CHAPTER 1
INTENT
Photography is extremely good at getting straight to the point. Perhaps too good. There’s something in front of the camera; so shoot and you have an image of it, with or without any thought. Doing this often enough may produce some gems, but thinking first is guaranteed to do better.
A great deal of photographic instruction focuses on how to be clear and obvious, by identifying the subject, choosing the lens, viewpoint, and framing that will most efficiently and immediately communicate it to a viewer. This is exactly what a news photograph, for example, needs—clarity and efficiency—but what’s right for a photograph in one context may work against it if it is presented for a different purpose, such as on a gallery wall. Clarity ...
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