We are drawn to amazing photos like bees to honey. They stir something in our souls, can evoke a feeling, can horrify us and send our souls soaring. They show us things we have never seen or familiar things in a different way. Do they have to be perfectly composed and technically correct to be considered to be excellent photos? I say they do not because a photo is personal – everyone sees a photo in their own way and brings to it their own experiences, biases, likes and dislikes. It is perhaps more important for a landscape photo to be technically correct – and perfectly composed. The subject is the scene before you and getting all of the elements composed in a harmonic manner is a challenge. The light affects a scenic photo even more than in a street scene or portrait. The beautiful photos we see of majestic mountains, bubbling streams, powerful waterfalls and the like have been carefully composed by the photographer who has also planned the time of day to capture the scene. There is an art to landscape photography. Perhaps less important on the technical perfection spectrum is the documentary photo which captures a moment in time that will never occur again. These photos are not always planned and the photographer just captures the action occurring. But we can also plan these street photos and eliminate much of the randomness by being prepared. If we have the luxury of time we carefully frame our photo – or plan several ways of framing the subject. The photo itself should still be well composed and exposed correctly. Often the drama of the moment is what makes the photograph stop us in our tracks. The photos coming out of Ukraine and Gaza fall into this category.
I have included several photos from the Highland dancing competition in Oban just to demonstrate how I tried many angles to get a decent photo of this experience. The lighting was bad, the backgrounds distracting. It was challenging trying to find a way to capture the moment. Which of these is the definitive photo that might appear in a photo story about the event?
