The composition of My Images
Let's say I've found a subject. Before I raise the camera to my eye, I naturally have to choose the right lens. Whether I reach for a standard zoom, a wide-angle lens, or a telephoto lens is a matter of experience. Zoom lenses offer a certain amount of flexibility, but they also come in wide-angle and telephoto varieties. As a general rule: if I need a broad horizon, in other words a wider angle of view, I use a wide-angle lens. The same applies if I want to emphasize the foreground. Sometimes, however, creatively filling the foreground of a wide-angle shot can be an almost impossible challenge. And if I want to bring a subject closer—that is, make it appear larger—or compress the perspective, then I choose a telephoto lens. Those are just the basics, because it's not quite that simple.
In 99 percent of cases I photograph in landscape orientation, even though for some subjects, such as a minaret, portrait orientation would be more appropriate. There are several reasons for this. First, the screens at my presentations are in landscape format. Portrait-format shots would have to be reduced significantly so they wouldn't extend beyond the top or bottom of the screen, and then the image would lose its impact. Second, a crossfade between landscape and portrait images—a “cross-shaped transition”—doesn't look good. Sometimes I still choose portrait orientation because books, and therefore book pages, are usually in that format. If you want to reproduce a photo full-page without cropping it, it has to have been taken in portrait orientation.
Normally, however, everything I do takes place in the “Oskar Barnack format.” In 1914, Barnack designed the first 35 mm camera—with an image format of 24 × 36 mm. Nothing has changed about this 2:3 ratio to this day, despite all technological advances. Whether slides in the past or digital photos today, images from 35 mm cameras are usually in this ideal format, which also corresponds to our field of vision.
It is important to choose the framing correctly from the very beginning. Thanks to digital photography, I can narrow it afterward—though at the cost of resolution—but I cannot expand it. Looking back, I am glad I went through the rigorous training of analog photography, because it forced me to work cleanly and precisely, and I still benefit from that today. If I do happen to overlook the edge of a wall at the border of the frame, I might use only 99 percent of the image, but I do not make major cropping corrections.
The framing is determined by the lens—standard, telephoto, or wide-angle—but also by my position. That's why I am very active and practically dance back and forth, forward and backward in front of the subject to find the right viewpoint. If I still can't get the framing the way I want, I change the lens or turn the zoom ring. When the subject is far away, however, all that dancing around is of little use, and it makes no difference whether I stand a meter higher or lower. The image would not change noticeably.
If I choose the framing so that the ugly high-voltage transmission tower doesn't appear in the picture, I am certainly presenting a subjective perception of reality, but I do not manipulate the finished images by removing or adding elements.
Very often, the decisive factor in photography is choosing the right moment. That can mean waiting for the optimal lighting conditions—for example, for the sun to emerge from behind a cloud again—or waiting for a tree swaying in the wind to let light pass through its leaves. When photographing living subjects such as people or animals, I usually observe their movements and expressions through the viewfinder for a while until I feel the right moment has arrived. Only then do I press the shutter, perhaps several times.
In the past, I had to think carefully about how many photos to take of a subject so as not to waste film unnecessarily. Even so, I sometimes experimented with different exposures, taking additional shots at half or one-third of a stop more or less than the indicated exposure, because slide film had to be exposed very precisely. In digital photography, that is no longer necessary. Of course, I still try to expose my images correctly—the light meter takes care of that—but fine adjustments are now made during post-processing. As a result, I can concentrate more on the subject.
An important criterion for the impact of an image is the arrangement of the various elements within the frame. With landscapes as the subject, I can only change that arrangement by changing my position—that is, my perspective. In the vast expanses of a desert or polar region, I may have to move many kilometers to do so. In front of a yurt, on the other hand, just a few centimeters are often enough to change the arrangement of the image elements so that, for example, a satellite dish doesn't appear to stick into a motorcycle. If that doesn't help, I might ask for the motorcycle to be moved. It is more difficult with animals, especially herds, which are hardly controllable. Here, it is all about waiting for the right moment. The same applies to people who are moving or working. As a photographer, I would never presume to order the protagonists around in such situations. Things are somewhat different when I have asked to take a portrait of an individual or an entire family. In that case, I do intervene in the arrangement, because it helps neither the people being photographed nor me as the photographer if people block one another or are awkwardly positioned in the frame.