Bruce Barnbaum - The Art of Photography - An Approach to Personal Expression

Some photographers tend to build their compositions out of an array of forms (or shapes, if you prefer that term), somewhat like a mosaic or a jigsaw puzzle. Jay Dusard tends to organize his image space in this manner. Dusard often uses small forms pieced together in a complex and intricate manner. Other photographers may use larger puzzle pieces. I often find it difficult to build with forms, so my prints generally have strong lines dominating the composition, though there are exceptions.

All photographs have both lines and forms in them (the edge of anything is a line, and the thing itself is a form), but some photographs are clearly dominated by lines while others are dominated by forms (Figure 3-8). From these clear distinctions they tend to grade into one another. Is one type inherently stronger than the other? The answer is surely a matter of opinion. I feel that line-dominated images are more assertive than form-dominated images; a line is a dynamic visual attractant, forcing the eye to move along it, while a form causes the eye to stop while studying it. Line-dominated images have greater flow and motion to them. Furthermore, it strikes me that form-dominated images move the eye about in jumps, forcing it to hop from form to form and piece the image together afterwards, whereas line-dominated images move the eye about in smoother, faster sweeps. I have no scientific evidence to prove these observations, but they seem correct to my way of seeing and thinking. Your feelings about my observations may indicate an inclination on your part to one type of composition or the other.

Line, Form, Contrast, and Emotion

Before continuing with the other elements of composition, let’s pause for a moment to consider the ramifications of lines, forms, and contrasts on the emotional content of an image. This is of the utmost importance because even the most technically perfect print is meaningless without emotion.

First, imagine two photographs in which the first is dominated by strong whites and deep, rich blacks while the second is characterized by middle gray tonalities. The first photograph will be more active. It will jump out at you. The second will be quieter, more muted, and more passive in feel.

Next, imagine two photographs in which the first is filled with jagged lines and hard-edged forms while the second has curved lines and softly interacting forms. The first photograph of this pair will immediately grab your eye, while the second will have a quieter, more passive mood.

Now, let’s combine these qualities to explore the extremes. A photograph with jagged lines, hard-edged forms, and strong blacks and whites will have a raucous, wild, frenetic feel, perhaps even a sense of being out of control. One with curved lines and softly interacting gray tonalities will be relaxing, quiet, and perhaps run the risk of being boring.

This tells us that jagged lines are far more active than curved lines, which themselves are more relaxed. High contrast is far more active than low contrast. Middle gray tonalities impart the quietest, most relaxed mood of all. So jagged, sharp lines or even tightly curving, twisted lines combined with high contrast will be intensely active and highly charged. Gently curved lines along with softly modulating tonalities will impart a quiet, relaxed mood.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of these tonal and line issues because they form the basis of a universal language understood by people worldwide. It doesn’t matter if you’re from Manhattan, France, Botswana, Russia, the Australian outback, China, or Brazil—you’ll read these combinations of line, form, and contrast the same way. It is, in fact, the only universal language on earth, which adds immeasurably to its power and communicative ability.

Any thinking photographer will use this universal language to his or her advantage. If you want a quiet, reverential mood, you’ll do well to work with curved lines, rounded forms, and subdued contrast. For example, if you want to convey the warm, soft qualities of a person in a portrait, diffused indoor or outdoor light would serve your purpose. But if you want to convey harsher qualities, spotlighting or strong sunlight—highlighting every wrinkle and crag—would be the lighting of choice. Soft light, gray tones, and pastel colors on rounded hills impart the feeling of a gentle, pleasant, livable landscape, whereas strong sidelight on sharp, craggy rock spires imparts excitement and adventure, perhaps even a feeling of foreboding.

Years ago a student at a workshop presented images made at a Japanese Buddhist monastery. I asked him what mood or feelings he had while at the monastery. He said, “Bruce, it was the most peaceful place I’ve ever been.” Though his compositions were beautiful, I focused on the harsh, high contrast tonalities he employed in his printing. They negated the peaceful mood. We discussed this at length, prompting him to say, “Nobody ever talked about this previously.” He agreed that the high contrast detracted significantly, and that he simply needed to reprint the negatives at a lower contrast level to successfully convey the mood that the monastery evoked.

My experience with students over the years is that there is a tendency—in fact, an overwhelming pull—to drift toward high contrast. The reason seems to be a desire to produce a “rich” print, an exciting print, an eye-catching print, a dramatic print. But maybe what you really want is a quiet, contemplative mood, one that makes the viewer sit down and think rather than jump up and shout. High contrast fights that mood; sharp-edged forms fight that mood.

You’ll do better to create a mood rather than to produce blacks and whites simply for the sake of showing the world that you can produce blacks and whites.

Pattern

Repeated use of lines or forms is the start of pattern. The vertical trunks of a grove of aspen trees may set up a visual pattern, while the horizontal lines of their shadows set up a second pattern in counterpoint to the first. A photograph of this group of trees and shadows is a good example of a photograph that is held together by a “unified thought” rather than a center of interest. The viewer’s eye is not drawn to any one tree (or its shadow) but to the pattern of trees. If one of those trees were removed, the pattern would still exist. In essence, nothing would have changed. Variations in both the vertical and horizontal lines—verticals due to separations between trees as well as their distance from the camera, and horizontals due to irregularities of shadows on the ground—would add further interest to the image.

This is but one example; there are an infinite number of others. Many of my studies of English cathedrals feature a seemingly infinite array of columns and arches from the immediate foreground to the distant background, which set up a pattern of forms and textures that allows the viewer to translate qualities, such as texture, from the closest columns to those in the distance (Figure 3-1). The tonal variations in the columns, arches, and shadows set up an interesting interplay within the patterns. Figure 3-9 shows an example of a pattern in nature, not one created by man.

Such variation is the key to interest in the pattern. Repetition can be strong to a point, but then it can rapidly degenerate into tedium. Studio still lifes offer great opportunities to create wonderful patterns and variations because the photographer can arrange things precisely as he desires. Landscapes tend to be a bit more arbitrary; you cannot rearrange things, but you can use camera placement and lens focal length effectively to organize the scene into a pleasing pattern.

William Garnett, the noted aerial photographer, once found an ideal situation that lent itself to monotony of pattern as “the strongest way of seeing”. He made a series of aerial photographs of a sprawling housing tract near Los Angeles before, during, and after construction. The photographs are blatantly monotonous, perhaps as much as the housing tract itself, which looks like something out of an old Monopoly game. The monotony is the strength of the photographs because it so perfectly captures the utter dullness of mid-twentieth century suburbia. The fourth photograph that completes the series includes not only the tract in question, but also the entire urban sprawl of Los Angeles as seen from a point southeast of the city. The sameness seems to spread without end. It is magnificently dull!