About the Photographs

There is a fairly recent convention in books about photography, particularly in how-to books, whereby the text is accompanied by illustrations, usually also with a description of camera settings, and sometimes with circles and arrows. In books concerned with the how-to, this can be a helpful approach. But this is not a how-to book. It’s a why-to book. It’s more concerned with learning to ask questions than it is with providing you the answers. The photographs in this book are my own recent answers to my own questions. You will make your own. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be helpful. If we ask the right questions, every photograph can teach us something. And questions abound in The Heart of the Photograph.

When I completed the first draft, it was suggested that we take all the images and pair them up with the concepts. Images where moments were important, for example, would accompany the chapter about the importance of well-considered moments. But the thing is, it’s rare that an image succeeds because of one single device or technique; my “choice of moment” photograph also relied on my point of view, the light, my chosen aspect ratio, and whether or not I used colour well. It’s a dance. It always has been and always will be. So when I assigned the images this way, it not only felt contrived, it felt like a random mishmash. Worse, the images stopped working together in the context for which I made them. As more and more I consider it important for my photographs to work in harmony with each other, this felt like a step in the wrong direction.

So I’ve grouped the images in the way I might choose to present them to the world, not to simplify them into one-dimensional educational tools. That does not mean they aren’t an important part of the book. In fact, I think they are more powerfully educational this way because, if you engage with them, they will force you to ask questions in much the same way as I’m hoping to nudge you toward asking questions of the scenes you photograph.

I encourage you to use the photographs on these pages to give your reading some rhythm and create natural breaks, to look at them and perhaps find some spark of inspiration. But most importantly, I encourage you to question them: What are the lines doing in this image? What does the choice of framing or shutter speed, or moment, or the use of contrast or perspective, or any of the other questions raised in this book, contribute to this photograph? Forget for a moment whether you like or dislike the photograph; instead, ask what decisions I made to come to this final image, and what those decisions accomplish for you in your reaction to it.

Unlike many of my earlier books, you will not find creative exercises here, but perhaps you’ll consider the images as one long educational through-line: one thread that urges you to specifically engage with what you see and try these questions on for size. When you begin to find your own answers to these questions, they will become part of your vocabulary, and they will quietly work their way into your own process of making photographs—a process that becomes more and more your own, and results in pictures that do the same.