Feeling the frame
After you've decided to make pictures you must decide how your body will frame the experience.
That is, where is the edge? The boundary? The horizon between what is in, and what is out? These choices matter, and photography it's the shape of your body that determines how your audience will see what you see.
In class we talk about what you want to look at, and about what you want me to know about it. These are the ultimate questions. But buried within them, preceding them, is a skill more primary: can you feel the frame?
In The Photographer's Eye, John Szarkowski writes
The central act of photography, the act of choosing and eliminating, forces a concentration on the picture edge—the line that separates in from out—and on the shapes that are created by it.
In this essay (read it here) Szarkowski is trying define the major differences between photographic picture-making and other kinds of picture-making, as he sees them. In one way or another you've most likely encountered his list (the thing itself, the detail, the frame, time, vantage point), because his views are so pervasive (that is, even if your photo one teachers didn't realize it, they were probably quoting Szarkowski's criteria).
But I want to focus on the process from a slightly different angle; namely, from the idea that pictures affect a response from the viewer based on the motion, or circulation, of our attention; which is determined by the frame; which, in turn, is determined by the body of the photographer.
If you worked with me in photo one you'll remember our conversation about visual dynamics, the circulating weather patterns of visual tension and release that guide us through the space of a picture. You might also remember how I tried hard to avoid something called "composition," with its connotations of rules and formulas (which I've written about before).
Instead, we focused on the idiosyncratic, emotional experience that pictures evoke in the real-time of their viewing, and I drew your attention to the fundamentals of paying attention, of feeling the weight and flow of concentration within that pictorial rectangle. This flow, this movement of focus, coaxes your viewer toward seeing what you see, and toward exploring what you think is important.
It might be worth re-centering on this issue — this skill — especially now that you've gained some fluency with the tools themselves (the cameras, the computers, the printers). To make a mark with your pictures you have to first define the boundaries of what you're seeing.
The picture starts with the frame. As you learn how to feel the frame, intuitively, sub-consciously, and instantaneously, your pictures begin to connect and provoke more powerfully. That is, your decisions to nudge right, drop lower, shuffle left, angle slightly down, are critical to your results; each of these discrete bodily movements becomes fused with the act and thought of photography, and your pictures launch a cascading emotional and intellectual response because of them.
Can you feel the frame?
Here's an exercise, a test: first, take a picture; then, bring the camera down from your face and close your eyes; finally, after taking a couple of breaths, bring the camera back up and take another picture, being careful to re-frame the scene as closely as possible to the first picture.
Now review each picture in sequence. How "still" is the jump? How closely do the frames match? The goal is for each frame to be identical, even though separated by several seconds. To do this successfully you must be able to "memorize" the smallest arrangements of geometry that define the edges of the picture, as well as the configuration of your own body.
When you can do this consistently, you'll have fluent and intuitive control of the weather patterns inside your pictures. You'll also have the control to choose between greater and lesser degrees of focus and purpose. Intention will be intentional, and you'll feel more able to respond to experience and inspiration.
For more on John Szarkowski, and some of the photographs he made for himsself, see this exhibit review at Lensculture.
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