Avoiding clichés

Learning goal

At a place everyone shoots from the same spot, at the same hour and from the same angle, you will be able to find a frame of your own without leaving out that place's well-known image. Returning to the same place at another hour, for example at dawn or at night, you will see how the light and the crowd change. You will turn your back on the familiar view and shoot what is behind you, that is, the people watching that view and the light falling on them. You will show the crowd not as an obstacle but as a subject, the tourists and the locals as parts of the same scene. You will choose not the whole of a well-known building but a small part of it that still introduces it. In the warm light of sunset you will watch with the white balance that faces and skin don't shift too far toward orange.

The question

Above the island's harbor, a whitewashed chapel stands facing the sea. When your friend climbs up there in the late afternoon, there are dozens of people on the stone terrace in front of the chapel: phones, cameras, selfie sticks, all facing the same direction. Your friend squeezes in among them too and shoots the chapel, its blue dome and the sea behind it. On the screen there is a flawless but familiar frame; when they search, they see the same frame has been shared thousands of times. Is a different frame possible where everyone shoots?

Context

In the creative block lesson you met how looking at the same subject with the same angle, hour and lens keeps the eye from seeing anything new, that is, the repetition trap (Lesson 23.5). In landscape photography we talked about the viewpoint, the spot where a view is easiest to see, often marked and shot by everyone (Lesson 16.2). You also remember the day you shot the plane tree in the square again in the late afternoon, with children passing in front, and crossed it off the list (Lesson T.1).

Well-known places are traps because they are well known: our eyes have already seen them a thousand times, and the camera turns of its own accord to that familiar angle. But the same places, outside the direction everyone looks, outside the hour everyone goes, and inside the whole everyone sees, carry frames not yet shot. This lesson takes up the ways to look for those frames.

Simple explanation

What shows when you look behind you?

A reverse view is turning your back on a well-known view in front of it and shooting what is behind, usually the people watching that view and the light falling on their faces. At a sunset, while everyone looks at the sun, the sun's light falls on their faces: warm, low and from the side. The view itself has been shot thousands of times, but the faces looking at it are that evening's, and those people's, own moment.

A reverse view shows how a place is lived. A couple waiting for the sunset in front of a chapel, a child raising a phone, an old man sitting on a bench looking at the sea. These frames often tell more than the view itself, and in a series they complete the postcard shot by standing right beside it. From people whose faces are shot recognizably, permission is asked in a reverse view too.

Why can the crowd be a subject?

A crowd-as-subject shot is a frame that shows the crowd gathered at a well-known place not as an obstacle but as the frame's real subject. Twenty phones lined up side by side in front of a chapel, arms reaching toward the same painting in a museum, tourists queuing at a viewpoint, are a truth that tells the travel of our time. Showing the crowd honestly, instead of waiting for hours to leave it out of the frame, is an observation.

In a crowd-as-subject shot, tourists and locals are parts of the same scene. A seller selling sesame bread rings at the edge of the crowd, or an old fisher mending their nets below the terrace, puts two separate lives of the same place side by side. These frames show a place not only as pleasant but as it is.

For a crowd-as-subject shot, stepping a little outside the crowd, onto a step or to the end of the terrace, helps; from there both the raised arms and the thing they are looking at show in the same frame. A slightly long focal length compresses the phones lined up one behind another and stresses the repetition. Here too what matters is only observing, without mocking anyone; tourists are also part of that place's life today.

What do the hour and a part change?

The same place is another place at different hours. At dawn the front of a chapel is often empty, the light soft and cool, the blue of the dome blending into the sea's mist. At night the chapel's lamp is lit and the dome stands under the stars. The hours when the crowd doesn't come show the same icon in a light other than the one everyone knows.

An icon fragment is a frame that shows not the whole of a well-known building but a small detail of it that still introduces it: an edge of the chapel's blue dome and the bell on top, the worn blue paint of its door, the lime marks on its wall. Because the well-known place has been seen once, the viewer recognizes it from a small part too. So the frame both names the place and looks at it with a new closeness.

The light of sunset changes skin too. A frame painted orange with a warm white balance reddens light skin and turns dark skin into a copper surface. Keeping the white balance close to daylight and leaving the warmth to the light itself protects the faces' real color that evening.

Visual evidence

Your friend steps out of the crowd, walks to the other end of the terrace and turns their back on the chapel. As the sun sets, a low, golden light falls on the faces on the terrace. The club's dark-skinned cyclist, leaning on her freckled friend's shoulder, is looking at the sunset. Your friend asks the two of them for permission and shoots. In the first frame they had set the white balance to shade; both faces are orange. When they bring it closer to daylight, a warm copper glow stays on the cyclist's skin and a pink tone in her friend's freckles.

Then they turn to the crowd. On the screens of twenty phones raised side by side, the same chapel shines; below the terrace, an old fisher, back turned to the crowd, mends their net. Your friend shoots both in the same frame.

The next morning at dawn they climb up again. The terrace is empty, the sea misty. They shoot only an edge of the chapel's blue dome, its bell and a seagull perched on top. When they show the frame to the other members of the tour, everyone recognizes the chapel at once.

Common mistakes

Summary

A different frame where everyone shoots is found by turning your gaze without leaving out the familiar frame: the reverse view that turns around and shoots the faces watching the view, the crowd-as-subject shot that makes the crowd the subject, another hour, and the icon fragment that introduces the building through a small detail. At sunset, keeping the white balance close to daylight protects the real color of these faces and skin tones.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will shoot four different frames at the most photographed spot of the place you live in, or of a place you go to.

1. Shoot the familiar frame of the most photographed spot once.
2. At the same spot, turn around and shoot the people watching the view; ask recognizable people for permission.
3. Shoot a crowd-as-subject shot and an icon fragment showing a small part of the building; also return to the spot once at an hour when there is no crowd, and if it is at sunset, keep the white balance close to daylight.

Check yourself

• Of the four frames, which tells the place best, and which is yours?
• Does the icon fragment introduce the building without showing its whole?
• In the sunset frames, is the faces' color close to their real color that evening?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What is a reverse view?

• A) Shooting with the camera held upside down
• B) Flipping the frame
• C) Turning your back on a well-known view and shooting the people watching it and the light falling on their faces
• D) Shooting only at night

2. How is the crowd handled in a crowd-as-subject shot?

• A) As the frame's real subject, honestly
• B) As an obstacle to be erased in editing
• C) By leaving it out of the frame
• D) By blurring it

3. Why does an icon fragment still introduce the place?

• A) Because it is shot with a very wide angle
• B) Because the well-known place has been seen once, so the viewer recognizes it from a small detail too
• C) Because the place's name is written on it
• D) Because it shows the crowd

4. What prevents faces from shifting too far toward orange at sunset?

• A) Setting the white balance to shade
• B) Raising the ISO
• C) Turning the frame black and white
• D) Keeping the white balance close to daylight and leaving the warmth to the light

Answers

1. C — The view has been shot a thousand times; the faces looking at it belong to that evening.
2. A — The crowd is the place's present-day truth and can be shown as an observation.
3. B — A small part of a known shape calls up the memory of the whole.
4. D — The light is already warm; a warm setting doubles it and drowns the skin in orange.

Summary card

• Shoot the familiar frame, then turn your gaze.
• Reverse view: turn your back on the view, shoot the faces watching.
• Crowd-as-subject shot: the crowd not an obstacle but a subject.
• Another hour and an icon fragment: dawn, night, an edge of the dome.
• At sunset the white balance close to daylight; the skin's real color.

Bridge to the next lesson

On the tour's last evening, your friend imports the two thousand frames they shot in a week to the computer on the guesthouse terrace: the bakery, the market, the courtyard, the wedding, the chapel, the ferry, the cyclists. The cyclist who organized the tour wants twelve frames for the club's page. Your friend doesn't know which frame goes first and which last, or which detail should fall beside which view. How do you tell a journey? The next lesson takes up building a travel story with an opening frame, details, people and views.