Basic Photos 1

Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emporor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his. ... Only in Marco Polo's accounts was Kublai Khan able to discern, through the walls and towers destined to crumble, the tracery of a pattern so subtle it could escape the termites' gnawing. — Italo Calvino

The first rule of photogaphy will seem obvious: make sure the photo is a picture of something. Rephrased, everything in the picture should be there for a reason.

It is the tendency of the snapshooter's eye to focus exclusively on the intended subject at the expense of the rest of the picture. Instead, a photographer should always try to fill the frame. Before the finger presses the shutter, the eye should wander over each edge of the photograph to see that it finds something there. If not, recompose, make the shot vertical, or move closer. Even the most mundane details added to a picture are better than blank, distracting space.

Digitals cameras and photo-editing software make this pitfall easier to avoid, but it is good training regardless to pay attention to the entire picture.

For in closets across the world, shoeboxes are filled with prints of smiling people peaking out from the bottom of the frame, their torsos cruelly chopped in half for no reason. They all could have been taken by my mother.



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