قواعد جماليات الصورة .. مجلة فن التصوير اللبنانية _ ع٢١

Rules of image aesthetics

The aesthetic composition of the photograph is one of the most prominent elements that differentiate between one photographer and another. Photography is no longer as we knew it fifty years ago. All you have to do is press the shutter of the camera and whatever you enter. On cameras, from technical improvements that turned them into extreme simplicity, the photographer has the upper hand to obtain a pleasing aesthetic formation.

The element of aesthetic composition demonstrates the photographer's ability to arrange the subject of the image in comfortable positions for the eye. Although there are laws or signs of aesthetic formation derived from the analysis of the paintings of Renaissance painters, these laws are primarily relative sockets, as the rules that govern the relationship between blocks and lines.

And the distances were broken by photographers and achieved impressive aesthetic results, while others imitated them and dived
their business with oblivion.
Even those who derived the rules of aesthetic formation differed among themselves with the bud of extended discussions, long studies, and many books in European languages ​​that appeared to support an opinion or refute other opinions and rules.
This difference is due primarily to the psychological state of the artist, the photographer, and to the circumstances in which the picture was taken. Some of the pictures, if the rules of portability composition and the laws of composition are applied to them, seem abnormal and of shallow value, and yet they tell you about them.

Its photographer, by dissolving the state and acknowledging it, on the grounds that it was taken on an occasion dear to the same photographer, and nothing else.
And if this difference is at the level of the person, then on the other hand, the difference becomes deeper in the rules of formation between one society and another. Our eastern taste differs from the European taste, and both of them differ from the American taste in the rules of formation.
Certainly, we are all far from the taste of the Japanese standards and aesthetic controls of the photograph and such inconsistency by making talking about the aesthetic composition of the photograph really confusing.

The question arises here.. How is the path to aesthetic formation and the response comes simply when the photographer can visualize the scene he will photograph and knows how to record on the sensitive film from mere black and white dots or endless colored spaces a good aesthetic image.
The eye perceives the details of the shadowy areas, while the lens and the film fail to transmit it with the same fidelity with which it records the areas of high illumination, just as the areas of high illumination appear sharp to the eye as cinema appearing on the film, which is uncomfortable for vision. They provide the viewer with a flat image that lacks the third dimension, unless the photographer maneuvers the camera and the lighting to notify the viewer of the image of the missing transgression. Landscapes often appear to be an evening for the eye and the viewer, but they lose this well in the form of an image.
The photographer may be shocked just by seeing it.
Simplicity and the power of expression are considered among the most important elements of the aesthetic image. Therefore, we must avoid cramming many parts into a single frame, which results in the hyenas of the main idea in the crowd of the image and the loss of a large part of the harmony, which distracts the viewer and misleads him from the desired goal. When photographing a fish or a specific aquatic animal, one must not The picture contains people, buildings, trees, spectators, or even other animals. If we gather all this crowd, the viewer asks himself in amazement, what does the photographer mean? The question alone is evidence of the failure of the photographer.

Here, the photographer resorts to the law of the third, in which he divides the scene with imaginary lines into three parts in length and width, and puts the main purpose of the image at the point of convergence, and moves away completely from the geometric centers of the image. In general, there are several points for the rules of composition, including the following:

An expressive photographic angle must be chosen that helps highlight the foreground of the scene with the background of the image in consistency and harmony so that together they are an integrated aesthetic unit.

- The balance is taken into account in the aesthetic formation and the exploitation of the background of the image to suggest the third dimension.
Contradictions, such as a man riding a donkey and a luxury car running on the road, should not be present in the image.

- The balance of the lines and their directions is taken into account, and the direction is exploited in guiding the eye of the viewer of the image and directing it to the axis and purpose of the image, noting that curved lines such as roads and railways give beauty and grace. While straight lines give sharpness, and the strength of the landscape of horizontal roads gives the viewer a kind of stability and calmness.

- Taking into account the distribution of areas of shadows and high lighting in a good and fair distribution that helps to highlight the third dimension, if the shadow of an object falls in front of it, for example.
- Avoid tilting the camera during shooting unnecessarily, especially landscapes - Avoid cutting the image into two equal parts with any line in the subject of the image, such as a tree in the middle of the image exactly or the horizon line that divides the image into two halves because this loses the image's beauty and distribution and makes it look as if two images were glued together Next to each other is a process, a montage. .

- The photographer should avoid showing a large part of the sky, land or water so as not to spoil the balance, as a basic element in the aesthetic composition.

Written by Dr. Muhammad Nabhan Swailem