More Than a Rock

33The Concept

There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.

—Ansel Adams

When teaching photography workshops I always emphasize the importance of starting an image with a concept—something that stops you in your tracks and whispers in your ear, “there’s something here worth photographing.”

A concept has no visual characteristics, and the role of the photographer is to find a way of expressing a concept through visual elements—line, form, color, and tone—by arranging them into a considered composition. What the concept does have is significance—a message, an emotion, an idea, a sensation, a statement, a metaphor, or a story.

Regrettably, many photographers never consider the need for an image to have a concept. In fact, it ...