this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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Photography

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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

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How to learn from photography books (the unseen, Saul Leiter) (alien.top)
submitted 1 year ago by FloralChesterfield@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro
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I recently bought the unseen by Saul Leiter, beautiful book with a lot of great photos.

I am curious though as someone who’s never taken a photography class, what are the best ways to learn from a book like this?

-what should I be looking for? -compositions? -should I be trying to guess how he took certain shots? -the lighting?

Any tips would be helpful as I love his style and I love street photography and would love to be able to learn from this book rather than simply appreciate the beautiful photos… or maybe that’s just part of it?

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[–] 0x001688936CA08@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The example at the end of that document, recomposing the photograph with rule of thirds, produces a worse photograph, in my opinion.

[–] manjamanga@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Of course. Don't think of composition rules as rules at all. I should have mentioned that.
These are just the formal elements of art and should be studied, but when it comes to practice, they should only be sensibly applied at the discretion of the artist. Not taken as a prescription for what "correct" art ought to be.