rules of photography — Journal — Tristan Parker Photography

Composition vs Content

I have been thinking a lot lately about compositional challenges for myself as an artist. This has been in a large part driven by the fascination that I have with some of the work by Sigfried Hansen. Its also something that I have been developing in some conversations that I have been having with a friend that I recently met in Melbourne who is also a photographer. Its amazing what you are able to learn just through the process of sitting with a like minded person and having a conversation about things like this. I guess the first point for me in entering into this discussion is to outline what composition is, and how for me its very separate from content in many ways. In simple terms the word composition means 'putting together'. In this simple description there is a rabbit hole of information that can be unearthed, The thing with composition and any visual art form is that there is not only the 'putting together' of elements within the image. It snot just about these magical things that occur within a frame to make an image.

The Rules of Photography Applied to the Street

As street photographers I think we all like to think that we are working in a medium that many of us would consider art. It may be that some people are doing it for different reasons. They could be only interested in documenting the area that they live in. It could be a social thing that they do with a group. It could be that they are a hipster and just like the look of carrying an old camera with them, and they feel that every now and then they should use the bloody thing... Who knows....But by in large, I think that a majority of the people out there are driven to document their world around them from an artistic perspective. They reference the great Cartier-Bresson, Winogrand, Erwitt, and Maier. These greats of the genre would likely not have considered themselves artists at the time that they were working, but they have grown to become considered greats in the art of photography.

Is There a Direct Correlation Between Focal Length and Confidence in the Street?

There are a heap of posts on the net discussing what the optimal focal length is for street work. There is a mass of other discussion around the use of prime vs zoom lenses. I fall squarely on the Prime side of this fence due to the fact that you should be able to see what your lens sees, and this requires the use of a standard and fixed focal length to enable you to get used to how this will look when searching out images.