Composition(s)

Composition in photography is often seen as a pure technical detail. Often considered as less important than framing (the art of what’s inside and outside the frame), timing (the art of choosing the decisive moment to click the shutter) or the choice of film (BW, color), composition is nonetheless capable of conveying the right message if properly mastered.

Defined as the technique to set up and arrange the elements in the frame, there are at least dozens of different compositional schemes (thirds, golden ratio, diagonal, triangular, symmetrical…) as well as ways to avoid them. Although I think I compose things more or less in the same frame regardless of the film format, I’ve always wondered whether my photos convey a different message if they are taken in 6×6, 6×7 or 35mm format. The first two formats in particular are the ones I am more interested in, as I shoot almost every portrait within these two classic options. My stats tell me that I’ve used the 6×6 format roughly 60% of the time, leaving the 6×7 to a mere 40%…but what does it mean? Can I say that I prefer the first over the second? Is it just a matter of economy (12 shots per roll vs 10 shots per roll – and considering the price of film these days, these things count!)? Let’s find out.

6×6: the elegant square

The square format is often associated with timeless elegance and harmony. Tons of ink has been used to describe the philosophical purity of its geometry and I am certainly biased when I use my 6×6 cameras to compose as if the moment was somehow solemn, even formal. That does not mean the photos are static or rigid, but in a way the format reminds me of the introspection look of Richard Avedon or Irving Penn or even Anton Corbjin photos and I feel like I owe more respect to the sitter in front of my lens.

6×7: the tension is here

A mere 15% increase in one dimension cannot make such a difference, can it? All in all, you just add a 1cm strip, how can things be so wildly different? Well in reality things are different when you choose 6×7: that extra space allows you to introduce the orientation variable (horizontal vs vertical) and to my eyes it gives the photo a touch of tension that is more controlled in 6×6. Peter Lindbergh, Herb Ritts, Araki all used the 6×7 format and I could not imagine them using anything else. To be fair I could include Avedon in this category as well for his large format 8×10 work (which is very close to the 6×7 ratio)

My philosophy (or lack thereof)

I tend to always carry two cameras for my portrait sessions, a Hasselblad for the 6×6 and either a Pentax67 or a Mamiya RZ67 for the…you guessed it…6×7 format. The reason is purely for security reasons: the 6×7 cameras are electronic marvels and as such they tend to fail and break, as it happened to me in the past; having a Hasselblad which is a total mechanical wonder is a warranty that if anything goes wrong, I can still have some shots.

That said I always felt that I used the two format to take different photos, but I never had the occasion to prove it. With that idea in mind I recently decided to take exactly the same pictures on a recent shooting in order to compare the results afterwards and see if my intuition was right. I came to the conclusion that…I don’t know! There are reasons why I sometimes choose one format over the other, but those reasons are more intuitions than weighted thoughts.

If I really need to give a post-shooting explanation, I can see that the images where I wanted to convey a sense of intimacy or something that comes from deep inside, I tend to prefer the square format (as you can see on the images on the right column) while in those cases where I want to share a bold presence I prefer the 6×7 option (as in the center column). The most clear example is probably the images on the left column, which share an almost identical framing and composition yet in the square format the model is directing all her body within herself, looking down to the hourglass, while in the 6×7 shot she is more open to the outer world.

And you, what do you think? How do you choose your format?

Paris Photo 2019

Probably not the best “cru” (as the French would say) but still a dream coming true for all the photography lovers out there, Paris Photo is a massive fair during November (a month already incredibly rich for those living in Paris, with Fotofever, Salon de la Photo, Saint Germain Photo Festival and tons of other initiatives around the city) that fills the huge Grand Palais with incredible works from the past and the present.

The number of things do see is so high that I still don’t understand why the exhibition opens at midday, leaving only 6 hours to go through the immense space and browsing through the masters of photography as well as new joiners and lesser knows artists. Not to mention the artists’ talks (what a joy to hear from that crazy character that is Bruce Gilden!) and the publishers boots (which call your attention – and your wallet’s content – with their new books and signing sessions).

Of course it would be impossible to do a comprehensive recap of what I have seen, so I will focus on things that I particularly loved this year (in no specific order).

Flor Garduño is a Mexican photographer I discovered a couple of years ago, one of those hidden master who are known only to few experts, despite her incredible work, especially on nudes. I was impressed by a picture of a man fishing a big fish (one of those living in the abyss) and sitting on a rock. I can’t find the same image on Internet unfortunately.

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Iromi Tsuchida, an old school Japanese photographer, had some very nice prints in BW, especially of large groups of men sitting on open air benches. This made me think that I should start considering more Japan photography as every time I stumble upon it I am quite impressed.

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Who said that you can’t cheat? This is what Gilbert Garcin must have thought when he started playing with photography, way before Photoshop was out there. These pictures are not what I am more interested into but at the same time it is a pleasure to look at the fantasy of artists like him.

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With the reprint of one of his most beautiful series on Serra Pelada, Sebastião Salgado is probably the superstar of photography these days. I don’t particularly like his recent images but the older ones are incredibly powerful, especially those depicting the gold mine workers in Brasil. The prints are out of this world when it comes to quality, probably the most beautiful I’ve seen this year (together with those from Ansel Adams).

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Not far from Salgado I felt in love with a pure masterpiece from René Groebli, a Swiss photographer which I think I’ve seen also in the Leica book Eyes Wide Open. The soft look reminds me of latter pictures from Saul Leiter but this is more melancholic and beautiful on its own.

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Entering Joel-Peter Witkin, the bad boy of American photography. I must confess I am not always at ease when I see his pictures (dead and dismembered bodies, hermaphrodite show-offs – most of the time in religious contexts…) but some are quite extraordinary. I have found two ordinary portraits which are stunning, alongside more classic images from his portfolio, printed quite big and with a nice lighting presentation. Each print now starts at 20k€…and the more blasphemous the content, the higher the price.

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The Hamiltons gallery has been, as always, the most elegant of them all. Not only they present a short selection of images (which is good to focus on them), but they also build such a diffuse, low-light environment which immediately put you in connection with the frames in front of you. Richard Avedon is always there with some fantastic prints (this year it was all about the Apollo mission astronauts (John Glenn below) in medium format 6×6 prints. Ant then two hyper-powerful prints from Helmut Newton from the series in Ramatuelle.

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Until this day I don’t know how I was not aware of Steve Schapiro‘s work. There was quite a number of incredible prints at Camera Work boot and the glow from those rich black and white pictures was very appealing to me. In particular a portrait of Samuel Beckett was on display and I think I’ve spent at least 5 minutes going up and down his face, delighted at the power of that picture (the digital version below does not give justice to the beauty of the print).

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When I though I had seen the best that you can think of in terms of printing quality, I saw some original prints from the legend…Ansel Adams. I must confess I am not a huge fan of his pictures but that does not change the fact that you cannot stand in front of his work and not realise why it is considered the highest technician of them all (with W. Eugene Smith probably). You have the impression you can touch those rocks, that grass, those trees…and that moon looking down at you above the mountains.

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I must confess I prefer BW photography, but there are some exceptions and Fred Herzog‘s work is one of my favourite artist in this category. The vibrancy of his prints is astonishing, as well as his compositions.

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Among the other artists that impressed me, I noted down Tom Arndt (Man behind a store windows, 1990), Yan Morvan (the series Bobby Sands on the Belfast riots and Blausons Noirs), a fantastic pring from Deborah Turbeville (from the Valentino collection, 1977), Louise Dahl-Wolfe (pictures taken in Tusinia in 1950), Christian Tagliavini and his hyper realistic color portraits, Nelli Palomäki (and his intimate portraits), Bastiaan Woudt.

Lastly, while browsing a photography mazagine, I noted down some other photographers to be checked afterwards…Stephan Vanfleteren, Jitske Schols, Lotte Ekkel and Paul Blanca.

Hope this little recap will give you some ideas to discover old (and new) artists out there.

Summer’s ending

The last days of summer have always been so full of meaning to me, especially those spent in Capo d’Orlando, the little Sicilian town I learned to love in the last twelve years. These shots have been taken beginning of September 2012 with the little gorgeous gem that is the Pentacon Six. It’s so funny to detach from the ordinary and, as so many people are buying expensive cameras with flashy logos and big plastic lenses (the realm of plastic and automatic-autofocus-autoeverything way of taking snapshots), taking one or two pictures a day with a heavy, metallic thing that makes you look like you’re coming from a different age.

Technical info: Pentacon Six > Carl Zeiss Jena Biometar 80mm f2.8 > Kodak Portra 400