Composing

[RoganJosh]

Is it just me or does anyone else struggle to compose an image in its native state on the ground glass? I used to think that I had nailed a composition upside down, reversed only to find that it never looked quite balanced when I printed it. Nowadays I struggle to make a decent shot without using a mirror under the dark cloth.

has anyone else tried using a mirror? I feel like I would be ridiculed around certain LFers for doing this

[Lachlan717]

What difference is there?

By this, I mean, take away the assessed end image and you're left with the raw elements of the shot.

Dark on light, light on dark, nothing too close to being pinged in the middle of the shot, horizon level, focused checked.

What does the mirror offer to this process?

My thoughts are that you're still too focused on the aesthetic even though you've determined what it should be. Work it out, and then work out how to achieve it.

Two distinct processes in my opinion!

[smbooth]

How do you use the mirror?

[Alastair Moore]

How do you use the mirror?

I can only imagine composing on a reflection of the ground glass in the mirror but can't imagine how to do it accurately under the ground glass.

I've contemplated buying a reflex hood in the past but I'm getting used to upside down/back to front these days. It's almost (but not quite) natural.

[Walter Glover]

I'm getting used to upside down/back to front these days. It's almost (but not quite) natural.

It is the most natural thing in the whole craft to do. And the interpolation that goes on is so conducive to the contemplative and meditative nature of LF photography that sets it apart from the reactive nature of the squinty looken-peeper.

[RoganJosh]

It's just a pocket size mirror that I kinda hold under my nose to see the GG flipped much like a reflex viewer as Alastair stated. It may be worth trying if you have never done it before, personally it has helped me out muchly because I find that everything looks so interesting upside down which tends to throw off my sence of compositional relationships within the scene. Or maybe im just no good at flipping the image in my head?..

[RoganJosh]

What difference is there?

By this, I mean, take away the assessed end image and you're left with the raw elements of the shot.

Dark on light, light on dark, nothing too close to being pinged in the middle of the shot, horizon level, focused checked.

What does the mirror offer to this process?

My thoughts are that you're still too focused on the aesthetic even though you've determined what it should be. Work it out, and then work out how to achieve it.

Two distinct processes in my opinion!

Are you suggesting that I should be less specific in my composing? I fell like specificity is the only thing that sets my compositions apart from the average digi-bloke.

[Lachlan717]

Are you suggesting that I should be less specific in my composing? I fell like specificity is the only thing that sets my compositions apart from the average digi-bloke.

Not at all, especially as I'm not familiar with your way of composing things!

I was suggesting that there are many components of this practice that don't need to be done "the right way up". Much of the composition, I believe, is done before you look at the GG. You see an image, and generally set up roughly where it is. From there, you look at the GG and do the technical stuff that I mentioned.

Often, I find that this is where I decide whether the shot can, in fact, be photographed in a way that I had envisaged. If I can't get certain components to technically work (dark on light, for instance), I can then work on how it could work.

This is so hard to explain in writing, but again I would suggest trying to split the aesthetic from the technical as much as possible before looking at the GG.

[Maris]

It's been a long long time since I noticed the groundglass image in the back of a view camera is upside down. Or should that be upside down AND back to front?

In any case the "inversion" emphasises the formal structure of the image rather the emotional attachment to subject matter. Subsequent viewers of the final photograph only have the "formal structure" to go on with, they missed out on rapport with the subject matter, and the picture succeeds or fails on that basis.

It's waist level viewing reflex cameras that trick me up. Swing left, the image swings right, tilt left, the image tilts right; mindbending. Give me a view camera any day.

[RoganJosh]

I was suggesting that there are many components of this practice that don't need to be done "the right way up". Much of the composition, I believe, is done before you look at the GG. You see an image, and generally set up roughly where it is. From there, you look at the GG and do the technical stuff that I mentioned.

Yeh I understand what you meant now, I only use the mirror for the technical stuff after I have my basic scene on the GG.

For example the other day I compsed a shot looking up the trunk of a dead tree to the branches above. I was sure I had it balanced nicely but before I stopped down & closed the lens I had a look with the mirror only to find that tree just wasn't sitting properly within the frame which imo would have ruined the shot. As I said it may just be me that has this problem but I swear the day I started doing this was the day I stopped making useless compositions, cropping in PS, wasting film.