Returning to the classics

September 25, 2009 12:34 PM

Photography-filter: Can you help me find an art history textbook that would help me improve my composition skills?

I currently own a few photography books, but I'd also like doing homework aside from the photo assignments I take on (ie Strobist assignments). I've reviewed old AskMe questions and there was an interesting suggestion to find an art textbook and trace the paintings. Sounds like interesting/supportive homework to me. This AskMe answer lists one such book, but does anyone have any insight into other good options for this sort of practice? Extra points for cheaper texts. Since I'll be laying the book down and drawing on tracing paper over the pages, older texts should work fine...uh, right?

posted by Hypnotic Chick to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (8 answers total)

Second hand auction catalogues. Old Master and Impressionist sales will be full of traditionally composed paintings, and second hand catalogues are cheap and plentiful on eBay and in second hand book stores.
posted by fire&wings at 1:08 PM on September 25, 2009

Some examples. Anything after 2000 will have plentiful colour illustrations.
posted by fire&wings at 1:10 PM on September 25, 2009

Your want an album more than a textbook, how about a library? Just use a soft pencil, and you should be good. As far as simple composition, I meant stuff like the two pictures at the end of this piece on composition.
posted by jedrek at 1:32 PM on September 25, 2009

Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes is critical.

Composition is only one part of the considered image. Context is important, and when you construct your image the composition will support, not necessarily 'be', your image.
posted by a non e mouse at 2:15 PM on September 25, 2009

Looking at Photographs by John Szarkowski
posted by bradbane at 5:13 PM on September 25, 2009

Trace Cezanne. You should be able to get a book of his work at any second hand dealer.

Composition as a concept is misleading in my opinion. Take your photographs from exactly where you are first interested in your subject and orient the picture to include the subject as well as the most points of interest that can fit in the frame in balanced manner. This can lead to their being more than one subject, of course.

Instead of composition, I would think of the potential structure of a photograph as being a kind of visual grammar. There are elements that make up a photograph that will make it more interesting. Dimension (e.g. including elements that are closer and farther), Borders (e.g. including elements at the border, also the viewer creates their own border within the picture, so elements within the border within border, also that a picture can either be self-contained or suggest a world outside the border), Textures, etc..

The "rules of thirds" etc. is just so much nonsense. Buy Stephen Shore's book, none of which is conventionally composed, spend an hour or two in a quiet room with it, and then take a walk. You'll see the world a little differently after that.
posted by xammerboy at 12:22 AM on September 26, 2009

Here is an interesting book: "The sense of order" by E.H. Gombrich

http://www.amazon.com/Sense-Order-Psychology-Decorative-Wrightsman/dp/0714822590

Or, for learning the way the masters composed their paintings - Charles Bouleau's book: "The Painter's Secret Geometry" (possibly from your library because it's an old edition). This one does the tracing that you talk about:

http://www.amazon.com/Painters-Secret-Geometry-Study-Composition/dp/0878172599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253959057&sr=1-1

I found this photography-specific book that deals with composition interesting: "The Photographer's eye"by Michael Freeman

http://www.amazon.com/Photographers-Eye-Composition-Design-Digital/dp/B002BL3HWY/ref=sr_oe_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253959249&sr=1-1

Good reading :)
posted by Parsnip at 3:07 AM on September 26, 2009

Thanks everyone, for your help!
posted by Hypnotic Chick at 2:50 PM on September 26, 2009