Inside the picture: Tokyo Are you invited to the party?

In my past writing I referred to the subject of how one can shoot better photographs by just thinking a bit before shooting the picture, trying to represent something and not merely capturing it.

Today I explain how we can improve our photographs if we decide carefully which elements we are going to allow within the photo frame and which not.

It has happened to me on several occasions that people see a photograph of mine and  congratulate me because of the camera that I have; just as if that were the only reason why my photographs evoke feelings and sensations.

In my opinion a camera is not a tool and it is not an apparatus either; a camera is an instrument: in other words, I believe that cameras are closer to pianos than to hammers; and it will depend upon us, that we are able to apply concepts of thought so that we can obtain better results.

Yes, a good camera features high resolution and additional options and tools that allow us to shoot pictures using more information: but the truth of the matter is that both a good camera and an iPhone can be used to shoot photos artistically equivalent – the secret just being a photographer with good fundamentals.

One of these fundamentals (probably the most basic of all) is to pay attention to the framing.

The framing is the area captured within a photograph; and the manner in which we arrange the elements that show within that area is what we call “composition” (to be addressed later on in this same blog).

At this point the only instruction you have to follow to improve your instant photos is this: look at the borders of the framing carefully; look carefully at what are you leaving in and what are you leaving out.

Let us see by way of example a couple of pictures that I took in Tokyo in January 2007.There is nothing really bad in the first one, but there is nothing powerful either. It is just the record of a park and adjacent buildings. The second picture was shot from a few meters away, but the framing was defined very carefully, it only allows the information that I wanted to be in; hence the most important thing is the cutting line that divides what I left out from what I let in.

By cutting the framing at the top I was able to take advantage of the effect that was taking place in the water at the time; thanks to the coincidence that the buildings, the water, and the roof of the house were green at that moment, I was able to create this image of Tokyo, where the viewer understands the contrast of that city which, even though it has enjoyed strong economic progress, it still retains elements of an ancient culture which is quite different from what one sees in Japan today.

If the picture would have included even just a tiny bit of the buildings showing above the top portion of the framing, the illusion would have been destroyed, and this potent image would have been rendered totally graceless, and, more sadly, the message.