Psychology of Composition

I'm a large format photographer, looking to improve. Aren't we all? In

that vein, I was thinking about composition the other day, and had an

idea (rare, but happens). When I went out researching my idea, I found

nothing. Nothing to support me, and nothing to discourage me. Just

nothing.

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This group seems to be fairly diverse, thoughtful, and intelligent.

Maybe one or more of you can point me in the right direction.

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What I'm looking for is references (books, journal papers, web sites,

etc.) that cover artistic composition in <b>an objective

way.</b> This is what I mean: I want the author(s) to determine

what images over the years (painting, watercolor, photography,

whatever as long as it's 2D) <b>the public</b> has really liked. Not

the critics, not academia. The public. Then, try to identify the

common threads in the images. Then, try to determine what it is about

these common threads that makes people like them.

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In other words, I want to learn more about the psychology of artistic

composition.

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What I don't want (and neither should you) is yet another list of

everyone's favorite photographic composition books, or people telling

me that I don't want a book, what I want is to just take more pictures

and develop my own style. All of this has been covered, and very well,

in other threads.

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So... anyone have any references to objective studies of artistic

composition, or the psychology thereof?

Are you talking about the 'buying public', the publishers & printing folks who market to the buying public, those who might buy a print every now & then because it matches their hideous couch or wallpaper, or the great unwashed who never buy prints and are most likely so dumb they buy a new wallet because the picture in the clear pocket looks better than their own kids?

The only people who would undertake such astudy would be academics. people like to see people, preferably people they recognize or identify with or places they recognize (even if they haven't eveer been there) or things things they recognize. They like them presented in a way they recognize. This reaffirms their sense of identity, which is after all, their sense of the their place isn the world's order.<P> Adult and post pubescent heterosexual males like to look at naked women. Sunsets are always pretty. So are kittens and most babies.<P>So here is my suggestion: stick to photographing mirrors and kittens.<P>You should applyingthe golden mean to your compositions sometime: draw it on your groundglass as a compositional guideline to follow . Also look for triangles. Also take a good hard look at Norman Rockwell's compositions they are astonishly well thought out and he designed his compositions to evoke a sense of stability and tranquility in the viewer.

Hogarth:

 

There is a book titled "Drawing On The Left Side Of The Brain"(as near as I can remember)that may just be what you are looking for.

 

Good luck,

 

Barry.

Dan: I guess I'm thinking about the buying public - people who like something enough to act on it.

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Ellis: Kittens? With large format? You must be quicker than I!

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Seriously, I'm not asking <b>what</b> looks good, I'm asking <b>why</b> it looks good. And I'm not looking for opinions, I'm looking for an objective study.

What you want is to search PsycINFO, which indexes scholarly books and articles in psychology from 1872 to date, available at your favorite academic or research library. It's a proprietary resource, so you can access it via the web if you have a university affiliation or you can use it in a college or public research library on the premises.

One book I came across is titled "Elements of Architectural Form" by Rudolph Arnheim. Aimed at students of architecture, Arnheim describes how shapes, complexity, arrangement, et al stimulate our minds. It is an easy step from architecture to photographic composition. Too bad I lost my copy. Andy

B.D.: This is the one you referenced, right? "The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"

 

Amazon.com has a lot of good reviews on it.

Not a study in the academic sense, but one in the 12 million dollars worth of pictures sold sense

 

Anne Geddes

 

(check the archive for heated threads on her)

 

LF Sinar shots that sell - well, better than hotcakes - to the people who buy images. Books, prints and cards to the then of $12 million and climbing.

"I'm not looking for opinions. I'm looking for an objective study:" Like a set of rules, which - when adhered to - will all the people make like the picture? Good goodness!

I think that part of that answer lies in the line between literal and symbolic meaning. That is why some of the images evoke a response in the viewer and others do not.

 

I don't have any objective studies, insofar as photography, that come to mind. However, I might suggest reading "Man and his Symbols" by Dr. Karl Jung. He also addresses the symbolic when he wrote about dream interpertation. Both of these take some fortitude to wade through.

 

It seems that when I pay attention to images that move me, both initially and also ongoingly, there are some symbols that remain constant. Among those are footbridges, streams, doorways, windows, paths, natural pools of water, photographs of people that have apparently been worn down by life. Also anything that would carry the meaning of the ongoing cycle of life (death and rebirth).

 

I have spent time in reflecting on these and have come up with the assessment, for myself, that these are symbolic of a deeper meaning. I don't think that I am unique in the effect that I feel. Perhaps others haven't reflected on it yet. Also I am sure, that there are other participants that have other symbols of which I am not yet aware. It would be nice to hear of them.

 

When I reflect on the abstract images of Brett Weston and Edward Weston, though, what I sense is a sense of mystery. That there is something greater then the object which is being portrayed. If I had this ability, I wouldn't be writing on a photo site.

 

However in regards to evocative people images I think it is because there is an identification, at some primal level, with the subject in the image.

 

Obviously, I do not have this all figured out yet...for that matter, I probably never will. I hope this is some of what you are looking for. Good luck.

 

Regards,

 

Donald Miller

There are clues out there abundant regarding what people want to see. A small aside first: The great unwashed used to buy prints in vast numbers. Yes most of them were prints of paintings but most of those paintings were by photo realists.

 

If we look at what is selling by landscape photographers it looks to me like it's the images that look like old prints of photo-realist paintings. Maxfield Parish. It seemed like he sold more prints than all other painters combined and they are still selling.

 

We all laugh at the guy but look whos cleaning up with the same sort of paintings today. Thomas Kincaid (sp?) As trite as the man's work is ... anyone of us would be proud of a photo of our own if we could get one to look that rich and warm and cheery or even moody.

 

People like paintings that make them feel warm a fuzzy or even scary and dramatic. Now if you want to please the disciples of St Ansel thats another matter and a very tiny market indeed. However most people have never really seen an Ansel Adams original contact print. They have only seen them in books and have no idea what the real thing looks like.

 

I believe if the general public could see a B&W with the tonal range and the luminence of an AA but be able to purchase it for around $100 there would be millions of such prints hanging on walls.

 

And that leads me to one more point. The reason there is not more good photographic work being sold is, just in my humble opinion, is that it is too expensive. Not that artists should sell their work for less but perhaps if the technology one day allows for great prints to be made at substantially less cost we will see a resurgence of buying.

 

It would be interesting to see a comparison of costs in inflation adjusted dollars of what it once cost to make a good contact platinum and the present day cost AND compare that to the same size color print in the best archival print method and paper.

 

Finally, the public will never buy by reputation or fame. I just saw the Steiglitz collection in Houston. Because I know how early the man was doing his work it is indeed impressive. But just speaking of the emotional pleasure his images invoke ... not much. I did not see even one image that compared to what AA achieved. (and Georgia was just not that great to look at)

This is interesting. I'm going to do some more study using some of your suggestions.

 

Just to clarify. I'm not looking for "the rules" really. Take the infamous "rule of thirds" for example. I know the rule of thirds exists, and I know that it works - people like images that divide that way. Hell, even I like images that divide that way. What I want to know is, why? What is it about dividing an image into thirds that people like? Why not half, or quarters, or fifths?

"Perception and Imaging", Richard Zakia, Focal Press, 1997, ISBN 0-240-80201-2. Deals with the psychology behind visual perception. From his preface, "This book is an attempt to share with you, the imager, regardless of the technology you use, what I have over many years gleaned from a historical and contemporary parade of others having a like concern. The technology will continue to change, but the process of visual perception will remain essentially the same."

You are looking to improve as a photographer, so you want to know why the public buys certain images? Good grief. That sounds like a sure pathway to mediocrity.

 

The last word on this sort of "survey" is Komar & Melamid's art project where they survey the public and then create a painting based on the responses to the survey. For example, the American public's favorite size for a painting is "the size of a dishwasher." The favorite subject is landscape, the favorie color is blue, they like paintings with water in them, etc. The percentage of favorable responses equals the percentage of space that that element takes up in the final painting. Check it out, really hilarious:

 

http://www.diacenter.org/km/

"Check it out, really hilarious:

 

http://www.diacenter.org/km/"

 

that's brilliant - but what's with those Dutch...?

What you ask is easily answered on your TV. Turn on the HSN channel, and watch the Thomas Kincade prints move out like donuts at the Policeman's Ball.

also Ways of Seeing (and several other essays Another Way of Telling etc)) by John Berger

While not relevant to the art buying public there was a TV documentary recently about the photos of the greatest impact or something. It struck me while watching that show that none of the photos was technically or artisitcally superior. They had an impact because of the emotion and their place in time.

 

I think much the same can be said of photography or other forms of art. It is the emotion, impact, sense of timeliness or timelessness, not adherence to rules. I don't think that if you selected a half dozen of the world's greatest paintings you would find that many of them followed the 'rules' set out in art class 101.

 

If great art was simply following the rules we would program a computer to bring all the rules to bear on any given subject matter and we would have great art. That's not the way it happens.

Interesting thread you started, Hogarth. Regarding a comment Donald Miller made earlier about how he views a Weston, Zakia makes a parallel observation in Perception and Imaging. "What the tree or rock may signify, the associative meaning, the connotation, is what makes a photograph a good or great photograph, a memorable one. Edward Weston´s photograph of a rock cluster, ´Eroded Rock No. 51, 1930´ is more than a literal eroded rock, and the association one can make is one of the things that makes it a great photograph -- it is a visual metaphor, a poetic statement .... in Weston´s own words ... the aim is ´to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.´"

I firmly believe that the reason photography as art has slipped or is not perceived by the public as being as valuable as a painted picture ... is because we as photographers have failed to market it.

 

We should all get together and kick in fifty bucks apiece and form an association like the Milk Council or whatever they call themselves. The public is absolutely drowning in cheap images. They can't even see a good image for all the crap their minds are stuffed with. We as photographers could do something about this.

 

I think we are on the verge of a great renaissance in photography. People have forgotten how moving real photography can be because they have by and larg stopped looking. We need to open their eyes and I think good marketing is the way to do it.

Hogarth,

 

I have been investigating the same thing myself. Here are some tips for what it's worth.

 

1. Find an art teacher and steal his/her books. I first thought of enrolling in an art course but don't want to spend a heap of time learning about history, just form & composition. A friend of my wife is an art teacher and she is going to dig through her collection of books and find some on line and form and composition.

 

2. Some photography books. I can recommend Ansell's Making of 40 Photographs which give some insight into what he thought when taking the shots. Also, Galen Rowell's inner game of Outdoor photography has some good essay's on colour psychology which I found good. I also found Freeman Patterson's Photography and the art of seeing wuite good in clearing ones brain to see the composition

 

3. Look at photos. This site is good for that. Also some magazines depending on what area you are interested in. There is a US mag B&W aimed at collectors and galleries that I quite like as it has many examples of all cross sections of black and white photograpy.

 

4. Burn film (or bits). Go out and shoot. Print something show people. I once did a landscape workshop with a photographer in Australia (Philip Quirk http://www.wildlight.net/ ) who gave a piece of advice that I have been using ever since. Make a print and live with it. If in colour get a nice custom print and put it up somewhere (study, loungeroom) and live with it for a few weeks. That way you'll get to know what you think works and doesn't work. Also, the best critics (friends coming over for coffee, neigbours borrowing sugar) will comment as well. I find these people more useful in terms of critic than camera club judges.

 

Hope this helps - when I get the art books I'll try to remember to post the names.

 

Andrew

nm

Not a photo book of any sort, but rather a big fat book of design work, <i>The Art of Looking Sideways</i> by Alan Fletcher is a fantastic book. A self-professed "primer in visual intelligence," it's got 500+ pages of all kinds of design work. It really makes you think about the how and why of design and graphic applications, and it translates directly to photography. In fact, this book or otherwise, I think one of the best ways to learn more about the psychological aspects of composition is to go look at design, paintings, drawings, sculpture, architecture, etc. As much as you can possibly take in. Anything to fuel active thought and interest in any visual or physical medium is a plus, I think. The more you think, the better you understand, the more it all makes sense.

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I don't know how much truly objective material there is out there regarding the pshychological and philosophical background to composition, which I think is all the more reason to just go out and take in as much as you can. Even if you were to find something objective in presentation and theory, as a human you're subject to projecting your own thoughts onto whatever you're reading, and thus disappears objectivity.

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Nevertheless, I think it's something that's terribly fascinating and which I think a lot of people don't necessarily pay enough attention to. There is such a thing as visual intelligence, and properly applied it can have very interesting effects in photography.

Frankly hogarth, I have always approached taking pictures just the opposite. Something excites me visually, so I get out a camera and try to compose some of the image into a rectangle that captures also some of the visual stimulation of the scene. There is usually some kind of pattern that attracts my eye/brain. Composition is instinct, not rules, to me. If I can get some of that initial visual stimulation into a finished print, I am happy. For me the biggest problem is finding time to get to the scenes that attract my eye/brain, because they are all around. What others think is irrelevant. More often than not, someone with an artistic bent will enjoy my images as well. Doing research on what others like is counterintuitive to me. Instead, find out what stimulates your eye/brain and work hard to capture this into a photo. At least it will be original. Others may like it as well.