Edward Weston began his career making soft, almost out-of-focus images that emphasized patterns and light. After a trip to Mexico in the 1920s, he decided that photography was really about details and realistic depictions of the world. He made a complete turnaround in his work and began making work that was simple and focused on tones and textures. He got so into "straight" photography that he didn’t even believe in cropping his images.
As influential as he is today, Weston and his contemporaries weren’t included in museums or art shows when he was alive. Their style was too unconventional. So, they put on their exhibitions.
Seeing Photographically
The change in course of his photographic practice is a great lesson we can all take from Weston. Being a photographer is less about adhering to one style or another, but rather creating work that you want to make and which moves you.
The lesson to take home with this is Weston’s idea of seeing photographically. A painter or a sculptor, or any other artist really, makes work over time. They can plan and reiterate or even go back and redo their work before releasing it to an audience.
Photography is the sole art where this is not the case. You can plan for a shoot prior, or you can make adjustments via retouching after. But the final image, in essence, is made when that shutter button is pressed. The aperture opens, the image is made, and that’s kind of it.
This series of images was conceptualized at the same time. Prior to even getting dancers into my studio or setting up lights, I had visualized the types of images I wanted to make so that when I got to actually photographing and retouching, the "work" of figuring out what to do was already done.
Because of this sort of crux, it’s important to see photographically. To see photographically means to visualize what the final image will be in your head well in advance of doing anything else. What is the idea? What will the set look like? If there are models involved, who will you cast? What will they wear? After the images are photographed, what will the retouching be? The list of questions goes on and on. But these and other questions are things to consider well before making your photograph.
You have to imagine the final image in your head before you do anything to make the final image. That is seeing photographically.
Putting It Into Practice
Seeing photographically is a very simple and intuitive concept. Why wouldn’t you want to do that as a visual creative?
But it’s much, much more difficult to actually do it and also to do it well. You can visualize something; most of us are taught early to use our imaginations. That’s not the hard part. But if you don’t have the skill set to execute what you are visualizing, then there is a dissonance between your visualized image (which lives solely in your head) and the final image you create.
The only real way to get better is to practice. Know your gear forward and backward so that you’re not delving into the technical details during the shoot. Visualize to the point that when you do imagine the final image, you’re also seeing how it will be lit. Where is the light coming from and how will it interact with what is in your frame of view?
I have a bit of a pattern of ending most of these articles with a question to prompt discussion in the comments, so here is one for today: what are the things you previsualize when taking an image and how does that translate from the image in your head to the final image you create? Do you see photographically?
Yes! Very well said. Thanks a lot! I'll put it (again) on top of my "list". Great images!
This list must be getting long! Hah!
I'm glad you found value in this. Some of these more 'basic' techniques are the hardest to hold onto!
True. Thinking about the obvious things, interestingly, is often forgotten. Because they are so obvious, I guess. The list is a reminder, obviously. :-)
Yes. I absolutely do visualize and hardship of trabsorming vision into picture is what drives me to keep practicing, learning and experimenting
Absolutely! And the only way to get better is to keep trying and practicing!
Good article, Ali! Well said. For me, photography is very intuitive, especially composition, but sometimes I have an idea in mind; for instance I had a vision of etched-looking tree branches radiating into the frame in B&W on a white background, inspired by Asian scroll painting, and had great fun pursuing this, with a couple of good results. Even this was actually hard to execute - I've only got two "keepers" (in my portfolio here) out of dozens of captures.
One of the first things in developing the ability to "see photographically" I think is being aware of the frame edges, and being cognisant of the fact that the composition fits into that rectangle, rather than just seeing the subject, or point of interest, without this context. I do wonder about some YouTubers featured here who blast away doing massive panos with the aim of carving out the rectangle later. If you don't see it at the time...
This is why for me it's so frustrating cameras do not come with more cropping options beyond 4:3, 1:1, 16:9, etc...
Reputedly, Cartier-Bresson never cropped. Made it work in 2:3 format. Missed a lot of shots no doubt, but seemingly made a few good ones... ;-)
You can crop to ANY aspect ratio in post if you really want to change it. I leave it till then.