The art of composition

Mastering the art of composition is probably the most challenging aspect of an artist's path, but also the most rewarding.  This is something nobody can teach you because it is a very subjective topic, because your work has to turn into the reflection of your soul and its multi-faced complexity.

No need to telly you that in the long run what will set you apart from the myriads of photographers that you see around is the ability to develop your own vision and style.

It doesn't mean you will be appreciated and become famous but at least you will be unique....and you art will satisfy your need to express yourself.

Although composition is something that you will learn with time, experience and experiments there are anyway some basic concepts that can help you understand why some works of art in history have been more appreciated than others. Learning these very rules for an artist is quite important, it will be then  up to you whether to apply these rules or not, but most important one day you will do it in a non-conscious way.

There are many books and articles on the internet that explains the rules of composition and it is all good and nice. In my opinion the best way to learn is to look and understand the work of the old masters of painting.

The days of film photography pt.3 - Printing - by Glenn Pierce

In printmaking, photography at last yields its prize. For me it was the most pleasurable part of the whole imaging process. To see an image appearing on photo paper in the developer tray was a grand and fun experience.

The Print -- Part 1

Photo paper came in literally hundreds of various options of texture, finish, tint and image tone. In addition,each kind of paper came in several grades, which determined the contrast between the tones of gray. You found the ones that suited your style of photography & printmaking.

                                          Docking Pier-Glenn Pierce

The days of film photography pt.2 - Printing - by Glenn Pierce

Well folks we have developed our film and are ready to make B&W prints 1-3 days later after shooting our images --- No! We now have to make contact sheets of the negatives to see the actual images. These contact sheets are much like a grid view of your images in Lightroom.

1. In the darkroom under a safe light, low wattage yellow light, you take a sheet of photo paper and placed it on the base of the enlarger with your film strips on top under a piece of glass.

2. Adjusted the enlarger for wide open F-stop (yes enlargers had F-stop adjustments same has cameras).

3. Turn on enlarger light for approx. 5 seconds.

The days of film photography pt.1 - Film Development - by Glenn Pierce

Glenn Pierce is an american photographer and friend of mine. He is also a mentor who helped me (and still helps me) improve my work. He advised me on how to look at my work with critical eye and always pushed me to put more effort on the post production phase.
If I have doubts about a photo he's the one I go to!!

One day I asked him how the whole film processing worked, when there was no digital, no Photoshop:

…if you are a history buff about photography I will over the next several weeks relate to you in small steps how I first got started in photography & B&W darkroom work in the early 1970's.

What you would have to put in perspective is that we had no internet, computers, credit cards, pay pal, cell phones, etc...