By: Arpan Kalita, Guwahati- 781008
Someone rightly said, a photograph tells you a thousand stories. And absolutely they do! In today’s modern busy life, it has actually become massively important for us. It is the age of documentation; nowadays, we constantly keep on documenting each and everything, often in lieu of being physically present at a particular place or occasion. It also serves as a stand-in for the truth. When we aren’t sure of the truth in an account of something, we ask to see a picture – “not until I see it with my own two eyes”.
As photographers we are taught a myriad of rules in order to capture well exposed and composed, basically pleasing images. But the question is “what makes a visually pleasing, well composed and properly lit image stand out, out of so many other images? And memorable? “This question seems so simple on its surface but it actually has so much to tell us about!
There are many points to dwell into, but photographers for the most parts use a simplified striped down method of composition that we call “the rule of thirds”, the reason being that even if you don’t understand the complexities of visual perception or the emotional and neuro-psychology behind it, just putting your subject in this part of the frame will produce a pleasing visual balance. It is most important under these circumstances to have an image that gets its point across immediately and must also be memorable…in an aesthetically pleasing and honest way. It’s not enough to create a great image in this venue; the image must speak to the viewer. Composition, Exposure, Lighting, Processing style and technique all these things are important to photography and visual communication, however we must remember the audience and the message we are striving to convey with our imagery. I believe it is by far more subtle and illusive than this, something that cannot be explained or taught, it can be seen. Imagery is by far the most effective way of communicating.
Photographs can give someone technical details of an object or make a poetic statement. For obvious reasons photographs are different than written text. Photographs can be observed much more quickly than a text that has the same level of information. Photographs are also much more attractive to the eye than text. The graphic nature of photographic representation makes it effective at almost any dimension.
Photographs, once the slices of a moment in the past – sunrise, sunsets, meetings with friends, the family vacation, travel, fashion, and wedding are fast becoming an entirely new type of conversation. The new edge crowd is learning that communicating with a simple image, be it a picture of a sumptuous platter or a landscape of an unexplored destination, is far more effective in projecting things the way it is, rather than using words to communicate.
Probably this is a transition time where we are moving away from photography as a way of recording and storing a past moment and turning photography into a medium of communication.
