Intent

Chapter 5

Intent

• First you need to decide how much you want to adhere to what the viewer expects to see.

• You may want to keep to the rules if you need to show something clearly or make it look attractive

• The next question we have to ask is how far do you want to go against tradition without it looking forced

conventional

Ansel Adams

Brigitte Locombe

challenging

straightforward

different

unusual

Reactive or Planned

• You have two more choices of intent

• Reactive- a shot that relies on your observational skills

• Planned- organized by the photographer

reactive

reactive

predictable

planning

Robert Frank

Robert Frank

Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Documentary or Expressive

• Documentary-to see the world, to eyewitness great events…

• Expressive-something untried and unique

documentary

Eugene Richards

Eugene Richards

expressive

expressive

Simple or Complex

• Simple-most real life scenes can be overcrowded and messy. With simplicity, you give the scene an order or graphic organization by cropping out unnecessary mess, changing viewpoint, and imposing structure.– Simplification as abstraction-moving away from

representation and into purely graphic imagery• Architecture lends itself to abstraction• Closing in on details also lends itself to abstraction• Patterns also…

simple

Simple or Complex

• Complex-more points of interest, layered objects – After adding many more points of interest ,

the image can move back into simplicity

complex

Clear or Ambiguous

• How obvious should an image be?• A shot that says it all can be very powerful,

like Life Magazine, but it doesn’t make the viewer work very hard

• Clear-obvious what the photograph is trying to say

• Ambiguous-takes the viewer more time to discover what is in the photograph and what it means

clear

ambiguous

ambiguous

ambiguous

ambiguous

needed captions

ominous

Delay• Delay-to keep the viewer engaged for longer.

– Embed a key element in such a way that it is not closed in on to quickly

• Spatial Reorganization-the critical subject is made smaller or less central in the composition

• Reverse tactics reversing any of the tactics that we have reviewed on how to draw the viewer’s eye to the subject

• Point outside the frame-literally pointing to, reacting to, shadow of…something outside of the frame

• Surprise-unexpected phenomena

delay

delay

delay

delay

Style and Fashion

• Past styles– Pictorialism, Linked Ring, Photo-Sucession, Neue

Sachlichkeit (New Objectivty), Straight Photography, Modernism, Constructivist, Minimalism, Color Formalism, Post-modern new realism, surrealism

• What is accepted as beautiful for now. Usually you take a chance on something different to see if it takes off.

Neue Sachichkeit

straight

Contructivist

Surrealism

fashion

Fashion/Flare

Fashion/Anti Photo

Two Styles to Focus OnMinimalism

• Minimalism-the art of less– Reduce the number of values, shapes, lines, and

textures to the bare minimum– Make your subject the strongest point in your

photograph even though it might only take up a small portion of your image your subject the strongest point of your photo even though it might take up only a small part of the overall image ﾓRead more: "Minimalism in Photograph

minimalism

minimalism

Sugimoto

Two Style to Focus OnAbstract

• A different perspective

• Your subject is taken out of context and no longer represents an object

• The object is no longer recognizable– The viewer is seeing texture, shape, color,

line, etc.