I have been re-reading books on photography, first Tom Ang's "Digital Photography Masterclass" and currently Michael Freeman's "The Photographers Eye". Both are good books, focusing on different topics and different ways of presenting the material. Ang's book is packed with examples, self-study exercises and hints on a multitude of subjects. It is well worth reading, but a bit disconnected sometimes. Freeman's book is more coherent, focusing on the composition aspect of photography, and doing it very well indeed. Some of the topics seems trivial at first reading, but now I'm starting to grasp what is being discussed at a deeper level.
One topic in Freeman's book is the image proportions. I have been using mostly 4:3 and 3:2 proportions, sometimes also 16:9 - and occasionally the square, 1:1. (On the LX3, 4:3, 3:2 and 16:9 are all native formats.) Freeman writes (on page 16) that "[the square] is the most difficult format to work with".
I couldn't help thinking about Mark Hobson's images. He makes the square format seem effortless, the most natural thing in the world. But for me it is not so. I sometimes try the square - as in this image - but I don't usually succeed.
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At the Parking Garage
2 hours ago
4 comments:
Same here. I always found the square challengeing. Most likely because our natural field of vision is not really square - but more panoramic.
I think Mark Hobson's success with the square may be partly due to ways of "breaking" the square, with visual elements which give a strong direction to the image. But how to do it myself, I have no idea.
Well, I can't find fault in this image :)
For me, the square is an acquired taste, influenced of course by Mark, but also by Ted Byrne. Sometimes I like it, and then it seems to work well, but I couldn't do it exclusively like Mark. I'm pretty sure you can find a nice square in almost every image, but sometimes it is simply not the optimum or not what you intended.
Thus, sometimes yes, compulsively no.
...and one could certainly debate whether Mark Hobson pictures are a "success".
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