************
SHOOT NOT OBJECTS, BUT RATHER APPEARANCES
Remember that shovel in the backyard that I was earlier talking about?
Well, it looks pretty much the same to me morning, afternoon, and evening, or whether I find it on a sunny day or a cloudy day.
It's still the same old shovel, still just as useful at all those times for digging a hole. And so regardless of the time of day, so long as it's bright enough that I can see that shovel, it always looks the same to me.
But when I go out with my camera, that very same shovel is going to look completely different in the morning, then it will in the afternoon, then it will in the evening, then it will on a sunny day, then it will on a cloudy day.
Every day the shovel is still the "shovel" -- still the same tool for digging my hole.
But when I go with my camera, it is not the usefulness of my shovel that I'm concerned with, but rather its appearance under the momentary light.
Now many times the light in the backyard makes that shovel look like "same old, same old." But once in a while, the momentary light is such that the ordinary appears extraordinary. And that's the moment to photograph.
And the lesson from all that making extraordinary images of even ordinary subject matter comes not from looking at "objects", but rather from paying attention to appearances -- the observation of how things look in the momentary light.
And indeed, if we are in such circumstances where we can control the light (rather than just wait for it), then we can even take something as ordinary as a toilet and make it's appearance look more than just ordinary:
http://www.pbase.com/image/26060464
So if we're wise, our thinking when we go shooting isn't so much to look at "objects" but rather to look at "appearances" -- how objects look in the momentary light.
************
So there you have it -- five different ways to both strengthen our photographic observational skills and improve our image making: kill the clutter; think graphic design; dark on light & light on dark; be mindful of relationship, and; shoot not object, but rather appearances.
And if all else fails (and once in a while that happens too)....then and only then turn to "Plan B" -- use the rule-of-thirds. :-)
Hope that's of some help, CJ ---
Dana
** Feel free to edit my photos if you see room for improvement.**
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if
no birds sang there except those that sang best.
~Henry Van Dyke
** Feel free to edit my photos if you see room for improvement.**
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if
no birds sang there except those that sang best.
~Henry Van Dyke
0
Comments
www.dkoyanagi.com
www.flickr.com/photos/dkoyanagi/
If you came up with some shots to illustrate this, it would make a FANTASTIC tutorial. HOw would you like to take that on? Please?
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Oh Boy...................
Do we have a shrinking in fear smilie?
Afterall, I didn't write this, CJ did. I have invited him to dgrin, BTW.
Editor Dave............ HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP, I'm willing to work on this but.....
Well PM me with what you have in your head about this.
Of course I will ask CJ if it's ok too.
** Feel free to edit my photos if you see room for improvement.**
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if
no birds sang there except those that sang best.
~Henry Van Dyke
While I am trying to incorporate these types of thoughts into my shooting on a daily basis, fact is, I am an amateur. My skills are no where near the level to add my own pictures to this great essay and I feel that would only distract from his points.
I feel honored that Mr. Morgan has granted permission for me to share this with fellow Dgrinners. I will certainly ask him if he would allow this to be posted as a tutorial.
** Feel free to edit my photos if you see room for improvement.**
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if
no birds sang there except those that sang best.
~Henry Van Dyke
Manfrotto Mono | Bag- LowePro Slingshot 100AW
http://www.graphyfotoz.smugmug.com/
Thanks for sharing this. I hope we see more.
Real Body Integrated Arts
GMT -5
I need to follow that advice more often myself. I get so concentrated on my subject, I forget to look at what is actually in the frame!:):
http://www.twitter.com/deegolden
Sounds like a great plan. Please let me know if I can be of any help explaining to Mr. Morgan how it works. Of course we would host the images so that his bandwidth is not effected. We get 1000's of hits on that site a day, and would be happy to include a link to his site along with his credit for the tutorial. Thanks for being the go-between!
(p.s. I missed his ownership of the tute the first time I read through: thanks for pointing that out to me!)
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
I edited the post to make it more clear that it is his work.
I could only wish to write such an insightful post.
I am waiting on his response.
** Feel free to edit my photos if you see room for improvement.**
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if
no birds sang there except those that sang best.
~Henry Van Dyke