The composition is the organized sum of the interior functions of every part of the work. Wassily Kandinsky We were happy to host a great artist / painter, John Brosio at f8 today. John lead a discussion of his own work and elements of composition that drive his painting aesthetics as well as underlining the importance of composition in our photography. He started his discussion contrasting a Vermeer painting (on left) with a post modern abstract (on right) pointing out the similar compositional structure in seemingly dissimilar pictures from different genres and ages. He referenced Edgar Payne's "Composition of Outdoor Painting" as a great source of compositional reference. Using his own work as examples, he described the compositional ideas of receding planes in his paintings. As photographers we noted the concept of a foreground, mid ground and background as a vital part of our photography in nature. In addition, we discussed the idea of having a "punctum" (a barb..a la Roland Barthe in Camera Lucida)...noting each of his pictures with a visible punctum. We also discussion with John his ironic composition style of placing a terror (eg storm, earthquake or monster_ in juxtaposition with seemingly unconcerned people. Some of us saw this as a visual metaphor for our current political terror and the relatively unconcerned public seemingly helpless in its wake. We finally chatted about putting in our shots and his pictures only those elements that add to the composition of the image.
The discussion had to be cut short by the lateness of our time at Jones. John got besides our thanks for being at f8 our coveted "f8 Pasadena" cap. Thank you Charley for bringing John to our meeting. Check out his website: www.johnbrosio.com
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