However, all modern types of "technical arts" - photography, cinema, television - have experienced a similar evolution: at the beginning of their existence they were a kind of amusing attractions, then technical means of transmitting information, and only in the process of creating a new art, language within these informative and communication systems, there was a transition to communicative and artistic functions. This does not mean, however, that the problem of the relationship between photography and art was not discussed. The French painter Delaroche (1797-1856), emphasizing the possibilities offered by photography, wrote: "Painting has died from this day." In contrast, one German magazine argued the opposite: "... The discovery of photography is of high importance for science and very limited for art." In 1913, the Riga magazine on practical and artistic photography "Rays" ("Stari") published a special. the article "Photography and Art", which discussed the question of whether photography is an art or only a practical, applied skill, in which mastery of technology plays the main role. The author of this article came to the conclusion that the question of whether photography is art will remain valid as long as photography exists. The question of the technical side is not new to art, only in photography it manifested itself from a historically new side. Possession of photographic equipment, mastering the skill here look like an easier task than, for example, mastering the technique of playing a musical instrument. This lightness is what misleads critics of photography as an art. The artist Delaroche saw in the new phenomenon its artistic features and its powerful artistic potential.
In the first years after its appearance (the daguerreotype period), photography was classified by public opinion and experts from various fields of culture as amusing trinkets. Photography of this period did not yet possess either documentary quality, or informativeness, or freedom of light solutions and findings, i.e., none of those features that theory today considers as defining for photography. The development of photography was largely determined by social needs. The rise of the newspaper industry propelled photography into the mainstream of reportage. At the time when the first "moving pictures" (cinema) appeared on the basis of photography, the photograph itself was a modest documentary evidence, inferior in expressiveness and sophistication to painting and graphics. Theoretical disputes constantly arose around photography: is it possible to compare photography with painting in terms of artistic value? Isn't photography a degenerate painting, for which technique replaces the skill of the artist? And vice versa, isn't photography a modern kind of painting that takes over and deepens its functions, a modification of painting in a technical civilization that changes the cultural and aesthetic significance of traditional painting? But this is nothing more than a juxtaposition of two phenomena of artistic life, two types of art that clearly gravitate towards each other and interact with each other. Photography freed painting from its utilitarian function - the pictorial fixation of the fact, which, even in the Renaissance, was one of the most important tasks of painting. It can be said that photography helped the development of painting, contributed to the full identification of its unique specificity. But photography also absorbed a lot from the centuries-old experience in the development of fine arts. The very vision of the world "in the frame" is a legacy of painting. The picture frame is the first storyboard of reality in the history of culture. Foreshortening and building perspective, the viewer's ability to "read" a photograph as a planar image of three-dimensional space - all this makes up the great cultural heritage that photography has inherited from painting. The influence of painting on photography is enormous. At the same time, the task of photography is two-valued, two-dimensional: on the one hand, to separate as completely as possible from painting and to determine its own boundaries and possibilities, its specificity, on the other hand, to most fully master the artistic experience of painting on its own basis.
One of the central problems of identifying any kind of art is the problem of its language. Analyzing the history of the visual language of photography, several periods of its development are distinguished. At first, due to the inevitable duration of the exposure in the past, photographers preferred to shoot monumental, immovable (mountains, houses). For portraits, the models had to freeze for a long time. Those portrayed in the photographs of that time are tense, concentrated. This first period began in 1839 and continued as a major one for a little over a decade. The second period is associated with the advent of new photographic technology, which made it possible to reduce shutter speed from tens of minutes to seconds and at the same time expanded the possibilities of reflecting an ever wider range of objects of reality. Photographers tried to make the whole world around them the object of shooting. Traveling photographers traveled around many countries, began to explore not only the spaces, but also the depths of social life, to present to the audience insightful psychological portraits of their contemporaries from various social strata in generalized images. The naturalness and ingenuity of the photograph created a freshness of perception, fascinated by its simplicity.
At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. in photography, a method is developed associated with the deliberate intervention of the hand in the creation of a work - pictorialism. It is integral to the technical innovation - dry technology. The disadvantage of this technology (lack of richness of tonalities) was compensated by applying ink during printing. When creating a work, the photographer and the artist most often combined in one person. The photographic material was considered as a "interlinear" for translation, requiring artistic processing. Manual intonation blurred the immediacy of the photographic image. An attempt to overcome the contradictions of pictorialism was made by artists who contrasted disharmony and representation with a richness of tonalities, inner musicality, which is organically inherent in reality itself, and not artificially imposed on it. A deep human feeling was introduced into the relationship of forms without any montage.
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The technical means of photography have reduced to a minimum the cost of human effort to obtain a reliable image: everyone can capture their chosen object. The technological side of shooting is in charge of photographic equipment. There are traditions and specific parameters of craftsmanship here. However, the purpose of the technique is different: not to ensure the full effect of "imitation", but, on the contrary, intrusion, purposeful deformation of the display in order to highlight the nature and significance of the human relationship to the displayed.
Arguments about the artistic nature of photography are possible mainly in terms of searching for and asserting fundamental similarities with traditional forms of art (photography is a synthetic innovation of the artistic culture of the 20th century) and in terms of recognizing the fundamental features of photography, its fundamental difference from traditional forms of art (photography is a specific innovation culture of the 20th century). Each of these aspects of study has its own internal logic, and only their harmonious combination, and not the absolutization of one at the expense of ignoring the other, allows one to more or less objectively determine the artistic possibilities and nature of photography. The artistry of the work is evidenced by the experience of beauty, harmony, a sense of pleasure, the effect of personal and educational influence (the latter, however, is quite difficult to isolate and fix momentarily and concretely). The specificity of photography as an art form is documentary, the authenticity of the image, the ability to perpetuate the moment. By focusing attention on a photographic work, one can single out a number of significant characteristics that reveal the features of photography. Each of the identified features of the photograph can be accompanied by a detailed commentary. The task of defining the essence of photography as an art form is, firstly, to identify how much it is possible to abstract from the nature of the material and direct "frontal" perception in order to create an artistic image and, secondly, what social and cultural function this or that artistic form performs , combined with a certain material, i.e., how purely and adequately an artistic work is fixed by the self-consciousness of the artist, as well as public opinion and theoretical forms of understanding artistic life. The specificity of the artistic image in photography lies in the fact that it is a pictorial image of documentary significance. Photography gives an image that combines artistic expressiveness with authenticity and embodies an essential moment of reality in a frozen image. The famous photographs depicting the battalion commander raising soldiers to attack, the meeting of the heroes of the defense of the Brest Fortress, combine the artistic power and significance of a historical document.
The photographic image, as a rule, is an iso-essay. Life facts in photography are transferred from the field of activity to the sphere of art almost without additional processing and changes. However, photography is able to take vital material and, as it were, reverse reality, forcing us to see and perceive it in a new way. The noted pattern operates at the intersection of its informative-communicative and communicative-artistic meanings: a bare fact can be attributed to the informative sphere, but its artistic interpretation will already be a phenomenon of a different order. And it is the aesthetic attitude of the photographer to the fact being filmed that determines the final result and the effect of the picture.
Considering photography from the artistic side, it is necessary to dwell on its documentary nature. Photography includes both an artistic portrait of a contemporary, and momentary press photos (document), and photo reports. Of course, it is impossible to demand high art from every official information picture, but it is also impossible to see only video information and a photographic document in every highly artistic work. Documentary, authenticity, reality - this is the main thing in photography. In this fundamental property lies the reason for the global influence of photography on modern culture. Other qualities of photography, its features, their significance for culture as a whole, crystallize when comparing photography and individual types of art. Documentalism is a quality that first penetrated the arts and culture with the advent of photography. Being used in different types of art, this quality, each time being refracted through their specificity, formed some new derivative of itself. From other forms of art, these derivatives, enriching the documentary, returned to photography, expanding and enriching not only the fund of artistic culture, but also the possibilities of the aesthetic practice of photography as an art form. Non-artistic photography, i.e. documentary in terms of the techniques used and journalistic in terms of functionality, in addition to the informational load, also carries an aesthetic one. Photojournalism, as you know, directly appeals to the documentary, inherent in photography and all its varieties from birth. However, this property is used differently depending on the task. In those cases when it comes to photo chronicles - conscientious, exhaustive, protocol-accurate information about an event - the individuality of the author of the picture does not reveal itself. It is entirely subordinated to the fixation of the fact, the ultimate reliability of its display. Another thing is photojournalism. Here the photographer also deals with the facts of reality, however, their presentation is carried out fundamentally in the author's vision, they are colored by the author's personal assessment. Documentary and artistry in the field of photography merge, overlap each other. In general, modern photography exists in the unity of all its aspects - ideological and artistic, semantic and expressive, social and aesthetic.
Separate aspects of photography as an art form are manifested in the choice of color, artistic style, genre, pictorial language, specific techniques for processing photographic materials, the personal attitude of the photographer to the work being created, etc. Color is one of the most important components of modern photography. It arose in photography under the influence of the desire to bring the photographic image closer to the real forms of objects. The color makes the photo image look more authentic. This factor first caused the need for coloring frames, and later gave impetus to the development of color photography. Significantly here is the influence of the traditions of painting, in which the meaning-forming use of color historically grew. In its highest achievements, artistic photography has repeatedly rejected the thesis that its images are static. And color plays an important role in this denial of immobility. Based on the experience of color photographs, we can formulate the rules for using color in photography. The first of them is to shoot in color only when it is of fundamental importance, when without color it is impossible to convey what is intended. The second rule: the symbolism of color, light, the play of tones and shades, accumulated and accumulated by the previous cultural trend, the experience of older art forms - painting, theater and later related technical ones - cinema and television, can be effectively used in photography. The third rule: the use of color contrast to create a semantic contrast. Photography has not quite mastered the color yet. She will have to more fully absorb the entire color palette of the world. Color should be mastered by photography aesthetically, and become a means not only of the image, but also of the conceptual understanding of reality.
Artistic style is a particular problem in the theory and practice of photography. It is not resolved within the framework of the question of genres. In the empirical aspect, the style is both pastel, watercolor frames, and graphically strict photographic works, and generally "oil" images, up to the complete imitation of painting on canvas by photographic means. Theoretically, the problem of style in aesthetics is obviously insufficiently developed, and yet it can be identified in relation to photography. In photography, both the presence and the absence of artistic style are very evident. A naturalistic and documentary footage will scrupulously demonstrate all the little things and details that have entered the space of the lens. But it will be an unorganized chaos of vision. If such a picture is taken from the angle of the author's vision, artistically, decorated stylistically, then a completely different work will turn out. The direction, nature and strength of the author's deviation from the "mirror", naturalistic, purely reflective photography determine the style in the photographic work. It can be purely individual or corresponding to a certain school, tradition, artistic program. The characteristic of the photo style can be associative and artistic.
Closely related to the problem of style is the question of the national originality of photographic art. Various trends in photography to varying degrees reveal their dependence on national cultural traditions. So, for example, reportage or ethnographic-reportage photography is directly connected with the cultural life of the people, with the rhythm of everyday life, with the soul of the people in its everyday manifestations. Other trends, such as artistic and constructive or decorative, reproduce the national content in artistic and aesthetically abstract forms. All styles and genres of photography, all its national schools are based on the master's specific assimilation of the world's artistry.
Time in a frame is not unambiguous, one-dimensional. Here, 2 main layers are distinguished, which are, as it were, synthetically merged. These layers are instantaneous and monumental, which, despite the polar correlation, are interdependent. The artistic world is united in the harmonious unity of all components, all the details of artistic photography.
Photography involves the presence of a photographer-artist. It requires careful selectivity, a special personal "vision" that allows you to distinguish what is worthy of attention from the external, random, incomplete. Not every captured frame becomes a work of art and, obviously, not every film makes a successful photographic work. Just as an artist constantly, daily makes sketches, a photo artist trains his eye, his photo vision of the world. Daily work allows polishing the technique of performance and developing stable principles of moral, ethical and aesthetic attitude to possible objects of photographic art. A photographer must have many qualities. He must be a psychologist, comprehend the character of the person being portrayed, catch the moment of his self-disclosure, be able to find a secret self-expression in posture, facial expressions, facial expressions, background and presentation angle, in order to fully reveal his inner world and his attitude towards him. The photographer must have a deep knowledge of life, its various aspects. It is impossible to photograph the casting of steel in an open-hearth shop in a highly artistic manner without imagining, at least in general terms, the technology of this process, the photographer must be a researcher. By systematically and consistently working on the theme, creating a cycle of works, the master does not just capture documentary moments that eventually turn into historical value. It not only creates an informative image data bank, which, depending on the sociological, ethnographic, historical nature, can be used in different ways. He does not just create a work of art, but also acts as a researcher of a certain topic, using such an interesting and rich epistemological form as photography. At the same time, it turns into a method of artistic knowledge and evaluation of the filmed phenomenon.
In the face of the photographer, a man of technology and aesthetics, a man who loves accuracy, clarity, and a man picked up by a rush of inspiration, a man of feeling and contemplation, able to see imagery and harmony, must be united and synthesized, the photographer acts as a chronicler of the era, which imposes on him a special responsibility. An undeveloped field opens before him, in which it is necessary to lay paths and paths, to outline areas delimited by the various functionalities of photography. Aesthetics does not give the artist a recipe and does not guarantee success. It only gives guidelines for the search, the result of which, ultimately, depends on the talent and work of the author. At the final stage of the creative process, aesthetics help develop the artistic appreciation of the image.
Criticism plays an important role in the development of photography, including the theoretical and critical thinking of the photographers themselves. Criticism and theory, provided they are authoritative and competent, can stop amateurish disputes that interfere and distract both photographers and viewers. For photocriticism, it is important to comprehensively consider photography as a socio-artistic phenomenon. Some aspects of critical analysis include: the sociology of photography (photography as a document of the era, photojournalism, a method of interpersonal communication and a means of mass communication, a journalistic beginning in photography, on this basis, criteria for the social significance of a photographic work can be found and developed); cultural studies of photography (photography as a phenomenon of modern culture and its place in the system of cultural values; in this area, the criteria for the cultural significance of a photographic work are determined); psychology of photography (photography as a fixed visual memory and the factor of "presence" of the absent, this aspect helps to develop a criterion of personal significance); epistemology of photography (the choice of an object and the specificity of its reflection in photography, unconditional and conditional in photography, "approach" and "distance" from reality in photography; problems of lifelikeness are connected with this - the criteria of art, truth); axiology of photography (the possibility of a subjective attitude to the object in photography, the problems of evaluating the depicted; at this level, the criteria for evaluating artistry are formed); semiotics of photography (the language of photography, its alphabet, morphology, syntax, grammar; here the criteria for information content are determined); aesthetics of photography (photography as an aesthetic phenomenon, the figurative and artistic possibilities of photography, the aesthetic richness of the world and its artistic development in photography, this is where the criteria of aesthetic significance are expressed).
Taking into account various aspects of artistic photography, one can formulate its essence, try to define photography. Photo art is the creation by chemical and technical means of a visual image of a documentary value, artistically expressive and authentically capturing an essential moment of reality in a frozen image. In photography, several quite clearly defined trends have crystallized: ethnographic-sociological, reportage, poster-advertising, artistic-constructive, decorative, symbolic-conceptual, impressionistic. Each of these directions performs its own specific, clearly defined cultural and communicative function. These directions are not mutually exclusive. The same photographer, as a rule, works in several of them. It is very important to keep in mind the semi-functionality of artistic photography, so that, for example, its artistic and constructive function does not exclude the ethnographic and sociological one, and vice versa, so that the conceptuality of photovision goes hand in hand with the national tradition. Like any kind of art, photography is subject to the general laws of the development of arts, consciousness and artistic worldview. The artistic image historically grows on the basis of empirically perceived reality and reflects the formation and development of cultural and semantic mediation between the artist and the outside world.
The development of any kind of art can be viewed as self-consciousness of its own cultural function, i.e., as the formation of artistic self-consciousness within the framework of a certain type of art. For photography, this means that, in contact with modern reality in line with ethnographic-sociological, reportage, poster photography, the artist-photographer necessarily continues to develop and deepen the artistic image within the framework of symbolic-conceptual photography. In this sense, conceptual photography is, as it were, the result of that artistic life and personal experience, thanks to which the photographer becomes a master and creates enduring values. But something else follows from this: all directions and genres of artistic photography make up the integral specificity of photography as an art form, and only through understanding the features and artistic possibilities of each of them is it possible to create a cumulative and integral idea of photography as a new, modern form of art, in some ways typical for the existing understanding of art, and in some ways introducing its own historical and semantic adjustments to the understanding of the system, relationships and functions of art forms both within the framework of artistic culture and within the framework of modern culture in general.
Photography is a real art. There are no less subtleties in it than in painting or music. Preparing for publication a number of articles devoted to photography, I could not help mentioning the composition.
Photography is a real art. There are no less subtleties in it than in painting or music. Preparing for publication a number of articles devoted to photography, I could not help mentioning the composition. A sense of composition is akin to an ear for music - you either have it, or you have to develop it, compensating for the lack of hard work and experience. Some photographers argue that it is impossible to learn "aesthetic perception", others appeal to the theory of composition. But, as they say, rely on the "pros", but don't make a mistake yourself. First of all, you will have to think a lot and be critical of yourself. Only in this way can you achieve a good result. Unlike painting, where talent is needed to create a picture, in today's photography, everyone can feel like a creator by pressing a single button. A professional photographer differs from a beginner not only in the quality of the camera. You can work wonders with a "soap dish", and if you listen to my words, perhaps you will take a small step towards professionalism.
The title of the first part of the article says a lot. There are no rules for constructing a composition; in principle, there cannot be any. Otherwise art would not exist. The attitude of the viewer to photography is always subjective. The author must rely solely on his own perception. True creativity means no boundaries, but at first, try to be content with the recommendations below.
Scene selection
The author has the right to be proud of an interesting and unusual plot. Hunting for such stories takes a lot of time and sometimes turns into a mania. If you're one of those people who always keeps a camera handy, there's nothing to worry about. The main thing is to always look around and see the beauty in the most ordinary scenes.
Photo 1. An unusual plot allows you to neglect the composition. First, there is no other way to capture such a scene. Secondly, the viewer is interested in the plot, which in itself attracts attention.
Unprecedented scope in the choice of plot opens up macro photography. A drop of water, an insect or a flower delights the viewer, who is not used to examining small objects in detail.
Static scenes give the photographer plenty of time to assess the situation, prepare the camera and choose the right shooting point. To study composition, it is worth practicing on stationary objects.
Dynamic scenes are much more interesting for photographers. Shutter speed plays a decisive role in shooting. Long exposures give blurry shots, emphasizing speed. Fast shutter speeds produce crisp photographs that express the strength, agility and grace of a moving model. When shooting dynamic scenes, you need to think fast - a beautiful scene may never happen again. If you think that such shooting is done offhand, then you are greatly mistaken. The process of choosing a shooting point is even more time-consuming than in the case of a static scene.
Selecting a shooting point
Having chosen a plot, do not be too lazy to figure out where it is more profitable to shoot it from. Walk around the model, noting features in the background. So you get rid of "bad" items that cannot be hidden in any other way. A striking example is nondescript lampposts and power lines that have spoiled more than one frame in the history of photography.
In most cases, shooting at close range allows you to brighten up the main object, emphasize its details. Such shooting gives the effect of presence. If it is impossible to get closer to the model, the optical zoom will help out, but at high magnifications, the automation does not always successfully focus the camera on the object. In addition, when zooming in, image shaking increases. A tripod will save you from such problems, since it costs much less than the camera itself. But the digital zoom, which most cameras are equipped with, should be taken solely as an advertising move by manufacturers of photographic equipment. It certainly has its merits, but - because of the implementation - purely theoretical. Optical zoom on inexpensive lenses significantly enhances aberrations. Digital zoom, based on interpolation, could bring the subject closer without optical distortion, if not for one "but". The digital zoom is always turned on at the maximum optical value, and what aberrations the telephoto position of the lens gave, they will be like that. If the camera had not 10x optical, but 40x, these aberrations would be simply terrible at 40x, much worse than 10x optics and 4x "digits". But the photographer has no choice. Therefore, in practice, digital zoom is practically useless.
Photo 2. Shooting from a close distance made it possible to convey the expressiveness of the cat's eyes. Unnecessary details are discarded - the viewer's eye does not find anything that would be more important than the eyes.
Shooting from a distance emphasizes the depth of space. But it should be remembered that secondary objects enter the frame, which distract attention and overload the composition. Basically, this type is suitable for shooting landscapes, including urban ones. Panoramic shooting taken from a distance looks natural, and it becomes much easier to "glue" pictures.
Most of the photographs are taken at eye level. It is from this height that we look at the world, therefore, the pictures will look more familiar to the viewer. A high shooting point makes it possible to cover a larger area, conveying spaciousness. A low point, on the contrary, allows you to emphasize the dynamism and depth of the plot. When shooting low, you need to be especially careful - many forms are distorted at this angle. The face and figure of a person can change a lot, and not for the better.
Features of visual perception
The human eye is a precise and complex instrument. To take a beautiful, natural shot, you need to have an idea of how exactly the viewer's eye will subsequently analyze it. Despite a fairly large angle of view, considering the world around us, we glide over it with our eyes, gradually studying the details. First of all, the eye analyzes the contour lines, and then studies their most curved parts in more detail. The concept of human photogenicity is associated with this effect. People with sharp facial features look especially impressive in the pictures, as the gaze clings to every curve of the contour. Soft facial features make the eye slide off the lines, which is why the interest in the model immediately disappears.
The dimensions of the photo are much smaller than the original, so the standard scenes on them are unusual for perception. The viewer's gaze, directed at one point, is able to capture the entire photo - and this is unnatural. To give the composition scale, you need to control the viewer's gaze.
We are used to reading from left to right and top to bottom, and gravity emphasizes that downward movement is natural. This greatly affects perception. If the picture contains the same or similar objects, then the one located on the left will dominate. The item at the top of the picture appears to be heavier than the one below. A vertical line appears longer than exactly the same horizontal line.
Psychology of lines
"Photography" in Greek means "light painting". This reflects the technical features of the process. In terms of composition, the basis of photography is lines. They, together with the tonality, convey the emotionality and dynamics of the plot, make the viewer think and feel.
Power lines are the contours of objects located in the image. In black and white images, they are more pronounced, since our eyes are not distracted by a large number of colors. This effect is often used in artistic photography. It's not for nothing that professionals like to take black and white pictures.
With the help of lines, an experienced photographer is able to control the viewer's gaze, directing him to the important details of the picture.
Photo 3. The composition of this shot is very unusual. It has four distinct areas: the beach, the water, the sky, and part of the city. The beach is separated from the water by a sharp line of the coast. Water from the sky - a soft line of the horizon. These elements exist independently in the picture. Buildings and trees unite them, becoming the basis of the composition.
Each type of line brings its own emotional coloring. Most often this manifests itself on a subconscious level, but you will see that the influence of the lines is quite large. A straight line expresses activity and speed, but if it is located horizontally, it creates the impression of peace and tranquility. The obvious example is the horizon line - it's hard to think of anything more static. Slightly curved lines convey lethargy, relaxation. This is how the shores of most reservoirs look like. A strongly curved line makes the eye stop and gives the composition a slow-motion effect. The spiral expresses tension and vitality. The "twisted" body of the model looks much more spectacular just due to the spiral lines. Wavy lines set the rhythm of the shot. If they are parallel, the effect is enhanced, adding instability and fluidity to the composition. Try to analyze your pictures to make sure that my words are true.
Photo 4. Lines of power allow you to control the viewer's gaze. Their thoughtful use helps convey volume in a flat photograph. Parallel lines converging in the distance perfectly emphasize the perspective. The road in the picture takes the viewer into the depth of the frame, giving the composition a sense of infinity.
Photo 5. If used ineptly, lines can do a disservice by distracting the viewer from the subject. The main goal of the photographer was the Moscow Kremlin, but the lines of the banks persistently lead the eye to the right.
Photo 6. In life, horizontal lines are most often encountered, which the photographer should not forget about. The coast line divides the image into two parts of similar size. Each of them is perceived independently - the composition is destroyed.
The use of diagonals allows you to make the picture unusual and attractive. A photograph, like any rectangle, has two of them: ascending and descending.
The ascending diagonal (also called the major diagonal) runs from the lower left corner to the upper right. The composition based on it evokes positive emotions. The upward movement along the ascending diagonal is very easy and fast.
In the case of a downward (or minor) diagonal, the opposite is true. Moving up on it expresses tension, and moving down - lightness.
Photo 7. The composition is dominated by the minor diagonal. The plot itself is rather plain, but it evokes stable associations in the viewer. In me, this picture awakens a feeling of loneliness, a feeling of loss.
It seems that a loved one is gone forever, along the path that leads beyond the border of the frame.
Balance in composition
Photography is like a scale. If the subject is located in the center of the picture, the composition will be balanced, but this is too standard approach. We will go the other way. There are several ways to balance a composition.
If you are photographing a dynamic scene, use the technique of developing movement. To do this, you must leave free space in front of a moving object. The higher the speed, the more space is required.
Photo 8. The picture turned out to be not dynamic enough, so there was not a lot of space left in front of the car. The dividing strips on the road are straight, parallel and go off the frame. The imagination completes them, helping to balance the composition.
In portrait photography, the direction of the model's gaze is often used to achieve balance. A calm, indifferent look requires little space, an expressive look requires much more.
Photo 9. The body of the model is located on the left side of the picture, but her gaze makes the composition balanced.
A separate conversation is a staged photograph. There is time to experiment by adding various objects to the frame. In photography, weight is replaced by volume or associations that certain visual forms evoke. A bicycle or a ball in the frame make the viewer remember their childhood, warmly perceive the composition of the picture. There can be infinitely many such associations. Think about what items will remind the viewer of parents, first love, joyful and happy moments of life. With their help, you can not only balance the composition, but also convey various emotions.
"Golden Ratio" (rule of thirds)
Mathematicians always claim that their subject is the basis of the universe. Most people are skeptical about such claims, but, oddly enough, mathematicians are right in many ways. Since ancient times, artists and photographers have used the rule of thirds, sometimes even unconsciously. If you draw two lines horizontally and vertically on a photograph, each of which separates a third of the image, you will get four lines of the "golden section" and four points of their intersection. The zone located between these lines is perceived as the calmest, and the gaze primarily fixes objects located on the lines themselves and at the intersection points.
Even in ancient Greece, scientists noticed that the gaze of a person looking at an image describes a trajectory similar to the Latin letter "Z". The gaze that analyzes the photograph just passes through the intersection points. The golden ratio method is useful, but it is not the only way to arrange objects in a composition.
Geometric positioning
Like the "golden ratio", this rule is purely advisory. It has long been noticed that the triangle present in the composition enhances the impression produced by photography. Putting it on one of the peaks, you can make the composition unstable. On the contrary, a triangle standing on the base creates a feeling of inviolability.
Photo 10. The body of the model forms a triangle, resting with its base on the surface of the table. An unusual angle and expressive facial expression emphasizes the steadfastness, both physical and psychological.
A circle or an oval adds dynamism to the composition. Rectangle or square, on the contrary, make it absolutely static. Experiment with geometric shapes, the result can be quite interesting.
We cut off the excess
Having chosen the subject of shooting, do not forget that we are surrounded by a mass of objects, some of which will inevitably fall into the frame. The foreground is most often missing in the pictures of novice photographers. They fix their attention directly on the model. Nevertheless, minor elements of the foreground help to convey the depth of space.
Photo 11. The railing of the bridge, caught in the frame, turned out to be not superfluous at all. They emphasize the depth of space. In addition, railings that go beyond the boundaries of the frame balance the composition.
The picture turns out to be quite interesting if the subject is enclosed in a certain frame formed by the foreground. Windows, arches, trees can serve as similar frames.
Photo 12. In the above example, the frame is a swing, emphasizing the "three-dimensionality" of the scene. The straight chains of the swing, tending to converge in perspective, direct the gaze towards the girl.
Sometimes unsuccessful pictures are obtained due to the fact that we have two eyes, and the camera has one. Our "3D" vision easily separates the model from the background, while in a flat photograph they merge. The most common example is objects "growing out of the model's head". Sculptors say that their task is to take a stone and cut off everything superfluous. What's wrong with photographers? There should also be no foreign objects in the picture. Shooting close-ups will help get rid of them. If this method is unacceptable, try to hide the excess behind the subject or, using soft focus, blur the obstructing objects, focusing on the necessary details of the picture. In this case, aperture has priority. On cameras without manual modes, there is a kind of similarity - the "portrait" mode, the same aperture priority with its only maximum open value. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to see this effect with non-DSLRs during shooting - due to the small number of pixels on the display or the EVF (there are cameras that can do "digital viewfinder zoom", usually in manual focusing mode - it helps a little ), and also due to the fact that the display does not always show a picture taken with real shutter speed / aperture values. When shooting with flash on non-DSLRs, you almost always see something different on the display or in the viewfinder, because in order to ensure visibility in low light, the camera opens the aperture completely, and when shooting, it closes to the desired value.
If possible, walk around the model and try to choose a better background. If you are shooting outdoors, you can use the most beautiful and accessible background - the sky, which will add color to the picture. The camera should be placed low and carefully monitored so that this angle does not distort the figure of the model.
Photo 13. A bright background that fills most of the picture distracts attention from the main subject. It would be much more reasonable to use macro photography by setting the camera closer to the ground.
Photo 14. The background is a "headless" man and incomprehensible metal structures. The composition is overloaded with forms that do not carry any meaning.
Photo 15. The picture shows the same bird, but the author used optical zoom and soft focus, thereby getting rid of unnecessary details. The right part of the background is blurred, and the person on the left is almost unrecognizable. Now that our attention is focused on the bird, we can easily discern all the details of the photo. Here, unlike the previous picture, it is clearly seen that the bird is ringed.
And finally, I'll say...
You can give endless advice on choosing a composition. I limited myself to small, so to speak, the basics. In preparing the material, I did a little experiment. About five gigabytes of photos taken back in the days of reckless youth were subjected to my harsh criticism and "conditional deletion". As a result, there are 386 megabytes of images left that have at least some artistic value. So, my photographic efficiency was about 8%. It is for this reason that all the pictures given as examples are taken by non-professionals. You have learned the basics of composition. Now try to look at your old photos in a different way and calculate your efficiency.
I plan to continue preparing articles on the art of photography. You can send your wishes and criticism to [email protected].
Art photography, what is it? Photo enthusiasts often ask me this question. Usually, before answering it, I took a deep breath and waited a short pause to collect my thoughts. And then he began to explain everything in as much detail as possible. But over time, I came to the conclusion that the best answer is the simplest and shortest. And for many, simply explaining the obvious features of artistic photography is enough to give an idea of this area of \u200b\u200bart.
The main distinguishing feature of art photography from other areas of photography is that art photography is not just fixing an object and scene on film or digital media. Using a camera to capture certain objects at a given point in time is more photojournalism than artistic photography.
Artistic photography, first of all, is an expression of how the photographer sees the world around him. In artistic photography, it is important not what the camera sees and captures, but what the photographer sees and wants to show. For a fine art photographer, a camera is a tool for creating a work of art. In this case, the camera acts as a means of revealing the artistic intent of the photographer, and not a tool for documenting what fell into the scope of the lens.
For example, the famous desert landscapes on the canvases of Georgia O'Keeffe are nothing more than an expression of her vision of the New Mexico environs. That is, if we place a dozen photographers with cameras next to O'Keeffe's easel, will we get eleven artistic landscapes of the same area? Hardly. Most likely, as a result, we will have one artistic canvas and a dozen photographs that would undoubtedly capture the scene being filmed, but would not convey the artistic intent of their creator.
Sunrise in winter in the Sierra Nevada or View of the Sierra Nevada from Lone Pine. California, Ansel Adams, 1944
In other words, artistic photography must contain elements of the viewer's attention control, the accents that artists put into their works in order to reveal the idea that they would like to convey with their work.
Perhaps no one better than Ansel Adams expressed this idea:
“Art implies control over reality, for reality itself has no sense of aesthetics. Photography becomes art when certain elements of control are applied.”
Thus, artistic photography must go beyond the literal representation of the scene or subject being photographed. It should express the feelings and perceptions of the photographer so clearly that at first glance it is clear that this picture was created by an artist, and not just a camera. Each element in the frame, each method of processing a photograph, and even the method and format of printing - everything should express the individuality of the photographer's worldview.
Ansel Adams. Grand Teton and Snake River Park (1942). Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
What do you think of artistic photography? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
More useful information and news in our Telegram channel"Lessons and Secrets of Photography". Subscribe!- A look at photography as a form of fine art from the point of view of a teenager.
- The acquisition by students of the necessary knowledge on issues of interest to them, the development of their own thinking and further self-improvement.
- Maintaining………………………………………………………………………..3
- Main part………………………………………………………… .4-12
- Birth and meaning of photography………………………………. ….4-6
- Does photography reflect reality objectively?……………………………………………….. …………7-8
- Is photography art? And why did the fine arts not cease to exist after the advent of photography? .................…….8-9
- Research………………………………………………………10-12
- Conclusion. Conclusions……………………………………………………..12
- Literature………………………………………………………………...13
- Introduction
- Learn the history of birth and the meaning of photography.
- Find out if the photo reflects reality objectively?
- Find out why, after the advent of photography, fine art did not cease to exist?
- Arnheim R. New essays on the psychology of art. - M., 1994, p.132
- Bazin A. What is cinema? - M., 1972. - p.44
- Leontiev A.N. Selected psychological works. - M., 1983. - p. 237
- Lotman Yu., Tsivyan Yu., Dialogue with the screen, - Talin, 1994.- from 19-20.
- http://www.adme.ru/tvorchestvo-fotografy/reshayuschij-moment-546455/
- http://pics2.pokazuha.ru/p442/s/w/7897210hws.jpg
Kurichev Andrey
The educational and research work was written as part of the additional study of contemporary art. The topic is very interesting for this age. The student made an attempt to explore at his level the history of the emergence of such a type of fine art as "photography". A teenager answers questions such as “Does photography reflect reality objectively? Is photography art? And why didn’t fine art cease to exist after the advent of photography? The student presented his project, as well as interesting results of a study of adolescents on this topic, an analysis was made.
The work is easy to read and interesting, the material is structured and presented logically. The student emphasized the relevance of the topic, clearly set the goals and objectives of the study.
The main positive aspects of the work are:
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Municipal budgetary educational institution
secondary school No. 10, Pavlovo
Department - Humanitarian
Section - art criticism
Work done:
Kurichev Andrey, 15 years old
student 9 "B" class
Scientific adviser: Shitova Olga Konstantinovna,
Teacher of world art culture
Pavlovo
February 2015
"Is photography an art?"
Nowadays, everything exists for the sake of
to end with a photo.
Photography mummifies time.
Henri Bazin
I think that unlike traditional arts photo has practical applications. It is useful in many areas of human life: in science, in the educational process, in forensics (photography of crime scenes, evidence left behind, etc.), in the advertising business, in identity cards, in design, etc. And if so, thenis photography an art?
Target:
Find out if photography is an art form?
Tasks:
My hypothesis:
Photography is a broader concept than photographic art: not everything that is shot on a camera (as well as a movie camera) will be art.
Research methods
2. Main body
2.1. The birth and meaning of photography
The word "photography" is translated from Greek as "light painting". Light is the main element of image creation in photography. The origins of the photography technique lie in an optical phenomenon known since antiquity: if a beam of light enters a small hole in a camera obscura (lat. "dark room"), then an inverted image of illuminated objects under the camera will appear on the opposite wall.
The first person to capture a real image was Nicéphore Niépce. It happened in the 20s of the 19th century. A few years after the experiments. It happened in the 20s of the 19th century. A few years after Niepce's experiments, Louis Jacques Daguerre obtained a photographic image by using a thin copper plate covered with a layer of silver in a cassette. These plates are called daguerreotypes. In 1839, the French Academy of Sciences recognized the merits of Daguerre and made the discovery of the French scientist the property of mankind.
1839 is the official year of the birth of photography.
Daguerreotypes were single copies, that is, it was impossible to make copies of them, and photography, as you know, breaks down into two operations - obtaining a negative and making a positive. The technique for making a negative was discovered by Fox Tabol in 1840.
Since then, a lot has changed: film appeared, technologies for making color photographs were developed, and not so long ago, digital printing appeared, based on electronic technology that converts an optical image into an electrical signal.
The birth of photography cannot be explained only by the development of technology.
The 30-40s of the 19th century mark the birth of such a trend in art as critical realism. One of the postulates of realism can be formulated as follows: any human principle is absolute. The fact that each person has his own photograph (even if only in a passport) proves that each of us is equal to each other in fact of life. Photography affirms our involvement in life and eternity.
In the works of realism, human life is considered in a historical context (the hero is always given in relation to the era).
Attention to everyday life, details - all this characterizes both a realistic work and photography.
Photography is the keeper of the past: we study historical epochs, family life, and so on. by photographs. R. Arnheim formulated the generic properties of photography as follows: “Inextricably linked with the physical nature of the landscape and human settlements, with animals and humans, with our exploits, suffering and joys, photography is endowed with the privilege of helping a person to study himself. Expand and preserve your experience, exchange vital messages ... ”(Arnheim R. New essays on the psychology of art. - M., 1994, p. 132).
2.2. Does photography reflect reality objectively?
By studying different sources, I learned that scientists assess the realistic potential of photography in different ways. For example, the French scientist A. Bazin argued that the photographic image of an object "is this object itself." Photography, according to the researcher, is objective, since “there is nothing between an object and its image, except for another object ... All arts are based on the presence of a person, and only in photography can we enjoy his absence. Photography affects us as a “natural” phenomenon, like a flower or a snow crystal ... ”(Bazen A. What is cinema? - M., 1972. - p. 44). The aesthetic possibilities of photography lie in the disclosure of the real, which appears directly without verbal and other artificial mediators. The camera lens “liberates the subject from habitual ideas and prejudices”, and the cinema “appears before us as the completion of photographic objectivity in the temporal dimension… For the first time, the image of things also becomes an image of their existence in time…” (Bazin A., p. 45).
There is also an opposite point of view. “We all know,” writes Yu.M. Lotman, - how dissimilar, how distorting photographs can be. The closer we know a person, the more dissimilarities we find in photographs. For every person whose face we really know, we will prefer a portrait of a good artist to a photograph of equal skill. In it we will find more similarities. But if we are given a portrait and a photograph of a person unknown to us and are asked to choose more reliable ones, we will not hesitate to stop at a photograph, such is the charm of the “documentary” nature of this type of text ”(Lotman Yu.M. On Art. - St. Petersburg, 2000. - p. 297).
Conclusions: This survey makes us understand that the majority (66.7%) believe that photography reflects reality objectively, and the rest
(33.3%) do not think so.
2.3. Is photography art? And why didn’t fine art cease to exist after the advent of photography?
Many of the pictures are passing, everyday, more precisely, inexpressive, non-artistic, that is, they are a simple “copy of reality”. Of course, in our home (quite everyday) photographs, the object of the image will be most interesting to us: ourselves, our relatives, loved ones, friends, etc. Will these photos be art? For us - without a doubt: how many emotions, memories they evoke. And for other people, strangers to us, will the object depicted in our photo be interesting? It's more difficult here.
What conditions are necessary for a "copy taken from reality" to become art? Apparently, the same as for all other arts. “Art ... is the only activity that meets the task of discovering, expressing and communicating the personal meaning of activity, reality” (Leontiev A.N. Selected psychological works. - M., 1983. - p. 237).
Such outstanding masters of the 20th century as A. Rengener-Patch, A. Cartier-Bresson, A. Rodchenko, L. Maholi-Nagy, Mann Ray and others made photography an art.
I did an experiment with my friend:placed two photographs in front of him.
When looking at them, my friend, relying on his intuitive sense, identified one as "artistic" and the other as "non-artistic." To my question: “Why did he conclude this?” - followed by a somewhat vague answer: “Well, it’s clear, it’s just the view that was in front of the camera, but here something is added, some kind of mood, the photographer wanted to express something, to say from himself, to convey, you see, what a feeling…”
I tried to express these thoughts in a more specific way.
In the production of non-artistic photography, two participants were named friend: landscape and camera; in the production of artistic photography, he named three participants: landscape, apparatus, photographer.
In the first case, the photograph automatically captured what fell into the field of view of the lens, in the second, something was added to the real landscape.
In fact, here are those signs that are usually called highlighting the distinctive features of art: the presence of the author's subjectivity, ... the introduction of thoughts into the depicted object, the reconstruction of the object in connection with the general understanding of the world by the artist. That is, “having become a fact of art, the material world becomes humanized and spiritualized, receives meaning” (Lotman Yu., Tsivyan Yu., Dialogue with the screen, - Talin, 1994. - p. 19-20.)
When photographing, we intervene in the surrounding mi, we “cut out” from it a “piece” of reality that we somehow liked, or simply needed, or coincided with some kind of our experience, expressed some thought.
Of course, photography as an art has its own means of expression. When we look at a photograph, we pay attention not only to the plot, but also to the plan, angle, composition of the frame, light, color. Creatively using them, using this or that optics, black and white or color film, and now also the huge capabilities of the computer, we can interpret the objects of the world in our own way, create complex artistic images. However, knowledge of the arsenal of expressive means does not guarantee a high-quality artistic image. As in any art, here you need a special flair, inspiration and taste.
First Poll: Why didn't fine art cease to exist after the advent of photography?
Conclusions: Based on this survey, I can conclude that 84% of those surveyed believe that photography has become one of the fine arts, and 16 percent believe that photography is much younger than fine art and will probably replace it in the future.
Conclusions: 32 percent of respondents believe that in order to become a good photographer you need to have the most modern and high-quality equipment, and 64 percent still believe that the main thing is not technology, but who uses it.
Conclusions: This question remains controversial for me as well. The number of supporters and opponents of the use of Photoshop in photography was divided into two identical camps, and this question will remain unanswered for us.
Conclusions: Based on this survey, we can judge that 80% of respondents believe that photography is art, 4% answered in the negative, and 16% do not know the answer to this question. What do you think?
Conclusion
My hypothesis was confirmed - photography is not always art.
Everyone who loves photography, admires the masterpieces of professionals, creates high-quality, unique works himself and at the same time does not set himself the goal of selling his creation - for this the answer is obvious: photography is art!!! And for those who simply take pictures for themselves, for memory, photography is simply a benefit to life, a necessary condition.
Well, I think that the question of whether photography is art or not is perhaps as difficult to answer as the question of the meaning of our existence. Some people think that if you like a photo and wish you didn't take it, then it's art. But, in my opinion, not everything that you like is art, and vice versa, art should not always be liked. After all, beauty and ugliness, good and evil - these things are inseparable, so they should equally fill art. If we see only beauty, we will not perceive it. Evil and ugliness are as necessary as oxygen to our lungs. People who dream of absolute happiness are rather wrong, they do not understand that if there were no war, there would be no peace, that they would not know about happiness not a gram, if they did not experience grief. Life itself would be boring, would lose all meaning. It is much more interesting to live in a world filled with opposites that make a person's life the most intense and diverse.
Literature
Many novice photographers want to quickly learn how to photograph professionally.
Today, thanks to the development of digital technologies, almost any amateur photographer who has ...
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For advice from professional photographers on portrait photography, see the Portrait Photography Techniques book. A beginner's guide to framing portraits is included...
A photograph can be considered successful, in which the viewer's gaze moves from one object to another, along a trajectory pre-thought out by the author of the photograph. In fact, it is not at all difficult if you know some of the main features of the perception of photography by the viewer...
Have you already mastered the camera and know how to use light correctly when shooting a portrait, are you looking for a suitable background, angle and use the right depth of field? However, no matter how hard you try, the result of photographing usually does not match what you wanted to show in your photos...
Many novice photographers dream of having beautiful background blur in their pictures - bokeh. That's why they buy a SLR camera... But not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance - to create a carically blurred background (bokeh) in your photos, you must fulfill several conditions...
Close-up portrait photography can seem easier than full-length portrait photography. The slender figure of the model and her ability to pose in front of the camera are optional here. However, for a good portrait, it is not enough to photograph the face of a fashion model sitting in front of the camera ...
What should an amateur photographer do if he wants to take a good portrait? Why not buy professional photo-illuminators? Or maybe just rent a professional photo studio? Great results can be achieved with minimal resources. It is quite possible to shoot a studio portrait at home...
When shooting outdoors in natural light, it is often enough to simply see and capture the light and shadow pattern already created by His Majesty Nature. How do you set up the lighting in your photo studio?
How many holiday photos you've taken are still as delightful and exciting a couple of years after the momentous event? Probably not. You might think that it's all about practice - you need to shoot more holidays and you will end up with great shots ... Yes, practice makes perfect, but not in this case ...
Holiday photography of the whole family is not an easy task. Especially if the family is big and the holiday was a success ...
Five simple rules to help you easily get a great portrait of your child...
High-quality professional lenses usually include so-called aspherical and low-dispersion optical elements, which make it possible to obtain a picture that is sharper and more contrast than with conventional lenses. However, even the most expensive professional lenses have...
Often one of the favorite questions of a beginner in photography concerns the zoom factor. Many people think that the larger the zoom, the better - you can get closer to a distant subject! Do you also use the zoom as a spyglass? Meanwhile, in the art of photography, different lenses are used for artistic purposes ...
Whether you're going to be a fashion model or you just want your portrait photos to look beautiful, you'll have to learn how to pose anyway...
Of all the types of wildlife photography, bird photography is perhaps the most exciting and interesting. Birds are one of the most shy creatures in the world and it often takes a lot of patience to get the right shot...
To get a decent macro photo of a dragonfly, butterfly, or even just a flower, you need to put in a lot of effort. And the point here is not in the equipment for macro photography, and not even in the experience of the photographer. You will learn about some secrets of professional macro photographers by studying this article and watching a short video...
How often does a novice photographer think that the skillful use of non-standard exposure can make a picture worthy of admiration from a banal plot? How to get low and high key effect. What is selective focus. How to give a photo a retro effect...
If you want to improve your photos, give them liveliness, dynamism or other effects, you will have to forget about automatic modes and get creative with the choice of exposure parameters: shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Use non-standard exposure settings creatively and add various dynamic effects to your shots...
