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33 comments
That being said I do try to make at least some effort to frame things, balance them, and have always loved the black bars :) but I lack the desire to spend a lot of time preparing shots (I know some who spend hours on it) since my focus lays elsewhere. However, a lot of this information can just be done with what is on the screen and I know some ENB presets actually provide grids and other tools to help line things up. Got this bookmarked to re-read a couple of times in case a few bits of it manage to sink into the skull.
Good call on the grid overlays. Never used them myself, but maybe I ought to dig one up to make that point about thirds a little more visually clear...
I am sure you know PRC but here:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/945/42218806712_ed0f06f3ca_k.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/973/42265427011_ed03b71b20_k.jpg
In my younger days I worked professionally with superb photographers from all sorts of genres, since I was an image editor at one of Swedens most independent and successful image banks. We worked with slides back in the day - this was during the 90´s - so it was right before the real digital era hit hard. I still miss those analogic cameras (I had a Minolta at the time) and the process of developing your images until you could see the result. What some could achieve or make do of entirely upon creativity, technical skills and a visual thinking without any kind of help of Photoshop or "intelligent" cameras beats anything of todays photography, yes I dare say so!
That said, I believe I've seen every rule or "trick in the book" of photographing, but what stuck the most in my heart was the very wise word of one of Swedens best nature/wildlife/landscape photographers at the time - "Always look with an open mind and see everything. Rules are just a guidance, because what we see as beautiful or interesting, often is to others as well."
I was no where close to those photographers, but my role as the editor made me truly appreciate images and my experience and knowledge from back in those days helps me a lot in my screenarchery nowadays. I've only been dojng it for three years, and I started in all Vanilla, following the more documentary style rather than the artistic. I've never been one for too bombastic effects, too much tweaking, too heavy DOF...although I admire such images too, it's just not "me".
The set of "rules" you've listed here goes with any kind of image though and I know about them, even if I do "snapshot" images a lot, "a quick capture of what you see". I seldom spend any time to arrange an image and don't use that many console commands either. I like such images, ordinary captures of the normal gameplay, but if I would take my time to truly make the best of my images, these rules here would be the first to come to mind, so I hope some community members see and read through all of this. It will guide them a lot...
I hear you on the sense of vivacity or engagement that comes from photography-photography as opposed to digital photography. Laying hands on a piece of art does lend it a certain "aura", to crib a line from Walter Benjamin. Mechanical reproduction 'thins' the piece- though a digital image can still be technically accomplished, and even emotionally moving, I've personally never been as deeply affected by an image on a computer screen as I have by a physical photograph or painting or other piece of nominally 2D art displayed in the real world. Practicing photography from the camera to the shot to the darkroom to the print to the framing gives a fuller appreciation for the medium. When photography first became available to the art-making public, there was a lot of push-back from painters- and they had a fair point to make! Now that screenshooting is gaining a (very little) bit of prestige in the art world, we're seeing some flack from photographers (including digital photographers)- and I think they still have a point! With every step that the generation and presentation of an image takes farther and farther away from the tangible, physical, all-senses experiential real world, a little bit more of the to-the-heart, visceral, emotive engagement of the art is lost. The digital image is a thin photograph, the photograph a thin painting, the painting a thin sight. All well and good as inspirational, educational objects, but no patch on the real thing in all its messily, randomly, seemingly-randomly, beautifully composed glory.