I recently bought the unseen by Saul Leiter, beautiful book with a lot of great photos.
I am curious though as someone who’s never taken a photography class, what are the best ways to learn from a book like this?
-what should I be looking for? -compositions? -should I be trying to guess how he took certain shots? -the lighting?
Any tips would be helpful as I love his style and I love street photography and would love to be able to learn from this book rather than simply appreciate the beautiful photos… or maybe that’s just part of it?
Start by understanding the formal elements of art. Use those to analyze composition.
Then go beyond that and try to understand what makes each photo elicit the emotionally reactions they do.
With Leiter, colors are a huge component. Look up color theory if you need to have better tools to analyze that.
Lighting is also important to understand, to get a better technical understanding of how the results were achieved.
All of it will influence your work one way or another. But make sure you don’t get in too deep with only one artist. Try to diversify the art you’re exposed to, in order to diversify your influences.
Thank you for this, any other photographers you’d like to suggest please do. I’m trying to be a sponge here.
There are… a lot of them.
In no particular order… Paul Strand, Ralph Gibson, Diane Arbus, Sebastião Salgado, Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Josef Koudelka, Marvin Newman, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Robert Frank, Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Eduardo Gageiro, William Klein, Richard Avedon, William Eggleston, Saul Leiter, Anton Corbijn, Fan Ho, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Michael Kenna…
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Look those up and others will come up.
The example at the end of that document, recomposing the photograph with rule of thirds, produces a worse photograph, in my opinion.
Of course. Don’t think of composition rules as rules at all. I should have mentioned that.
These are just the formal elements of art and should be studied, but when it comes to practice, they should only be sensibly applied at the discretion of the artist. Not taken as a prescription for what “correct” art ought to be.
I’d say composition is the most important thing, because light, color, shapes, framing, are all parts of the composition. You can have the same elements, but put them indifferent order, and the composition and final result will be different or incoherent.
I suggest reading ‘framed ink’ 1 and 2 to learn a lot about composition, then you’ll start to see things in photography, movies etc. That otherwise would be hard to even notice.
With this knowledge you’ll be able to consciously read all images instead of just having vague feelings while looking at them
Thank you!
Do a short photography course first.
I think I might
It’s definitely worth doing. I did an evening course once a week for about two months or so I think. You learn a lot. I even started doing sports photography work once I learned how to understand photography properly.
Was it an in person course?
Yeah it was. If you can do one I’d recommend it as it’s kind of hands on and you’ll do stuff like long exposure etc at night. YouTube also has heaps of stuff now I’m sure.
Best way to learn is to just go out and shoot/experiment. Combine that with tutorials from YouTube and the likes and you’ll learn way more and probably faster than any course out there. Books contain very useful info but it’s still just theory.
I like photography books that have segments discussing the work.
Image - study - image - study…etc all the way through.
I look at the picture. I read the study of the picture. I go back and look at the picture to see what the examination says. I consider that against my own point of view and interests, and then move on to the next image, and then the next book.
If I’m really trying to absorb a specific style, then I give myself shooting homework that helps me repeat and practice things from the books I want to master.
Rinse and repeat…for years.
Any book recommendations?
They’re small, but I’m a big fan of the “read this if you want to take great photos” series. There are 3 books in the set.
But in general, follow your interests, just read lots. I don’t think there’s one single book or book series that does it all, rather, you the creative should make study a lifelong habit.
Best way to learn is to just go out and shoot/experiment. Combine that with tutorials from YouTube and the likes and you’ll learn way more and probably faster than any course out there. Books contain very useful info but it’s still just theory.
Yea, I love going out and shooting, just always feel like a bit of direction would be good.