I have seen high dynamic range (HDR) devotees photograph the equivalent of an asphalt road and turn it into a rainbow, claiming, “The colors were actually there!” Yeah, right! Too often the wrong set of colors and/or lines detracts from the appropriate mood of the image. It makes me think that the current fad in color photography (particularly in digital imagery) is based on the idea that every color photograph must indeed have a primary red, a primary yellow, and a primary blue, with all the other colors in between! We seem to have lost all sense of subtlety in the race for high impact and shock value.
I recommend that you look at books of paintings (and if possible, at the actual paintings in museums) to see their use of colors and relationships. You will see how painters use intensely rich colors to convey different moods. For example, Van Gogh often used primary colors and wildly curved or broken lines to create bold, frenetic effects; yet he also used a far more subdued palette to convey an entirely different mood. Andrew and Jamie Wyeth also used subtle colors, tones, and structures to convey wonderful moods.
So, going back to black-and-white, why would anyone implore you to have a white, a black, and tones in-between for every image? It would be like forcing the same emotion in each image. Such an admonition flies in the face of common sense. It damages the central reasons for creating any work of art: making a statement and eliciting an emotional response.
This understanding separates the top photographers from the also-rans. Photography should not become a mere technical exercise. It’s the feeling that counts, not the technical expertise. I don’t make photographs to solve technical problems. If I did, I would be a “tester”, not a photographer. Sometimes I have to solve technical problems to make successful photographs, and I fully recognize the importance of solving those problems. If you don’t solve technical problems, your message may become so compromised that it’s lost.
All great art conveys emotion. This is true of music, literature, sculpture, painting, and dance as well as photography. The greatest, most time-honored works in any field have tremendous emotional impact; that’s why they’re considered great!
So keep this in mind: The message is the important thing. The mood is the important thing. The technique is merely support for communication between the photographer and the viewer. If your photographs are technical tour-de-forces that say nothing, then you’ve produced little of value. Ansel Adams, forcefully supporting this idea, said, “There’s nothing as useless as a sharp photograph of a fuzzy concept.” A good lens can produce a sharp image but nothing more. It’s the photographer with something to say—not the sharp lens—that produces important photographs. Ignore this myth; make good photographs.
Myth #8: Two More Persistent Myths
There is an inexhaustible supply of petty myths—many under the title “rules of composition”—that make absolutely no sense. This section could go on ad infinitum and ad nauseum. I’ll confine it to two of the most common myths.
The unimaginable symmetry of nature on a grand scale drew me to make this photograph. To accentuate that symmetry, I photographed directly toward the cliffs across the 180-degree turn. To reveal the triangular rock below, which serves as a fulcrum balancing the photograph, I placed the two front tripod legs within an inch of the 700-foot cliff edge. The sun had just set to the left of the frame. The central cliff appears brightened, but it was not touched in the printing; instead, all the cliffs and lower slopes around the bend were dodged continuously during the basic exposure, then selectively bleached to balance the extreme brightness of the central rock, which seemed to be lit from within. The unexplainable lighting makes the scene even more astounding to behold.
Figure 13-14. Horseshoe Bend of the Colorado River
#8-A: The center of interest should be one-third of the way up and one-third of the way into the photograph
The so-called “rule of thirds” stems from a flawed study in the 1850s by a statistics professor who decided to learn what makes great paintings great. He worked with several art critics and art historians who chose the finest 250 paintings. (Consider this: A statistician with no real art background was working with people involved in the arts who had no understanding of statistics. There was a communication disconnect from the start.)
One question was where the center of interest should lie. Realizing that the center of interest could be placed in any one of four quadrants, and that it would end up at the exact center on average, the statistician rotated the center of interest from wherever it was found around the center of the painting to the lower right quadrant. Then he applied his statistical analysis, apparently thinking he had produced a valid analysis. He hadn’t.
Consider the imaginary line that goes from the extreme corner to the center. Obviously there would be as many points above the line as below the line, in roughly equal distances from the line. So the statistical average was certain to be on that line. No center of interest is found in the exact corner of a painting, so there is no contribution from the corner, but there could be contributions from the exact center. In other words, the answer would be along the line and would be weighted toward the center.
Not surprisingly, the statistician found that the average center of interest was two-thirds of the way along the line. His analysis forced that conclusion. In other words, it was a predetermined result! Without his quadrant rotation, the analysis would have yielded the exact center as the best place to locate a center of interest.
Of course, two-thirds of the way up that line is—ta da!—exactly one-third of the way up and one-third of the way into the painting from the corner. The result goes beyond useless because it was a stupid question to begin with. Amazingly, that flawed analysis of a meaningless question is the basis of this baseless compositional rule.
Sometimes you may want to place an object directly in the center of a photograph for stability, strength, balance, symmetry, or any number of other reasons (Figure 13-14). Sometimes you may want a center of interest (if there is one) near the edge or corner, perhaps to create an intentional imbalance or to balance a greater mass nearer the center on the other side (the old teeter-totter balancing act).
The rule of thirds is a cornerstone for much teaching about composition—sinking to its lowest ebb in camera club and professional photographic competitions, where it’s considered the epitome of fine composition. It’s an idea that best belongs in the trashcan.
#8-B: The horizon line should never divide a photograph in half
Why not? There is simply no logical or visual reason for such a silly compositional rule. It may be that dividing the image space in half horizontally (or vertically) creates the strongest possible composition for a specific image. Every image must be approached on its own merits. It makes no sense to rule out a valid compositional approach before you begin composing. Rules, assuming there are any, have to be bent and often broken to help make a point.
Yet there are photographers who purposely move the horizon line above or below center for no apparent reason other than to get away from dividing the space in half. That’s just pure foolishness. Don’t ever be swayed by this senseless rule. Figure 10-17 breaks this silly rule twice: first dividing the top and bottom in half with a horizontal line, then dividing the bottom in half with a vertical line.
These are two absurd rules of composition that are regularly bandied about as meaningful. There are other rules based on things like the “Golden Mean”, made by people who have no idea about the purely mathematical basis of that ratio as the answer to a question posed by Euclid 2,300 years ago. The Golden Mean has no artistic ramifications whatsoever. In fact, none of these purely mathematical considerations have compositional validity.