I am currently in the process of writing my second book on photography. This time around, it’ll be a book on perception – which in the case of photography, goes two ways. The photographer’s own perception decides what the photograph becomes, the viewer’s perception decides how it is seen, understood and interpreted by that specific individual.
One of what I, myself, consider my strongest suit, is the fact that I am not only a photographer, I am also an (independent) art historian, focused on photo theory and methods of analysis.
What this does, is to provide me with two sides of one coin – the photograph.
This is one of the reasons why I’m writing this specific book. While perception in itself may sound boring (some aspects of it is probably quite boring, at least for the sake of photography), it is also very useful.
In earlier posts on this blog, I’ve written about how I have developed my own set of composition “rules”. They’re not really rules, I find that word a bit too tight, actually. But a set of.. ideas about composition (in lack of a better word), that works very well for me.
Unfortunately, I find that these ideas aren’t really covered by the commonly used way to discuss photography – through traditional composition. That’s not how I roll, so to speak.
Therefore, I am working on expanding the language we use to discuss photography. This is super interesting, so much fun, and something I hope will reach many, many people. It will be useful, not only for photographers – but also for art historians and other academics who work with analyzing photographs in one way or the other.
I take the liberty to dare say that what my book will do for academics, specifically,is to provide them with a language to use in formal analysis of photographs, that will influence how they read, thus perform the rest of their analysis, possibly to the better.
Why is this important?
To me, this is important because a photograph is so much more than leading lines, golden ratio, rule of thirds, et cetera. There is so much more than can be wrought out of a photograph, and since we’re all human, we cannot escape the fact that we see everything through who we are, everything we (think we) know, what we do, what we have, et cetera.
If we were trained in analysis, we can take on a more objective perspective. Yet, I find that there’s something missing if we only use theory in our analysis of any photograph.
That’s where my book makes its entrance. That’s where I offer an extended and expanded language to talk about, to describe, and ask questions about photography.
For the photographer, this book will open up a new way to think about photography. I don’t expect every photographer around the world to take on my perception and make it their own – that’d be absurd. But hopefully, I can provide a new set of questions to ask oneself, when standing there with the camera, ready to shoot.
Regardless of how this book will be used, it is a thrill writing it. I am having so much fun, and I discover new things that I didn’t even realize were important until now.
I have no idea of how long it’ll take until this book is done and in print. I don’t yet know how it’ll be published. I’ll make an effort to find a publisher, but if I don’t, I’ll publish it myself. The book needs to be born and meet the world – and the world needs to meet it.
I’ll be blogging about some of the things I write about in this book. Make sure to come back and find out more.
/Malinka
