A Greater Endeavour Uncovered

"That photography is truly a fine art has been proven for more than 100 years by a number of extraordinary photographers. The finest prints are always products of insight and excellent composition, subsequently carried through with impeccable technique."

Bruce Barnbaum in 'The Art of Photography - An Approach to Personal Expression' (pages 284-285).

That's it then. In one fell swoop Bruce Barnbaum has forced me to contemplate expansion of this project by pointing out that I may have put the cart of composition before the horse of insight. Drat! Actually this served only to crystallise what I've been coming to suspect (my wishlist on Amazon bears witness); that insight is the root of aesthetic communication.

I now need to plan the routes of reconfiguration.

Loo Yeo

Tags and the 200 character limit

That's right. The first limitation I've come across in the blog is that the tag/label field has a maximum of 200 hundred characters only! Google doesn't anticipate that someone would use cross-referencing to the extent that I do.

So what's the way forward?

It's to prioritise the index/concept numbers (e.g. 01.02.3) over the concept names (e.g. Concept: frame shape). The concept numbers will be tagged as completely as possible; followed by the concepts by name, in relevance order. Not ideal, but the small 'bright side' is that the limit forces me to identify the priority order of concepts.

Using "The Photographer's Eye" as Workbook

I've read Michael Freeman's book cover-to-cover and the pedagogic structure is sound. The matter now is how to make use of it as a tool of personal development.

The first question

• "How do I keep track of my development?" or put another way,
• "How do I take stock of my skills?"

The simplest way is to use a copy of table of contents in the book as a check-list, ticking off each skill/concept as I go along - "The Photographer's Eye" becomes, in effect, a workbook. But I'm looking for something that has more utility, more potential for interactivity...

The second question

• "What form should it take?"

I want the system to be easily accessible and device independent, so the internet is the obvious place. The front-runners are:

1. website - set-up cost and administrative overhead is high.
2. image gallery - doesn't accommodate the necessary discourse easily, may enforce frame dimensions (e.g. instagram) which undermine a key aspect of composition.
3. blog - has the flexibility and low set-up costs, but there are restrictions on total storage occupied by photos and it is strongly sequential which can be managed by good labeling and linking (requires organisational overhead).

I opt for the blog format because of its low initial overheads, to get a feel for the scope of the project before greater commitment.

The third question
concerns how I generate and use learning content.

• "Should I go through every stage in sequence, taking new photographs for each topic?" Or,
• "Should I go comb through my existing catalogue, looking for items which demonstrate each topic?"

I decide not to reinvent the wheel, at least at first. Re-curating my collection will exercise the skill of composition analysis. A simple frequency analysis will indicate which skills or 'ways of seeing' are better developed, and which ones less so - any gaps identified can be filled in with new photos. Finally, a series of complete run-throughs will be required to develop conscious competence into subconscious competence.

Loo Yeo