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Elements of Photography

In 1193 words. Or less.

 

The Photograph

 

Everybody loves a good photograph. Rarely does one hear comments about an Ansel Adams photo along the vein of “oh, that’s crap.” Instead, they’ll range somewhere between “beautiful” and “brilliant.”

 

Not everyone likes to take photographs, although pictures have been important to cultures since the first seeds of communication were planted. Consider the cave paintings by the big-browed boys at Lascaux, when Og first laid charcoal to wall in a simple attempt to depict his early man pal Mog trying to bring down a critter who likely didn’t want to be dinner that night. One can hear it now – “D’oh! Og ud Mog doo gad!” (Desmond Morris translation – “No fair! Og make Mog look fat!”) Imagine the mutual clubbing ensuing with that particular opinion session.

 

There’s something key to capturing a good photo, and it’s called Kahm-poh-zee-see-ohn. It likely has to do with conjuring the spirits of not only Og and Mog but Jean-Claude Berger and Bernard Bischoff. And it must be pronounced as it is spelled phonetically here for the reader otherwise the conjuring spell will not be complete. Said Kahm-poh-zee-see-ohn requires location scouting, a patient model, and The Sweet Light among other simple truths. There are rules of thumb incorporating everything from golden mean, golden section, golden spiral, golden ratio, and framing to rule of thirds, leading lines, point of gravity, and a lot of ay-yay-yay and hair-pulling. In the end, as Adams said, “there are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” M’kay...

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