DESCRIPTION
When looking at a photograph, too often a conversation starts–and, unfortunately, ends–with a statement such as, “I like it.” The logical next question, “Why?”, often goes unasked and unanswered. As photographers, we frequently have difficulty speaking about images because, frankly, we don’t know how to think about them. And if we don’t know how to think about a photograph and its “visual language”– how an image is constructed, how it works, and why it works–then, when we’re behind the camera, are we really making images that best communicate our vision, our original intent? Vision–crucial as it is–is not the ultimate goal of photography; expression is the goal. And to best express ourselves, it is necessary to learn and use the grammar and vocabulary of the visual language. Photographically Speaking is about learning photography’s visual language to better speak to why and how a photograph succeeds, and in turn to consciously use that visual language in the creation of our own photographs, making us stronger photographers who are able to fully express and communicate our vision. By breaking up the visual language into two main components–“elements” make up its vocabulary, and “decisions” are its grammar–David duChemin transforms what has traditionally been esoteric and difficult subject matter into an accessible and practical discussion that photographers can immediately use to improve their craft. Elements are the “words” of the image, what we place within the frame–lines, curves, light, color, contrast. Decisions are the choices we make in assembling those elements to best express and communicate our vision–the use of framing, perspective, point of view, balance, focus, exposure. All content within the frame has meaning, and duChemin establishes that photographers must consciously and deliberately choose the elements that go within their frame and make the decisions about how that frame is constructed and presented. In the second half of the book, duChemin applies this methodology to his own craft, as he explores the visual language in 20 of his own images, discussing how the intentional choices of elements and decisions that went into their creation contribute to their success.
My Summary
Main Ideas, Takeaways & Similarities
Questions
I. What is the problem?
A. How is this problem formulated?
B. Why is this problem important?
C. What is the history of this problem?
D. Which prominent personalities have been interested in this problem?
II. What solutions to the problem are there?
A. What are the conclusions reached?
B. By what argument(s) is the conclusion reached?
C. What facts or assumptions serve as premises?
D. When a prominent personality offers a solution, does he also argue for or against other prominent personalities? Does he raise objections to alternative solutions? Does he consider objections to his own solutions?
III. Evaluation
A. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative formulations to the problem?
B. Has the importance or history of the problem ever been misrepresented?
C. Are the solutions logically related to the premises?
D. Are the facts true? Are the assumptions acceptable? Are the objections answerable?
AI Summary
Highlights
“This book assumes that a significant part of what makes a photograph successful is the communication of some key thought or feeling.” (Location 180)
“Vision isn’t the goal. Expression is the goal. That’s where the visual language comes in.” (Location 205)
Become more mindful of what you want to say and then practice your craft relentlessly so that you have the growing means with which to say those things, and you’ll be working in that beautiful space where vision and craft (Location 274)
collide and, in that mash-up, create expression: art. (Location 275)
Because of this fundamental assumption on the part of the reader, every element implies something. Every decision we make that forms the image, whether in-camera or in the darkroom, implies something. Any meaning that comes from our photographs comes because we allowed it to be there. (Location 318)
Meaning in a photograph, at least where we have anything to do with it, comes at the place where Subject, Subject Matter, and Composition overlap. I think of them as Message, Elements, and Decisions, (Location 333)
Composition is the way in which the story is told. It’s in the structure. The words are chosen, arranged, and rearranged in such a way that the story is true to the author’s desire to express himself in his own way, in a way that he feels is clearest to the reader. (Location 358)
It is composition that makes a story engaging, creates tension, builds to climax, then resolves. Or it doesn’t. There are plenty of stories out there that have a great subject and clear subject matter but are so poorly composed the story just never makes it off the ground. (Location 360)
The Message is what I want to say, or point at. It’s what I want to show. The Elements are those things I include in or exclude from the frame. The Decisions are the choices I make in arranging those elements in a way that best communicates my message clearly. (Location 366)
Our art is not the creation of things so much as the selection of them (and by that to create a new thing). (Location 377)
“Look at these things. These things are important.” (Location 380)
The role of the photographer is to make choices. The frame forces us to choose. And if you are going to choose, then it’s best that you choose while keeping in mind that the reader will make that primary assumption: that you included everything on purpose, that it means something. (Location 409)
“Perhaps the steepest learning curve in photography is learning to see as the camera sees.” (Location 422)
The moment photographers understand that the camera sees profoundly differently than we do is a crucial moment. It’s the moment an individual with a camera becomes a photographer. (Location 428)
the camera is an idiot. (Location 433)
What am I trying to express? What’s my vision or intent for this image? • Who is my intended audience and how will they read this photograph? • What elements can I include, what elements must I exclude, and what decisions can I make to both express my vision and communicate it in a way that elicits a response from my audience? (Location 528)
What is important is the ability to 1) recognize lines separate from the shapes they create and 2) identify the way they move the eye around the frame, and therefore change the reader’s experience. (Location 848)
Diagonal lines lend energy to an image. Placed at an angle through the frame, they pull the eye down and across the frame toward the bottom. Because we read from left to right, the diagonal from top left to bottom right is the most powerful diagonal, and is often called the primary diagonal. (Location 876)
The golden spiral, or shell, is based on the same ratio; it’s an asymmetric spiral that starts with a slow, elegant arc and spirals tighter and tighter into itself according to the golden ratio, also called phi or Fibonacci’s ratio. In the illustration of the spiral here, a series of squares has been laid on top of the spiral to make the ratios clearer. Each of these squares is roughly 0.618 the size of the next largest square. (Location 1533)
There is a real danger in being seduced by our subject matter, allowing what we feel about the scene before us to so distract us that we forget that photography is first about the frame. (Location 2468)