Photographs

Sam Abel, Life of a Photograph
- "Compose the picture, and wait"
  - "To compose": Locking down composition, exposure, focus.
  - Slow down time.
- "Take a low angle"
- "Look for maximum impact"
- "Look for strong graphics"
- "Keep the sun behind you"
- "Bad weather makes good pictures"
- "Setting first, subject second"
- Elements of a good photograph
  
  "The photograph seems inevitable" "Harmony"
  - The Setting
    
    Begin on the back layer and step towards in visual layers
  - The expressions
  - The gesture
    
    Shoulders above horizon
- Micro-composition
  
  For it to rise up, and have a life. Look through the tiny details about clarity. "Nothing touches" Looks for the one element closing out the composition.
- Macro-composition
  
  Overall, edge to edge, front to back content of the image; what you choose to photograph. Back to front Setting first, subject second.
- Be wary of only assignments that are meaningful.
- "I like to see life as it gives me, and not arrange"
- Good picture: "stopped and gave it my attention"
  - making pictures that are inevitable
- A few feet of height will make everything better
- "It's that one thing that gives life to the photograph"
- Get to know sections of a place and wait.
- Taking photos from the back doesn't invade their space.
- "The photograph that will have a long life will not be able to be memorized."
- It has to be right in the camera to be photography.
- "Perfection is not the dieal: Goodness, Justness, is the ideal."
- Link a still life and a landscape to give them life.
- "Improvement is not photography, seeing is photography"
- "Photography is about seeing and being in life"
- Layering
  - Start with the back layer, if nothing happens, at least you have it.
- Relying on internal framing
  - Still life and landscape merged together
- Look through surfaces
- Misc
  
  He's 73 years old.