Compositional Paralysis?

[mauro35]

Sports, street photography and people photography does not often have the luxury or extended time overplanning a shot. That was my point.

It´s true. I should have specified my subjects are mainly landscapes or nature photography in general. I do not have experience with other subjects. I imagine it would be very difficult for me, at least in the beginning, to achieve interesting compositions in situations where you need to catch that right moment with fast changing subjects. I often indulge on one image for a while before I decide it looks right. What I do not know how to explain is the reason why it looks right for me. I do not think about it much, it´s almost a matter of feeling.

 

[blansky]

It´s true. I should have specified my subjects are mainly landscapes or nature photography in general. I do not have experience with other subjects. I imagine it would be very difficult for me, at least in the beginning, to achieve interesting compositions in situations where you need to catch that right moment with fast changing subjects. I often indulge on one image for a while before I decide it looks right. What I do not know how to explain is the reason why it looks right for me. I do not think about it much, it´s almost a matter of feeling.

I think for most people it usually comes down to feeling. The issue is sometimes those feeling evolve or change, and it's a good idea to know why. Why did I make that choice, conscious or unconscious.

What I do when I critique people's work is ask them what they were trying to achieve. Then I comment if I think they nailed it or maybe could have done something slightly different.

When I started out and got pro critiques from people I respected, it was a humbling and eye opening experience. I went, "shit, why didn't I see that", because we all get too close to our work. I tried to argue and defend my choices but in most cases I knew they were right. They weren't trying to make me a clone of themselves, they were trying to make a better version of me.

But we all evolve at our own pace.

I wrote this before but my self epiphany came when I was testing exposure in the darkroom with a 20x24 print and I used and 8x10 sheet of paper. The 8x10 came out as more interesting than the 20x24. So I started to crop in the enlarger to find more dynamic shots. Then I started to use a finished print and see if a different cropping was better. Then from there I advanced to mentally cropping in the camera, and I was sort of on my way. But it took awhile.