Additional Tutorials...

http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/response

http://michaelares.com/2013/10/12/gestures-in-photography/

https://vimeo.com/116718991

GESTURES
(from https://inancy.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/gesture/)

We are looking for exceptional images where the composition component – Gesture – is used to tell the to the image’s story and to create its mood, emotion, and purpose.

Using Gesture to tell the to the image’s story and to create its mood, emotion, and purpose.

What is gesture? The English dictionary gives us two very useful definitions:

• A movement of part of the body, especially a hand or the head, to express an idea or meaning
• An action performed to covey one’s feelings or intentions

In art, gesture is used more abstractly to include the line of a strong graphic element. Gesture just might be at the root of all great images; whether achieved with a human (or animal) gesture or just a strong graphic.

Henri-Cartier Bresson’s concept of Decisive Moment is about finding that moment when all the compositional elements line up, just right, to tell the most compelling and emotionally involving story. Simplified, this involved finding the peak of the action, but also finding the right relationships between object.

Jay Maisel teaches “gesture over graphic”. What he means is that if the action is happening, but there is still crap in the background, just take the image. An image with great story-telling gesture with crap in the background is better than a perfectly clean image with no story. (Yes, we should try to optimize both).

For a more subtle understanding of gesture, study the work of Sam Abell. Sam Abell talks about micro and macro composition, but he too is waiting for the gesture and waiting for all the gestures to line up just right. A good example is this video of Sam Abell produced by the National Geographic where he talks about his book The Life of a Photograph.

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Gesture is emotionally involving.

As I think about gesture, I think about passive and active gestures. Passive gestures are waiting or preparatory gestures, coming often before and after the story. You want to capture the active gestures. Here are a couple of examples:

Passive Pose- With his head down, the story is simple “I’m reading the paper”

Active Pose - With his head up and looking out of the frame, the story has more intrigue. “What is out there?” “What interrupted me from reading the paper?”

Another example

Passive Pose - A simple story of a woman reaching into her handbag. She has an interesting look and there is nice color combinations in the image.

Active Pose - In this pose we get more action with the tilt of her head causing her hat and head to be at different angles. Also we see her hand then details that it unveils with the her rings. It tells us more about the subject and more specifics about what she is doing.

Not all gestures are created equal

Not all gestures are created equal. There are a lot of pictures with pointless gesture. The gesture must tell the story.

This image has a pointless gesture. The story is weak. The man is walking and pointing at the photographer. Where is the mystery?

The gesture in this image is subtle but the story is stronger. You see the slight lean on his right leg and umbrella, a gaze out side the frame, a slight curl to the lips or raise in the eyebrows. What is he looking for? What is he looking at? The lean provides some anticipation. As a side note, the background and lighting are also stronger in the top post. Look at the rim lighting on the edge of his leather coat, the water one the floor, the detailed repeating pattern of the stairs.

Here is another gesture, the universal sign for figuring out what time it is. Is he late? Is he waiting for someone? The context of the train station adds to the story.

Gesture is not a grab-shot

A judge once commented on one of my photographs with the phrase: “What a great grab shot”. It was intended to be a compliment but it also exposed some naivety about street and documentary photography in general. While it is true that in this style of photography you are dependent on the chance action that happens in front of you, hardly ever do you get your shot simply by seeing something, raising the camera, and taking the “grab shot”. To the contrary, those are more typically the shots you miss, not the shots you get. Once you see the action, it is too late.

Capturing good gesture, like photographing birds, requires that you observe and prepare. Sometimes your image will materialize and sometimes they will not.

Tips for capturing gesture

Prepare

• Set your background
• Set your exposure (and possibly your focus)
• Get comfortable with the subject and setting

Take many images

• Take as many as 20 or 30 images of the same person
• Explore different angles
• Practice your timing

Evaluate your results with the following questions

• Is something happening?
• Is there emotion?
• What is the story?
• Have you caught the action at its peak?
• Is there anticipation?
• Is there mystery?

 Happy Shooting!