Years ago, the Hasselblad camera company published a series of photography pamphlets. While I had my Hasselblad I collected and studied the information contained in them.
Although they are now long out of print, I recently thumbed through one titled, “The Eye, The Camera, The Image”. Meant for medium format film cameras - I wondered if there was information that is still appropriate for modern digital camera users.
I skimmed over topics like Using the focusing hood magnifier, Colour film and colour balance, Types of exposure measurement, and Double exposure, all are interesting reads if one is concerned with photographic history, however, not very practical, or useful for those searching to be a better photographer in our modern digital age.
However, the topic, “We see far too much” caught my attention and continued; “The eye is our organ of sight. Its lens has a focal length of about 17mm and covers a 150-degree vertical and 120 degree horizontal field; the binocular vision provided by our two eyes gives a 180-degree angular field. We seldom have any need for images encompassing so wide a field. The wealth of detail in such a field would be rendered small and insignificant when reduced to images formed in a camera when composing a photograph outdoors or elsewhere. We always need to crop our field of view.”
In my experience, many successful photographers strive to “tighten up” on their composition. By that I mean they only include those elements that add to the visual discussion of a photograph.
Hasselblad continued, “This elimination of irrelevance is vital. The trick often involves excluding most of what you see. Making a selection is a basic feature of all art, whether it is painting, drawing or photography. Art consists of picking out the most interesting, most illustrative, most instructive, the loveliest or most emotional components among a myriad of components in a subject.”
Photographers should train themselves to be specific with a subject, only showing the viewer what is important. I suppose the question might be how do we slow down to do this in an age of auto focus, auto aperture and rapid-fire shutter release?
I agree with Hasselblad’s contention that “we see far too much” and need to eliminate irrelevant items in our photos.
When an interesting subject is seen, stop the car and get out. Don’t be lazy and merely hunker down against the window to take the shot. One might even get that sturdy tripod out of the trunk; and as you do that think about, or “previsualize”, the photograph about to be made.
Set up the tripod, attach the camera and look through the viewfinder. I suggest making several shots starting from a narrow, limited view and zooming the lens out to a wide-angle view. That way there will be several choices for that picture.
To sum up, eliminate those elements inconsequential to the picture and compose for only those items important to the final photograph, not by looking at the subject and snapping away in a hurried fashion to include everything seen in the viewfinder or LCD, and take my advice, use a tripod.
Stay safe and be creative. These are my thoughts for this week. Contact me at www.enmanscamera.com or emcam@telus.net.
