Composition

When anthropologists first started to study hunter/gatherer tribes in the Amazon Basin and the South Pacific, they were amazed to learn that the tribal people had to be taught to recognize people (or any other thing for that matter) in a picture. A lot may be inferred from that statement but this much is for certain – our perception is trained to interpret two dimensional media such as photography. And since we are trying to master photography, we have to master our visual perception to truly understand what photography is.

While I write this I am reminded of how I used to go about photographing things when I was first starting out in photography. I would shoot and shoot and shoot until I was sure that I got it right. I would change shutter speed, aperture, lenses, angles, perspective, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And more often than not I would be displeased with the results. When you consider this was back in the days of film, the waste of cellulose acetate has a lot more impact to both pocketbook and environment than the waste of ones and zeros we write to our hard drives these days.

Alessandra Bitelli Quote

Developing a composition is a creative process involving intuition and thinking more than following rules.

My Old Window Collection by Inma Abia

On March 19^th, 2011 I arrived early in Chiclana de la Frontera, Cadiz, Spain to experience the extreme low tides caused by the Supermoon. I don't know if the tide was visibly affected by the moon on that morning or not but I was glad to be there early on that beautiful morning.

Oddly enough, there is an abandoned fishing village there named Sancti Petri which caught my attention. Ignoring the "No Trespassing" signs I started to wander the streets of old, dilapidated houses in various states of decay. As it turned out, I wasn't the only photographer to be visiting this village on that morning.

David duChemin Quote

“Consider this your permission to indulge that inner anarchist. Stop following the path you ought to take; follow instead the one you long to take.”