Gravity of the center

steve_swinehart · July 17, 2013

When was "spontaneous photographic situation?" introduced in regard to the effect of the center in creating compositions in photography? You seem to feel that this is how everyone photographs. Perhaps as photographer you choose very little. Fair enough. And perhaps in your case the subject dictates all. Fair enough. That is your particular choice and not that of all photographers and artists.

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I have never said that all photographic situation are spontaneous. I put that qualifier in my response specifically because there are different types of photographic situations, and each needs to be treated as required. Personal photography can be many things. For me (not you and not anyone else) the most freedom I have is when I look for "found" photographs where nothing is pre-planned and the outcome is what I can find within that situation with the subject at hand.

I used to do a lot of architectural photography. I understand the "tool kit" approach to photography where you have to apply your own personal tool kit of techniques as well as equipment in order to come with the best rendition of the exterior or interior as you owe that to the client. I also understand the fully controlled photograph. To some extent, that is what you are working with in architectural interiors - you try and control every aspect from lighting to set dressing to dulling point reflection on shiny surfaces.

You started a discussion in which you wanted to talk about the center. I'm relating MY personal philosophies and working methods in relation to that subject and attempting to expand the discussion past the simplistic "put the object in the center" - since Arnheim was mentioned and I truly like and use his ideas of multiple centers that relate to each other. Specifically, I am not addressing what you do, what you think or should think, or anyone else.

I recognize not everyone works like I do, and everyone relates to making an image in their own unique way. However, you'll have to pardon me - I thought this was a forum where the free exchange of ideas was part of the reason it was created. Apparently, unless you're quoting someone else's ideas on a subject (which seems to be the popular method of discourse on this forum) - personal methods and ideas are not wanted.

Not at all. The photographer creates a situation of equilibrium or disequilibrium. The image follows upon that, but does not create it.

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And this is where we'll just have to agree to disagree as both of us are correct for our own methods of seeing and working. When I photograph within the method I enjoy most - a found photograph (spontaneous situation), I find that when I'm truly tuned into what I'm seeing - that the subject itself directs me to the final image. I have never said this is how it works for everyone in every situation - as I know that isn't true. But, again, this is a supposed to be a philosophical discussion where supposedly everyone's ideas are welcome.

Really?? Just one? This is deep ... (There are really "points" in time? The river flows "around you"?)

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Well Julie, it's certainly easy to criticize someone else's ideas and philosophies with how they work within photography while discussing none of your own. If you've read Minor White's thoughts on photography and working in the medium, you'll have to acknowledge that I'm a mere nimrod in the mystical method department compared to Minor.

And yes - that's what it feels like for me. There is a concept in physics called the event horizon, and to some extent that is what I find. I can see light, objects, the wind, clouds, birds, jet trails, - essentially all of the details in the entire scene flowing around me as they change in time, and suddenly come together as a singular event. I can see a collision of events for that instant - and then it all goes away as the instant has passed. I've even tried things like wearing amplified headphones to see if enhancing one of my other senses would influence what I see and / or how I perceive things.

I have waited for hours at one location for "something to happen" as I know there is a potential within where I am. Sometimes it happens and other times either I've missed it as I am not attuned well enough to what is going on and never make a photograph. Other times, I get out of the car or am walking somewhere and the whole thing happens so fast that when I'm finished I have to go over it in my head and sometimes write everything down to figure out what just occurred.

It's become more interesting with digital cameras as I can go back afterwards and see if what I think happened actually occurred. I had one situation where I got back into the car and said to my wife, "I'm not sure I made a photograph." The event was so intense that I couldn't remember using the camera.

Do you have any ideas and philosophies of your own that you can share? Or do you prefer to retreat to the paradigm-of-the-day using the "find a quote that fits my idea" method? It's unfortunate the on an alleged philosophy forum that so few people share their own unique thoughts through their own words, and instead feel they need to use things said by others for personal expression.

I think you're off by about ... an infinity.

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Thanks, I appreciate that - at least I'm not trapped where you are. Except I'd really prefer: infinity x infinity - it's far larger...

Julie H · July 17, 2013

Steve, when you're not being confrontational, I enjoy your posts. I understand (and I would bet that most people reading this understand) your description of waiting for "something to happen." But this seems to me to be a retreat from Arthur's question. We have in common the wish to "feel" the "waiting for something" and we have in common that we've learned from reading Arnheim (who, throughout his book, demonstrates his points by "putting the object in the center" or off center, or at the sides, etc. in diagrams).

Thinking the center from a viewer/photographer's bodily point of reference, one might consider a detached point of view and a non-detached view. The latter (not-detached) would be in line with how you [the generic "you," not Steve or anybody else in particular] use vision in order to act (how you "normally" see even when not using a camera). You move, turn your head, focus, center, move, center; are "lead," attracted, oriented (zeroing in, focusing in/out) according to utilitarian motives. Progress is attracted by qualities of use (grasp, sit on, eat, pass through or over). Like landing an airplane, you line up to the runway and set the big bird down just so. Advance, meet. This is how a lot of photography is done. It's for/to a use/purpose and is engaged, involved with the viewer. Good portraiture is often of this kind.

That's a non-detached form of visual engagement.

Detached, on the other hand is is what I think Arnheim, and Arthur, (and you, Steve, maybe), are interested in. It's only detached in the sense that there is a non-utilitarian interest in what you're looking at. The scene, the event, the stuff, the content, is "allowed" to be in its own narration -- like a game (baseball, for example); you have a god's eye view; you are holding a drama of forms in your mind, until the threads of its "players" resolve; composition is visual narrative, etc.

Yet, and/or there are other kinds of visual play beyond detached/non-detached. For example, if, as in my first scenario, you take the active viewer orienting, centering, acting, and yet give him some visual that will not, does not resolve; something that "doesn't make sense", something sexy, dangerous, tantalizing, seductive, that fascinates him/her *because* it does not resolve, that can make a dynamite image *because* it is out of kilter, *because* it doesn't make sense, *because* it has no equilibrium or balance and can't be made to come to rest.

AlanKlein · July 17, 2013

I think Steve has added an interesting dimension to shooting from the middle. I checked his photos and others might be interested in doing so as well to see his point. He shoots from the middle like a portrait and balances from there. It creates a different perspective than you see from others. But the middle shooting is not arbitrary like an snapshot from an unknowing snapshooter. They're balanced in their own way with forethought. I don't usually shoot in the middle unless the subject is "one" like a portrait or the main subject overwhelms the photo and balance is kept by sticking it in the middle. Usually I have enough elements that I try to balance them all so nothing winds up in the geographical center of the frame.

luis_g · July 18, 2013

Steve Swineheart- "All that illustrates is exactly what I've stated - humans seem to have a hard time with the center and your "zillions of photographs" prove that point exactly. Thanks for reinforcing my point."

In your mind this is a contest and you the winner. Congratulations. It's just a photo.net forum, we are expressing opinions, and there can be more than one. As you claimed above, I respectfully agree to disagree.

I checked Steve's pics and don't see anything in his B&W photographs that evidences any unusual treatment of the center.

alan_zinn · July 19, 2013

Swinehart "The photographer recognizes when the image has reached equilibrium within the frame."

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Are photographers intuitively aware that "equilibrium" of composition is desirable in a picture today? A person who has lived with a consistent graphic art formality (perhaps based on concentricity) up until now might have an intuitive awareness they would have to consciously violate. There are those who know they are making a casual record or gesturing for an effect and those who don't. Was a picture done by an outcome aware person? How do we know?

In the multiplicity of photographic outcomes magnified by digital media, where is the aesthetic or historical coherence? Why expect stylistic hints in such a diffuse world? Informed by history or aesthetics we are free to chose now -- take it or leave it. The contemporary aesthetic is an impossible moving target. An intuitive response is not possible.

AlanKlein · July 20, 2013

Next time you watch a movie, see how the cinematographer balances and frames the scenes. Objects are balanced one against the other, subjects lean into the frame not out, harmony and balance is one of the goals in making a more aesthetic presentation. Equilibrium is maintained. Horizons are staight, Verticles are plumb. Tree limbs do not intersect people's heads. Subjects are in focus. Lighting and exposure are in balance. Backgrounds don't conflict with the actor's portrait scenes. It seems that cinematographers practice all the aesthetic elements that make good photos and movies that many photographers scoff at.

I think part of my intuitive response to framing may come from watching movies all my life. Or my brain is attempting to move the objects around in the photo to satisfy my innate aesthetic pleasure spots in my brain. I think we can learn a lot by watching movies that cost millions to produce. They don't mess around. They have a bottom line to worry about. They must be doing something right in their consideration of what the majority of the public likes.

Julie H · July 20, 2013

"They must be doing something right in their consideration of what the majority of the public likes."

... which begs the question ... [and we're right back where we started] Bass ackward.

aplumpton · July 20, 2013

The contemporary aesthetic is an impossible moving target.

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Which probably suggests that it is non-aesthetic, just iterative or punctual or without consideration of the subject or without acquired compositional values. Which may suggest also why there is little approach or intention in clear terms when considering how you would use the center when considering multiple subject matter or any other aspect of composition within a frame. At least that is one of my thoughts in reflecting on how far this thread has progressed on a specific theme to date (not so much philosophically, but from a reasoned and seasoned artistic approach aspects). I am grateful to those who have replied, in the forum or without. Thanks. However, if I am not wrong, the answers give more rise to doing what you feel (what you might do spontaneously) rather than what the photographer thinks about in regard to compositions involving the center or centers of interest and how he or she may use these to advantage. Well, it ain't over till its over, and I would be happy to be surprised.

Julie H · July 20, 2013

Arthur, unlike painting, "what the photographer thinks about" trails what he's offered via the viewfinder. He sees an ephemeral 2D presentations generated from 3D volumes; which, in that particular arrangement, he will never see again. It's not like looking at a proof sheet from which you might take your time, going back and forth to choose one over the others. The choice, through the viewfinder is simply, yes or no? not, this one or that one or that one because you never get to go back in time. There is no way to know which is 'best' because you can't get back what's been passed over and you can't foresee configurations that might be better.

In this, I agree with Steve Murray when he says it "would take too long." Too long as in, it's yes or no and then it's gone, gone, gone.

aplumpton · July 20, 2013

The choice, through the viewfinder is simply, yes or no? not, this one or that one or that one because you never get to go back in time.

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Julie you are right and wrong. Right only in regard to a limited manner of photographing and in only one type of situation that is not that of every photographer - that in which the photographer happens upon a subject and often briefly assesses your yes or no, often without recourse to other interventions.

What you and Steve Murray and some others are very conveniently forgetting are the types of photographic approaches in which the photographer is more the (artistic) creator of the composition, the way in which he or she puts together the various subject elements to create an image. This includes the research of the subject, the study of different ways it can be brought into that two dimensional array, the effect of differing lighting or angling of the subject matter, the purposeful inclusion prior to the exposure of other elements or subtraction of others, the way in which the principal subject is placed in the frame (square or rectangular) and the effect of it and other centers of interest or dominant points in the created image, the balance of masses and contrasts, addition or not of specific color spaces (subject matter) within the frame, and so on, and son on.

There is no way to know which is 'best' because you can't get back what's been passed over and you can't foresee configurations that might be better.

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Again, not true, except perhaps in your very limiting viewpoint. It may apply to your example, but that example is not what I am referring to, either in this OP or in my own personal approach to creative art of which photography is but a tool.

Once an artist makes a brush stroke, or several of these, it is not important that he cannot usually go back or paint over what he has done, what is more important is what mental activity has gone into his creation of a composition. The same is true in artistic photography as well as some other forms/sectors of photography that are intentional and creative even while not claiming to be artistic.

sjmurray · July 21, 2013

Arthur, I think you are correct in describing a situation where the photographer is setting up a studio shot. I've been there. There is time to, as you say:

he or she puts together the various subject elements to create an image. This includes the research of the subject, the study of different ways it can be brought into that two dimensional array, the effect of differing lighting or angling of the subject matter, the purposeful inclusion prior to the exposure of other elements or subtraction of others, the way in which the principal subject is placed in the frame (square or rectangular) and the effect of it and other centers of interest or dominant points in the created image, the balance of masses and contrasts, addition or not of specific color spaces (subject matter) within the frame, and so on, and son on.

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In contrast to this type of photography, I like to shoot in spontaneous situations, where the elements are not something I can arrange, nor the lighting, except my choosing my point of view. I have to look in the viewfinder and quickly decide if the composition and lighting is "good" or not, and if it is, shoot. This is the norm for event photography, or street photography, or just walkabout" photography, in other words shooting "found"situations as one explores the environment. In these situations I have to rely on my unconscious learning and innate sense of composition. It is a matter of "feeling" more than "thinking" in my experience. Things just "look right." Even when I am shooting a landscape with a 4x5 camera, the experience its similar. I do have more time to set up the shot, but the only control I have is with what is included in the frame, what time of day it is and so forth. When you are out in nature, no two days are the same. As Julie says, "you can never go back in time."

I think a lot of photography is the type that I describe here: walking around with a camera and photographing things that are interesting to the photographer. How well this is done depends on awareness of the elements of lighting, composition, etc. When the subjects are people, an additional awareness of emotional expression or emotional "connection" is very important. Much of this cannot be planned.

Norma Desmond · July 21, 2013

I just did some documentary photography and I had lots of time to consider and set up for all kinds of shots, including candid shots. I use a combination of planning and spontaneity most of the time I am shooting, whether on the fly or in more considered situations. It's not necessarily all or nothing for me, though it can be at times. There is much planned shooting that takes place outside a studio. I often see a situation unfolding in my documentary work as well as my street and portrait work and have time to consider things and do a lot of anticipating. Often, I sense I have a good 30 seconds and sometimes several minutes to set and keep changing my perspective and angle, and to adjust my manual settings, knowing that I will get a gesture or expression that will work for what I want, even knowing that I might get two or three shots out of a given unfolding situations to choose from or from which to create a series. I can almost sense it coming. The "feeling" is, in part, an anticipation, not just something that takes place in the quick and fleeting present. So I often know (know, not just feel) what I'm doing. This is how I develop my vision . . . intentionally and thoughtfully while also learning from surprises and spur-of-the-moment decisions. I understand that others in all genres do things differently and have appreciated hearing the various methods explored in this thread. I find there is no one way to shoot in any particular genre and no one way to be spontaneous. I find that consideration doesn't spoil spontaneity and spontaneity can flow out of thoughtfulness and taking a moment or two to consider and even to wait for something worth shooting to occur. Expressions often do get better as I wait and as situations unfold. The best gestures and expressions don't generally take place in the first instant that I look at an unfolding scene.

Julie H · July 21, 2013

Arthur wrote: "What you and Steve Murray and some others are very conveniently forgetting are the types of photographic approaches in which the photographer is more the (artistic) creator of the composition, the way in which he or she puts together the various subject elements to create an image."

LOL

Shall we compare your methods to mine, Arthur? I am a compositor. I plan the placement of items in my composites onto a background. I then light all the added material by hand (in Photoshop). Every item that I use must be (1) collected individually (2) photographed at exactly the same angle, exactly the same distance, in exactly identical (flat) lighting.

I can tell you that, even at the same distance and the same angle and in the same light (I set and mark the tripod when I begin a project, and my lighting set-up is fixed in stone) it is not possible to photograph a sprouted acorn, a little red berry, or a bean sprout twice in the same way. They wobble. Take my word for it. Not possible. Not going to happen. I have done all three of those and many more in the most fixed, stable conditions, and they do not *ever* resume the same position in relation to me and to the camera and to the light.

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[current project: 'Powerlines']

Preplanning: to get the green sprouts in <a href="http://www.unrealnature.com/Equilateral_thumbs.htm">my Equilateral series</a>, I ordered bean seeds, planted them in flats, waited for however long, until they were the exact desired height (which lasted only about a day), then photographed them. When I ran out, I started again. I photograph birds for my bird composites for six months of every year (November to April) from a fixed setup (chair, blind, seed on narrow parallel railing). I average 20,000 (good; I delete heavily in-camera) frames per year. I have never gotten two pictures that looked the same in posture and/or expression never mind type of bird. For the little red berries that I often use, the bush from which I collect them is in decline, so I have recently transplanted suckers from its roots. That's about a four year preplanning for a future supply of red berries.

To get the backgrounds onto which stuff is placed, I have to, again, match angle, scale and lighting exactly across the entire project. This often means crawling around on my stomach to get the horizontal angle to match that of the birds, or else shooting *exactly* straight down (I try to stick to down or sidewise precisely because its incredibly hard to match any other angles across parts).

Everything is chosen; everything is preplanned; everything must match. I can control angle, distance, time of day, type of light. I cannot control, out of the infinite variability of the surface presentation of stuff, what I get in my photographed parts.

I have as much time as I like in Photoshop to find all the centers in all the stuff in this composite. You tell me, where are the centers in each of those nuts (I can and do spin them in Photoshop)? Where are the centers in the combined vectors of the nuts, berries and underlying lichens? Take your time. But know that if you were a straight photographer, not a compositor, you would have no chance in hell of getting those nuts and berries to behave to your "preplanned" preferences. Never mind the light ...

sjmurray · July 21, 2013

Just to respond to Fred, I think we are more similar than different. I too plan a lot before I enter a situation by choosing the lens, iso, observing the lighting, placement of things and people, etc. I do these things so automatically I really don't notice myself consciously doing it after 40 years of practice. I too, watch situations unfold, anticipate, etc. I'm not just a blank slate walking into a situation. Like I said, years and years of practice makes much of the process very automatic, and I can concentrate most on what is unfolding visually all around me.

Norma Desmond · July 21, 2013

Moments, for me, are not isolated, individual or discrete entities, are not small time capsules. I try to be or sometimes just am as in tune with a scene as with moments. I am usually aware of the gestalt of a scene, a narrative, a picture, in addition to the usual photographic concern with "the moment." Expressions and gestures tend to cycle back on themselves. The anticipation of future moments is part of the movement of time more so to me than the isolation of individual moments. There is also time to relate the past few moments to the present and future and to allow myself into the flow of time as much as the succession of individual moment dots.

Planning, for me, is not about which isolated moment to shoot and is not trying to come up with an advance replica of the photo that will result. It's about taking everything in and doing some kind of considering as time is moving along. It's waiting, anticipating, reliving, noticing cycles, and getting all that to read in a photo.

Steve, I never feel like the process is automatic and don't want to feel that way. I respect and embrace both our similarities and differences. Thanks for adding what you added.

aplumpton · July 21, 2013

My approach has little to do with subjects found in studio type photography. Nor is it an automatic process. Julie's compositing is one way of creating compositions, but only one way, and I expect that she also would not be concerned with an automatic approach, as her compositions appear to me to be too methodical for that.

I am privileged to find subject matter with which I have some empathy and understanding. Whether the subject be animate or inanimate, I enter into a relationship with it. Photographic and lighting controls I am well aware of and master reasonably well in differing situations after several years of study and practice. They become simply tools (creative and variable ones, nonetheless) that help to realize my particular perception of the subject matter, how I wish to present it, but seldom determine it. Photography is an entirely personal and very subjective matter and it is not often that the subject matter itself determines the outcome directly for me, allowing by that some sort of spontaneous capture. That happens, but is not the rule. I do not just wait for the subject matter to create something for me.

My approach priorizes thought, planning, iteration, re-evaluations, trials, improving the creation, rejecting or accepting it, coming back again when the ambient conditions are different or the subject matter itself undergoes changes, seeing new visual and emotional aspects as I get more involved with it, modifying my initial capture in the darkroom (B&W) or in digital post exposure. The latter is normally minimal and done to reinforce the initial perception. I can understand that, say, animal photographers are often directed by the actions of their subject, unless the animal is sufficiently tame to respond to direction.

My subjects are often inanimate ones but they have many faces and those faces have to be discovered and exploited and placed into contexts by my manipulation of the possible compositions, interrelationships with other matter, and so on. What I try to do is to present to my viewer an image of subject matter I have become engaged with and whether or not I succeed at it my objective is not just an aesthetic one, it is to bring to the viewer a communication that I have had with the subject and which has resulted in the particular image he is viewing. Such communication is hard to realize in a spontaneous shot, as I have to explore the subject to find what is significant to convey in an image.

How centricity and eccentricity interact in an image is of interest to me. The "gravity" of the center is offset by forces outside it, rather like how our very central self is always interacting with other centers in a particular social environment. This analogy between what we photograph and who we are, and the interactions of self with others or external influences, follows into visualizing the interactions of that of our chosen subject matter with external forms, shapes, or other centers of interest. The permutations of composition and forces are numerous, and the fascination of the center an inspiration. I also love the square format as it places no presuppositions on the role of the frame in regard to the subject.

Julie H · July 21, 2013

Thanks Arthur. I really enjoy your description. Somebody somewhere (I'm too tired right now to think of the source) said that a (art) medium simultaneously enables and restricts its users. Its interesting for me to notice how the 'restrictions' -- such as those we're examining here -- may serve to motivate and cause creativity as much as do the 'enabling' aspects of our particular medium (photography).

Norma Desmond · July 21, 2013

Arthur, you've seen this picture of a house I shot back in my early days of making photos. The house, for me, works centered in the frame in relationship to its being offset visually, narratively, and emotionally by the somewhat contrasting content of the rest of the frame. So, it's a case where the interaction of composition and content is important to my response to the photo and the notion of the physical center is related to the narrative content (which is not compositional or locatable).

You mention centricity and eccentricity (and I never before thought of "eccentricity" in terms of physical composition, so thanks for that) and it reminds me that talking about balance implies also talking about imbalance. Something's balance is the extent to which it is both balanced and not balanced. I tend to like photos that keep me a little to a lot off balance. I find them provocative, though there are many times when I like feeling or being made to feel "centered" as well.

Had the photo of the house had a serene and clear blue sky with just a couple of white fluffy clouds and the house remained as is in the center, the centeredness would be a very different kind of force. As it is, there is something contrasting or ironic (though I imagine lots of people will describe it differently) that is likely giving the centering of the subject at least part of its energy.

So, as usual, centering a subject is very much a matter of context and relates, IMO, not just to other physical or compositional centers, but to narrative, content, and emotional pulls within the photo as well.<div></div>

Norma Desmond · July 21, 2013

Arthur and Steve, one more thing about not getting to go back in time. It stimulated to me to think about how photography is so much more than the instant of snapping the shutter and is not limited to the time that revolves around that particular action. I am now going through hundreds of photos from my week at the farm in New Hampshire last week. So I will be (my present action will be) choosing which photos to use in the presentation, not which moments to capture by pressing the shutter. So, in that sense, I am going back in time, reviewing a lot of moments to choose the one or two or four out of many that will work as a photo that I present. And I will then post process them, which is not so much a going back in time as much as it is a re-creation of an earlier moment and a creation of a new one. I don't see any of this as about going back in time so much as it is about moments slipping and sliding through time and moments being present in other moments. The shots I did not take last week in a given unfolding situation and the photos I do not show as part of my finished presentation are not things I said "no" to. They are all part of the work I produce. Nothing has been lost or denied, at least as I see it. Just as much of the stuff I've left outside of the frame has had a significant impact on the frame. I didn't say "no" to the peripheral matter. I used it, in many cases, relied on it.

aplumpton · July 22, 2013

Julie, I like what you say about restrictions and how they can be important in regard to composition but also in terms of the approach of the photographer. On my desk are some popular folk art sculptures in wood of people. I did not personally know the popular art worker but a friend who did confirmed that his wood sculptures were fashioned using only a saw and two screwdrivers as sculpting tools, one with a point, the other a flathead screwdriver with a stone sharpened blade. Primitive, and certainly constraints for some, but not for him, as he developed a unique style of sculpting with them. His sculpted characters are easily recognizable as only his.

Fred, apart from the orange-blue chromatic tension in the centered house photo, I see the slightly ominous looking sky and the cold rock in tension with the isolated human dwelling, knowing that the house and its occupants will come and go, and disappear, without the least effect on the mighty mountain range (it, too, will eventually flatten, of course, if one believes what I think I remember as being the third law of thermodynamics).

I hope Steve and others turn their attention to the enigma and the power of centered interests as well. And then there is the duo of centricity and eccentricity and what I agree with Fred as being the attractiveness of imbalances.

luis_g · July 23, 2013

I commented on centrist compositions as a natural expression of being focused/paying attention several posts ago. Since we focus important things in the center, it is natural to emulate this in one's photos. Centered pics also tend to (but not always) have a radial symmetry. I tend to weigh the entire image space equally and use it eclectically, though I clearly see compositional tropes in my own work. I guess what I'm gravitating to is that central compositions are the default. The others are learned, and in experienced photographers, the center is re-learned as well.

Returning to the restrictions and thinking vs intuitive posts, the way I see it is that we have both of these modalities and they not only overlap, but can be concurrent. Some may favor one over the other in their own work, but as others have already commented, there's nothing wrong, unusual or magical in using both ~ in any kind of photography. When I was much younger, I remember taking a Leica and running through the New Mexican deserts scampering over rocks, applying what is usually considered a street modality to the Western landscape.

What is intuition if not blindingly fast access to a lifetime of experience resting in a database in our heads?

Which leads to time travel...when we draw on experience, we are going back in time and retrieving (or reliving) the past. In any work involving fluid, rapidly changing situations, given neural and camera lag times plus subject motion/gestural shifts, etc. we have to anticipate/project ourselves into the future in order to get what we want (and by no means is this dogmatic, it is perfectly fine to go blind, and see what one gets). It's not a simple binary decision tree for me. I am weighing a large amount of variables, whether doing so consciously or not.

Norma Desmond · July 23, 2013

Luis, good points. I also think central compositions are a default. And I've noticed, particularly in critique pages on PN, that because it's a default and there are superficial memes against putting subjects in the center, NOT CENTERING has become a sort of acquired or intentional, sometimes even counter-intuitive, default, just to avoid the wrath of center monitors. So often, there are critiques that simply say something along the lines of "but you shouldn't have centered the subject," with no reason given, visual, emotional, or otherwise, as if a rule of some sort is being quoted. So I wonder if many photographers are purposely avoiding the center in hopes they will be considered better photographers for doing so or gain the respect of their peers more quickly. What I notice is that some natural proclivities I have are beneficial to my overall vision and some hamper me. Some amount of intentional intervention on my part can push me forward and afford me a helpful change of perspective. If I am "defaulting" to something, whether it's centering or not centering, there are some times I will want to honor that and sometimes I will want to consciously consider alternatives to it. One has to reach down deep to know what's a natural, personal, and unique proclivity and what, on the other hand, might be simply an automatic force of habit that's not serving one well.

I like your points on time travel as well and I also don't see time as merely a progression forward. There are many ways in which we do go back . . . and forth. And I appreciate your bringing our not-necessarily-conscious EXPERIENCE into the discussion of intuition. I think what may happen is that we tend to describe things as more intuitive or more deliberate and see them as two separate things when, as you say, there is likely a combination of the two taking place and an overlapping of their characters. Importantly, as you observe, intuition -- at least as it appears to you, me, and some others -- stems from past deliberations and experience and is not spontaneously generating itself out of nowhere, so the two would seem to share a fair amount.

aplumpton · July 23, 2013

We scan and center on subject matter whether that is for very brief or of more extended periods.

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Ostensibly, that line from the OP would seem to put me in agreement with Fred and Luis about a center default position for photography. However, I do not see it normally that way when transferred to image making where it is no longer a default position. How we view objects does not translate for me merely in a desire to center my subjects in the frame. Centering also does not usually equate for me with an act of putting the principal subject, or subjects, in the center. What is in the center is sometimes best described as immaterial rather than material. There may be nothing there of great physical significance, like the principal subject or subjects. What is there may be a smaller subject or one not noticed at first glance but one that develops as the viewer reads the composition further. It can be simply a field of forces played out elsewhere but concentrated or resolved in the center. This is related also for me to the forces of centricity and eccentricity in the making of an image.

In Munch's famous painting of a sick girl she is lying inanimate and in vertical sense in a dark room on a bed and pillow that is mainly on the left side of the image. This principal subject is balanced on the right side of the square frame by the mother who is bent over and trying to lend her hand to the sick girl who is staring through the mother to some point well off to the right of the frame. Her hand lies on the bed pointing to her mother. The mother's hand is being offered to touch the hand of the dying girl but cannot quite make it to that central point. Instead, there is a central gap between the two hands that cannot reach each other. The two principal subjects do not occupy the center. It is the area of the physically immaterial (the telling space between the two hands) that describes the tension and distance between the two principal subjects.

Norma Desmond · July 24, 2013

Arthur, I didn't mean default in terms of the way it translates for me as a photographer either. If we look at a lot of snap shots, for example (and Luis has mentioned this above), we see an often-default tendency to put a subject in the center and go for it. I notice this in the early photos of a lot of beginners with a camera. Against the Golden Gate Bridge, they will center their family or their significant other and that will be that. Once one becomes more conscious of composition, etc. one would hopefully have a more nuanced relationship to composition and NOT use the center as such a kind of default. But what I'm saying is that in the rush to NOT use the center as a default, there is a risk in avoiding using the center for the main subject solely for fear that it's breaking some sort of non-centering rule as opposed to considering each situation for what its possibilities are.

aplumpton · July 24, 2013

Fred, I understand and agree with your points. In photography at more advanced level the center and centers of interest and compositions related to the center are indeed not rule-breakers in any sense. We can learn a lot from master photographers and artists and my example of Munch's effective composition "The Sick Girl" is one look at how the square format and the centering of a composition (with main human subjects off center) can be very effectively used. We are miles from the examples of centered subject snapshots that you and Luis alluded to in regard to default positions. That is not to say that sometimes a centered subject can be very effective as well as this more sophisticated example from the brush of Munch (copy of a reproduction of the painting of E. Munch).<div>

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