doug anderson
New member
Anybody interested in starting a thread on this? I have some ideas I'd like to share.
Anybody interested in starting a thread on this? I have some ideas I'd like to share.
When I teach creative writing I ask to the students to do the following. The same should apply to any other art form.
1. Respond to the piece as a whole. What is the mood, tone, predominant feeling of the piece? What is the author up to?
2. In writing, we talk about structure. In a photo, composition. How do all the parts of the composition add up to a whole? Which does not support the whole?
3. Working from large to small, begin to look at which parts of the piece succeed and which could be removed/revised to make it succeed better.
I think this would help us see what is successful in a photo as well as what does not work. This would be helpful to me. We are, after all, here to help one another.
OK..., I'm with you on this Asher, but providing the ability to the quoter to attach a photograph on a post, would surely help.... by giving one the ability to only publish what is already published, is surely a restriction to participation.Doug,
I agree completely that, intuitively, story and pictures could be expected to follow similar guidelines and rules. however, in practice, that just doesn't work at all.
I don't think we can use analogy of literature, as we only see it sequently, not as a whole. An ever changing , ( "gestalt"-multidimensional but transient), form containing every aspect of the story, is built up in our brains. The photographic picture, by contrast, allows us to visualize everything at once. Also we can't predict whether or not the small item in a photograph is less significant than larger elements. Size is no de facto characteristic to tell us about importance in picture composition.
So instead, I'd look again at the this thread Bart referenced and continue discussing there as we already have a jump start on this important subject you address.
Notwithstanding that this next bit of fussing sounds extraordinarily pedantic, I'll risk having my head snapped off!
I also have a major problem with the, (IMHO, defensive), modifier, constructive, as that clearly implies that, otherwise, we'd be doing the opposite! To be useful,
- first we have to choose our most interesting pictures,
- then tell folk what it's meant for
- and then allow them to feel free to hurt our darling creations
We don't want only folk praising us to repsond. Others might well fear that we want is favorable criticism only and so be silenced!
Asher
Besides Asher's reply Doug, a forum is not about "teaching" but rather about "discussing" things... So, the (correct IMO) approach you teach to your students, can only be the approach of some part (that also has the same POV) of the total viewers or participants...When I teach creative writing I ask to the students to do the following. The same should apply to any other art form.
1. Respond to the piece as a whole. What is the mood, tone, predominant feeling of the piece? What is the author up to?
2. In writing, we talk about structure. In a photo, composition. How do all the parts of the composition add up to a whole? Which does not support the whole?
3. Working from large to small, begin to look at which parts of the piece succeed and which could be removed/revised to make it succeed better.
I think this would help us see what is successful in a photo as well as what does not work. This would be helpful to me. We are, after all, here to help one another.
OK..., I'm with you on this Asher, but providing the ability to the quoter to attach a photograph on a post, would surely help.... by giving one the ability to only publish what is already published, is surely a restriction to participation.