To all those of you who have ever said it's daft to take photos with an iPad…
The first time I ever saw someone holding up an iPad to shoot a photo I, like some of you I would guess, thought it looked daft.
But, as someone who spent a fair slice of his youth shooting 4×5 and 8×10 view-cameras [large format], there is some sense to the iPad as camera.
Composition is everything, the bedrock onto which all your other photographic skills are anchored. If you can't compose for shit, what's the point in investing in equipment, learning how to operate it and then spending hours and hours using it?
I'm not saying that along the way of doing those things you wouldn't 'pick up composition'. It's feasible. But you really don't need much to hone your eye, as the link below will help illustrate: an article I wrote about using a cardboard frame to help you get your head around composition.
The world is a big place, full of a feast of potential pictures from any one viewpoint. The trick is, though, which bit of that world around you to frame and cut out.
Gary Winogrand once said that photography places a frame around the facts and that the frame changes those facts. It's very true. Our cameras isolate a moment from the world around us and alter it, make it shareable.
Framing that 'isolated moment' is the key. You don't need anything more than a piece of cardboard to do that. To capture it, obviously, you need something else.
Back to the iPad and why I actually think it's a great tool for taking photos with…..
When I set up a large-format camera I end up with, in front of me, a large and clear picture of the world in front of me – as projected onto the camera's ground-glass screen. The image is upside-down and back-to-front which is something to get used to but which eventually adds to the process of composing, not least because it forces you to examine very closely and for some time the elements within the frame and how the frame contains them all.
The iPad does something similar: it's a large frame which you can view with both eyes open. Learning composition through a DSLR viewfinder is a bit like trying to learn composition by looking through the cardboard tube in the middle of a roll of toilet paper. Yes, it's doable, but it's harder to do. The great thing about the cardboard frame I use with my students [and with the iPad] is that you have a chunk of the world in front of you which has been framed-off. But because both of your eyes are open and the frame is held out in front of you, you can easily see the rest of the world around that walled-off chunk within the frame.
Around this framed section of world is the border of the cardboard or the border of the iPad: thick enough to separate the framed chunk of world from the rest but not so claustrophobic as to prevent you from seeing the rest of the world around it.
Add a grid to the screen or frame and you can begin to very readily see how the chunk of the world you are interested in fits into some of the prescribed guidelines for composition: rule of thirds, golden mean, diagonals, balancing elements.
I hope you can make some time to look through the material at this link. If you can, make the cardboard frame and use it alongside your camera. I think you'll find it helps you with your scene selection. And if you have an iPad, try the excercise with that as well.
http://japanorama.co.uk/2010/08/26/composition-101-pt-1/
Embedded Link
Composition 101, Pt.1
Cheap or free is good sometimes and in the case of our lo-fi aid to getting your head around composition, this is 100% true: it’s free and it’s good. Nice discussion going on…
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Mark Esguerra
January 8, 2013
Agreed +Alfie Goodrich! Seeing somebody hold up an iPad did look odd at first, but there's no denying how helpful it is to use it to frame a scene. Before I had an iPad I used the iPhone to practice composition and I think I benefited greatly being able to use a bigger screen than what a typical viewfinder could give. And I remember when you advised me some time ago to use this card to help with composition, and this too helped me greatly. When I first printed this out I always had it in my camera bag.
David Van Cleef
January 8, 2013
You have none of the other tools that a view camera affords you though. "Film plane" is always exactly parallel with lens and no shift is possible so composition tricks are quite limited, especially with the lack of a large range of DoF.
I refer people that need to learn compo to Ansel's holy trilogy.
Jean Otani
January 8, 2013
As dorky as it may sound but iPad does take great photos with instant fun effects. Ipadography or iphonography is quiete awesome !
Alfie Goodrich
January 8, 2013
+David Van Cleef I was in no way suggesting that an iPad or a piece if cardboard replaces a view camera for capturing a picture. Additionally, if one has an idea for a captured photo that involves camera movements then, no, of course an iPad is not going to replace the view camera. My point is solely that having either a piece of cardboard with a hole in it or an iPad in front of you gives you a window on the world with a frame around it. We don't see through frames with our eyes. One needs to train the eye to see like that and given the weight/portability/availability advantages of cardboard/iPad vs 8×10 view camera, there is no contest.
Alfie Goodrich
January 8, 2013
For the first paragraph of Adams' The Camera alone – in which he introduces the concept of pre-visualization – that book is worth picking up. Even with digital shooters there is plenty to learn from The Print and The Negative. But those latter two of Ansell Adams' books are bibles if you are shooting film and slightly more for skimming if you aren't.
David Van Cleef
January 9, 2013
I'd say that The Negative is worth having in any digital photographers' library as well, since that's where the bulk of the Zone System is covered.
The Print less so.
Alfie Goodrich
January 9, 2013
Agreed, +David Van Cleef
David Van Cleef
January 10, 2013
I'm convinced that the next big technical tool for composition is going to be live EVF data sent onto google-glass-type eyepiece overlays.
Alfie Goodrich
January 10, 2013
The cardboard frame is better and cheaper. Less technology is useful for learning composition IMHO. If the eye/face has too much tech in front of it or strapped to it it distracts away from normal 'looking' too much. Unfettered view of the world, nothing up to the face and no electronics involved, is the way I prefer to teach composition. Once you have the eye trained, then you can start putting stuff like tech, lenses, etc into the mix. A bit like driving a car vs riding a bike or a motorbike. You feel the experience of the wind in your hair without a car around you.