man & nature # 152 ~ Forest Gump rules
Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 12:37PM 
Woodpile and deflated mini-basketball • click to embiggenThe over simplification of matters photographic is oft times simply dumb. Or, if not dumb, then how about, way too simplistic.
One such case in point that always gets under my skin each and every time I hear/read it - and I've heard/read it about a zillion and half times - is the simplify rule of picturing. My most recent encounter with that adage went like this:
The greatest challenge that we as photographers face is how to translate the jumbled real world into a simplified iconic representation of what we see in our mind's eye.
GMaFB. Where does this stuff come from? I know this "advice" has been hanging around for quite some time so it's hard to pass it off as another example of the recent dumbing down of America. But, whenever / wherever this simple-minded idea evolved from, it seems to be based on the notion that people are dumb / simple-minded / dim-witted - keep it simple, because people can't think.
A kind of Hollywood blockbuster approach to picturing - a plot so simple (with lots of noisy exploding things) that even a simple-minded dimwit can "get it" (not that there is actually anything to understand). And, oh yeh, NO THINKING ALLOWED. Subtlety? Complexity? Meaningful / literate dialog? Nope - a virtual guarantee of box office failure.
But, then again, if you consider / practice picturing as a form of entertainment with the desired result being to make pictures that turn the brain switch to the "off" position, then by all means possible, simplify.
Reader Comments (3)
I've found most of the best pictures are simple in design, even if the subject is a complex one. One thing that has always perplexe me, however, is the tendency of some to print their picures upside down.
I think that the idea comes from Pictorialist times. I've found it in several instructional books of the time (end of the 19th).
In the case it had its good technical motivations, I suppose. Was then amplified by Kodak willing to give some simple rules to the masses: Simple and well centered (probably the optics on the Kodak cassette cassette was a bit soft on the borders or, eventually, more than a bit).
I'm not sure images that are simple visually are mutually exclusive with intellectually complex images. Why can't an image be both simple visually and intellectually complex?