Composition is the key, and photography is the means

Having looked back at the images I took, and shared with friends on Facebook, I wanted to know why some of them were more compelling, more evocative than others. Just as importantly, in the lee of the great artists I'd come to admire, I ask myself "how can I do better? How can I better the odds of sharing the essence of beauty experienced first-hand?"

It strikes me that phenomenon of composition is what the paintings and my photographs have in common, and if I were to study it, composition would not only improve my ability to capture and interpret beauty, but provide a more penetrating insight to Art. The large body of material readily available in print and on the internet; and my existing photos for the analysis, make this the logical route.

Loo Yeo

The Essence of Beauty

Recent adventures to lyrical Italy have stirred a passion for beauty; of a depth so piercing that it's surprised even me - the sights, the sounds, the tastes, the atmosphere... everything. The quality of the sculpture and food were easy enough to ascertain, but I could not say the same of the paintings. Cultural encodings aside, the compositions, colours, manner of execution, movement, depth, emotion; all of the things which distinguish a masterpiece from a great work, I realised I had a less than sharp enough eye for.

The experiences uncovered a part of the western concept of beauty that I had only dimly been aware of before: that apart from the subjective aspect of beauty's ability to elicit an emotional response, there were also semi-objective criteria by which beauty was also evaluated. I still hold to the primacy of an emotional response over the proscriptions of institutions, but that does not necessarily invalidate the role of artistic convention.

So I've set out to look for 'truths' in artistic convention, to see if they bear relation to the Essence of Beauty.

Would an analysis of beauty help in its pursuit and capture? A need burns to find out.

Loo Yeo