Owning the Frame

I didn’t realize that Vincent Versace had started some real blogging at the Acme Educational Site. I think it’s a great idea because his ideas are very densely presented in “Welcome to Oz”. And I think that there’s lots of capture related thinking that isn’t really developed there.

As I’ve been shooting, I’ve had this thought from Vincent intruding on my process: “Own the Frame”. For as long as I’ve photographed, I’ve avoided cropping unless absolutely necessary. I try to have the discipline to compose in the viewfinder. When it looks like a picture, I trip the shutter.

But try this on for size:

VIncent Versace: “The problem is that we operate under a belief that one actually composes a photograph. Unless you are in a studio doing a still life, where you can move the objects in your image around, you don%u2019t compose a photograph, you frame it. That%u2019s a big difference in how you conceptualize your images. “

For the last year or two I’ve been afraid of capturing images like the one on this page. These formal compositions is where I started and remain a comfort zone for me. However I now have a better context for them as details of the suburban landscape. Yellow curb paint is definitely a color of suburbia. And we may not have jewel like mountains, but we have lots of jewel like asphalt.

Author: James Vornov

I'm an MD, PhD Neurologist who left a successful academic career on the Faculty of The Johns Hopkins Medical School to develop new treatments in Biotech and Pharma. I became fascinated with how people actually make decisions based on the science of decision theory and emerging understanding of how the brain works to make decisions. My passion now is this deep explanation of what has been the realm of philosophy, psychology and self help but is now understood as brain function. By understanding our brains, I believe we can become happier, more successful people. View all posts by James Vornov