Simple Versus Complex Subjects

Banyoles, #25, Catalunya, 2020

“Photography is the art of subtraction, while painting is the art of addition.”    –Anon

Conventional Wisdom?

The general advice you’ll see from most photographers goes something like this…

–Keep your images squeaky clean of excess/needless complexity.

–Present just one easy-to-see center o’ attention–the focus, or the “story” of your image.

–Do a searching and fearless scan of all four borders to eliminate any unnecessary “intruders”.

–Do the same searching and fearless scan with the foreground and the background to eliminate distractions. (The classic: A telephone pole growing out of your sister’s cranium.)

–Check the entire image for any excessively dark or bright areas that might pull the viewer’s eye away from the main subject. A slight change in camera position might reduce these distractions.

–Do include elements (lines, curves?) which draw the viewer’s eyes to the center-of-interest.

–In sum, frame the composition to exclude all the distracting elements and to include only what you want to tell your story, all while keeping the viewer’s eye within the frame as long as possible.

Some Examples and Exceptions

This first example follows the conventional wisdom as outlined above. The obvious subject–the three birds in formation. Migrating? Returning to the nest? Running from an approaching storm? Blown off course? And those three birds ryhmn nicely with the triple-layered and slightly-ominous lenticular cloud. High winds? Cold front coming? The tree is there to add balance to the composition as well as to give a seasonal context–very late fall, or winter, which might add more to the story about the birds. No horizon or earth is included which might have been distracting–or at least would not have contributed to the photograph in a meaningful way (or so says the photographer!).

So, all-in-all, a very simple, clean composition using just three birds, a cloud, and a tree (which, by the way, looks quite handsome at 40″ x 30″ in a quality gallery wrap and black float frame!). 

White Rocks Three, Boulder County, Colorado, 2017

This next image moves up a bit on the complexity scale–more stuff to challenge your hairy eyeball. Still, in actual composition it is quite simple with just two elements: water and reeds, the latter being the very much centered center o’ interest.  The water acts as a contrasting element with its abstract and heavy horizontal shapes.

Banyoles, #29, Catalunya, 2020

Now we move on to some “exceptions” to the conventional wisdom.

With this next one we climb a fair way out onto the shaky limb of complexity and many critics might comment, “Hey, Ansel, I have no idea what to focus on! What’s the center-of-interest, bro?” And they would be right–the eye does tend to wander all around and around and around and there is no obvious point where that critical eyeball can come (at long last!) to rest and exclaim, “Aha!” (Maybe that one stick that juts a few inches above the water barely qualifies?)

So, does that mean the image doesn’t work?

Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on the photographer’s intentions–and how (or if!) the viewer responds.

Perhaps the idea here was indeed to force the viewer to “take a tour”, explore, find oddities and curiosities, without coming to rest on anything in particular. Maybe the main subject is simply decay. Note that there are two main layers here–the background layer (out-of-focus) with the tree trunks, and the water’s very untidy surface (in focus)… so the visual exploration will naturally occur on this latter plane. This was my deliberate first choice when I recorded the scene. There is no obvious center-of-interest but, as mentioned before, that short protruding stick could possibly be one in disguise.

Banyoles, #20, Catalunya, 2020

Another “exception”…

Here is roughly the same image as the previous one, but this time I have set the focus on the tree trunks and let the water’s surface go out of focus. The effect is completely different and, at least to my eye, seems to push the image into something even more abstract and complex. The eye struggles a bit more to make sense of the scene. Things look a bit dreamy, surreal. But maybe that was my intention, eh? Why should all photographs be slick, clean, and easy to read?

Banyoles, #21, Catalunya, 2020 

In this example (in portrait orientation) there does seem to be a center-of-interest: those three ducks in the background. But the foreground is also an attractive complex of reflections and perhaps competes only too well with those three birds. So, is this is really two photographs in one? Indeed, maybe the best part of the picture is just the foregound (the bottom 2/3s of the photo) and the ducks should be cropped away into oblivion. Perhaps I have tried to include too many moving parts between the four walls with this one. Certainly, the three ducks are not in the ideal location to make a perfect composition, but Nature does not always cooperate.

So, is this one too complex to work then? Highly likely, in my humble opinion.

Banyoles, #22, Catalunya, 2020

Finally, here is an image that will surely make most folks roll their eyes and say, “Dude, did you just accidentally hit the shutter button over some random swamp while your camera dangled and fluttered from your skinny neck?”

Again, what was the photographer’s intention? Perhaps, in this case, it was simply to provoke a mood. Nostalgia, perhaps? Is it a picture of years and decades gone by? The old swimming hole, now empty of childhood friends, unused, and decomposing?

Another key point: Is the image part of a series that makes more sense as a body of work?

What if the viewer doesn’t “get it”? What if they can’t connect? What if the photographer was full of intention but doesn’t successfully communicate that intention to the viewer?

Well, maybe that’s OK. There is a lot of modern art I “don’t get”. But, then again, if I were to educate myself about the artist and her style and intentions—their “body of work”—maybe I would. I still might not like it, but I might understand it.

Banyoles, #24, Catalunya, 2020

So… simplicity or complexity? Or something in between?

It’s really all up to you.

What are your intentions? What is the message you want to convey with your picture? What is the “story”?

There are no rules in art!

So live it up, experiment, and challenge yourself and your viewers!