How to look at photographs

Wet Leaf, Vermont, 1969 by Ernst Haas (1921-1986)

Glory be to God for dappled things–

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced–fold, fallow, and plough;

And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things, counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise Him.

– Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

The Joy of Photography

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In preparation for revamping the introductory articles about photography that appear on this website (linked below), I spent a couple of hours this morning delving into my collection of old photographic books, magazines, and manuals. The wonderful time-lapse photograph shown above, made by Neil Montanus, appears in the 1979 edition of The Joy of Photography. Produced by the editors of the Eastman Kodak Co., this book contains hundreds of black-and-white and colour photographs that are both beautiful and instructional, and also includes special portfolios by Gordon Parks and former Magnum President, Ernst Haas. I relished flipping slowly through the pages, taking my time to study each of the prints and to read the accompanying text. Unlike digital images on a screen, which are aggressively sharp and bright, the prints, had an alluring, laid-back, painterly quality that invited me in. I felt at home among them.

Articles

• A Beginner’s Guide to Lenses

• An Introduction to Aperture

• An Introduction to Metering

• Your Camera Matters

• Gear Acquisition Syndrome

• Why Film Matters

• A Collection of Quotations on Photography