2. Intent
• First you need to decide how much you want
to adhere to what the viewer expects to see.
• You may want to keep to the rules if you need
to show something clearly or make it look
attractive
• The next question we have to ask is how far
do you want to go against tradition without it
looking forced
10. Reactive or Planned
• You have two more choices of intent
• Reactive- a shot that relies on your
observational skills
• Planned- organized by the
photographer
25. Simple or Complex
• Simple-most real life scenes can be
overcrowded and messy. With simplicity, you
give the scene an order or graphic
organization by cropping out unnecessary
mess, changing viewpoint, and imposing
structure.
– Simplification as abstraction-moving away from
representation and into purely graphic imagery
• Architecture lends itself to abstraction
• Closing in on details also lends itself to abstraction
• Patterns also…
27. Simple or Complex
• Complex-more points of interest,
layered objects
– After adding many more points of interest ,
the image can move back into simplicity
29. Clear or Ambiguous
• How obvious should an image be?
• A shot that says it all can be very powerful,
like Life Magazine, but it doesn’t make the
viewer work very hard
• Clear-obvious what the photograph is trying
to say
• Ambiguous-takes the viewer more time to
discover what is in the photograph and what it
means
37. Delay
• Delay-to keep the viewer engaged for longer.
– Embed a key element in such a way that it is not
closed in on to quickly
• Spatial Reorganization-the critical subject is
made smaller or less central in the
composition
• Reverse tactics reversing any of the tactics
that we have reviewed on how to draw the
viewer’s eye to the subject
• Point outside the frame-literally pointing to,
reacting to, shadow of…something outside of
the frame
• Surprise-unexpected phenomena
42. Style and Fashion
• Past styles
– Pictorialism, Linked Ring, Photo-Sucession, Neue
Sachlichkeit (New Objectivty), Straight
Photography, Modernism, Constructivist,
Minimalism, Color Formalism, Post-modern new
realism, surrealism
• What is accepted as beautiful for now.
Usually you take a chance on something
different to see if it takes off.
50. Two Styles to Focus On
Minimalism
• Minimalism-the art of less
– Reduce the number of values, shapes, lines, and
textures to the bare minimum
– Make your subject the strongest point in your
photograph even though it might only take up a
small portion of your image your subject the
strongest point of your photo even though it might
take up only a small part of the overall
image ﾓ Read more: "Minimalism in Photograph
63. Two Style to Focus On
Abstract
• A different perspective
• Your subject is taken out of context and
no longer represents an object
• The object is no longer recognizable
– The viewer is seeing texture, shape, color,
line, etc.
