Photography: Framing Archives - DRAWING LIFE by fred hatt DRAWING LIFE by fred hatt

2014/07/28

Ultra Wide

Filed under: Photography: Framing — Tags: NYC, Snapshots, Technique, Urban Landscape — fred @ 23:58

Headlights at Dusk, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

You’ve probably heard of the GoPro Hero, the tiny high definition video camera designed for extreme sports. It can be clamped to a helmet, a surfboard, a bicycle, or a racing car to show the sedentary and screen-bound what their more daredevilish brethren and sistren see while risking their lives careening down mountainsides or surfing pipelines. In 2012, when Felix Baumgartner skydove out of a capsule 24 miles above earth, he was wearing five of these little cameras. One of my favorite GoPro videos was taken with the camera strapped to the back of an eagle soaring in the Alps.

Now I’m no extreme sportsman. I feel ill leaning over a third floor balcony and trip over carpet runners while walking at a normal pace. But I was intrigued with the possibilities of the GoPro to get shots from unusual vantage points and to capture subjective views, and since I work as a freelance videographer and photographer it seemed like a good idea to add an additional camera to the bag, especially one that costs a tenth of what my main camcorder cost and is smaller than one of its batteries. I’ve been experimenting with it for a few months now, and have gotten some interesting shots. One thing I didn’t expect to do with the GoPro was to use it as a still camera, but under the right conditions it takes remarkably good stills with its extremely wide-angle built-in lens. All the pictures in this post were taken in recent months with the GoPro Hero 3+. All of these were taken as stills, not frames from video footage.

Fountain Plaza, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

Every camera lens has a field of view that can be described as a conical space extending out from the lens. What is usually considered a “normal” lens takes in an angle of view of about 45 degrees. A telephoto lens, the kind sports photographers use to get tight shots from a distance, might have an angle of view of twelve degrees or even much less. The GoPro lens angle of view is nearly 150 degrees, meaning it gets almost everything that is in front of it. If it’s clamped to the front of your surfboard looking up at you it can take in your whole height and also a majestic view of the waves swelling and curling around you. You can take a picture of a person from inches away, and that wide cone of view places that person in the context of a panoramic landscape extending all around him or her.

Columbus Circle, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

If you’ve followed my urban landscape photography on Drawing Life you’ve noticed that I rarely take pictures of strangers. I’m not quite aggressive enough to shoot right at people without permission, and usually not quite socially dauntless enough to chat them up and get their consent. I found that the GoPro is so small – about half the size of a deck of playing cards – that I could just carry it around in one hand and no one even noticed it, even if I was taking their picture from inches away from them.

Rainy Day, 2013, photo by Fred Hatt

The ultra-wide view is good at capturing two spaces next to each other, an interior and an exterior space, or an opening from one space to another.

Stairs, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

It dramatically emphasizes the converging lines of perspective.

Deli Flowers, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

The default capture settings produce images that are highly contrasty and colorful. I changed the settings to soften contrast, since these wide views often include areas that are shady and areas that are sunlit in the same frame.

Mottled Shadows, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

Many of these street views were shot while walking, holding the camera at hip level and not even pausing my stride. In bright daylight the shutter speed is fast enough that the images are sharp, but even overcast daylight makes the camera take a longer exposure that will often show motion blurring in these conditions.

Shades, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

In the wide angle view, perspective affects everything. Vertical shapes loom and converge toward the sky, while the horizon line veers like the deck of a sailboat listing in the wind.

Manhattan Couple, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

The image below shows the Henry Moore sculpture and reflecting pool at Lincoln Center, seen in another post on this blog in this very different shot (Comparing the shot at the link with the one below is an excellent illustration to contrast the different qualities of the wide angle lens and the narrow-angle telephoto lens). The exaggerated perspective of the GoPro makes it look like the sculpture is far, far away, across a great body of water.

Reflecting Pool, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

Here’s the skyline of lower Manhattan seen from the ferry to Governors Island.

Ferry, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

Here’s a street vendor selling matted magazine covers. The shot, taken from a distance of maybe one meter, shows the vendor, all three sides of his display, and the underside of his colorful dual parasols.

Vendor, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

A house interior shows an entire hallway seen through a door, with doors on either side and at the end, and a stairway on the right.

Hallway, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

These food carts are seen in the context of the street, the sidewalk, the surrounding buildings, and the pedestrians.

Street Food, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

Only such a wide view really captures the feeling of being in a supermarket aisle between great walls of food.

Aisle, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

One night I returned home to find my street with a great trench dug in it, and an SUV-sized boulder there on the right – did that come out from under the street?

Street Construction, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

And this was the truck they brought in to haul off that boulder.

Wide Load, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

The wide view shows the buildings surrounding the people. A vertical city expresses the aspirations of a vertical species.

Red Skirt, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

An organization called the Sculptors Guild has a gallery in a huge old house on Governors Island. The rooms themselves are sculptural spaces.

Sculpture Show, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

The wide view captures something of the sensation of being inside a space or being within surroundings.

Subway Escalator, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

Professional photographers these days tend to favor the narrow-angled telephoto lens, that isolates its subject and blurs the background. It eliminates distractions and distortions, and often has a glamorizing quality. The wide angle view has the opposite effect – emphasizing the distortions of perspective, seeing everything sharp both near and far, subjects not set apart but set within a whole scene.

Pretzels, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

The narrow view is about objects. the wide view is about space.

Backlit Tree, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

The wide view is dynamic and expansive.

Photographer, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

The practice of photography is a way of learning how to see the world. Different techniques, different approaches, and different lenses are different ways of seeing. Shooting with a wide angle lens makes me feel spaciousness. It is a curative for the feeling of being hemmed in by the density of the city.

Street Lines, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

We put ourselves in enclosures to move around in the world – private cars and public cars. The wide lens makes these interiors seem not like tight boxes, but like environments.

Self Portrait Driving, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

Subway Interior, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

In a more open vehicle we feel ourselves moving among the motile masses and the massive monoliths of Manhattan.

Rickshaw, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

There’s a foreground – individual people right around us. There’s a middle ground – the constant traffic that circulates in the city like blood. And there’s a background – blocks of buildings and the grid of gaps between them that channel all that hurly-burly.

Crosswalk, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

Life is movement in space. Open your view wide to take it in.

Limo Driver, 2014, photo by Fred Hatt

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2012/07/15

Framing Absence

Filed under: Photography: Framing — Tags: NYC, Philosophy, Snapshots, Urban Landscape — fred @ 21:13

Window Wall, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

A frame makes a picture. A frame that is around nothing makes something of that nothing. Most people probably never look out a window with no view, but if you take the frame’s cue and view this brick wall as a view, it is a rather intense study in texture and light.

I’ve always found something compelling in “empty” frames. Here are a few of them.

Now Showing, 2002, photo by Fred Hatt

An empty frame is a memento mori, a reminder of mortality, a window on nothingness that tells us there was once something where now there is nothing.

Red on Blue, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

A big red box frames something – maybe a keyhole? – and, combined with shadows from a scaffold, makes an abstract painting of a blank blue wall.

Dots, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Here was once a fine locking glass poster case. Then it became a community bulletin board. Then someone pulled down the bulletins, leaving behind scraps of tape. Now it is a sad cabinet of glass, empty inside and marred outside. Or you can look at it as a jaunty composition of colored dots and tape on a transparent surface.

Boutique, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

This storefront once attracted window shoppers with provocatively posed mannequins in garish urban fashions. A sagging tarp, blue and dusty, hangs there as the flag of failure.

Billboard Support, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

A vivid golden sculpture rising into the gray sky is so much more appealing than would be another commercial message.

Caution No Floor, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Everything has been done to make this once inviting store entrance forbidding: paint splattered on the inside of the glass, a steel gate, caution tape, and a spray-painted sign that says “Caution No Floor”. Here is the gate to hell, it would appear.

Exit ACE. 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Peel, scrape, erase – all but a remnant of a baby’s face.

Glass Frame, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

This is a little vitrine on a Subway platform where the Transit Authority posts notifications to commuters. Someone tagged the glass with some clearish substance, creating a piece of abstract expressionism in subtle tones of translucency on transparency, casting faint shadows on a dully reflective aluminum back plate.

Now Serving Soup!, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

This frame was not an empty frame until the clumping snow made it so. You can still read the message “Now Serving Soup!” – just what you’d want on a blizzardy day.

Chalked Plates, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Some kids with street chalk clearly saw this textured steel access plate as a frame, and decided to fill it in with colors.

Wet Cardboard, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Here’s a double frame made of an upside-down box spring and a piece of blue-edged cardboard that maybe used to be behind a mirror or a picture. In its demise, this piece of cardboard has finally become a picture itself, as the moisture has stained it with something that looks like a misty watercolor painting of mountains. The hard-edged multiple framing really emphasizes the pictorial quality of the cardboard, as a fancy inset double mat might enhance a soft picture.

Triptych, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

A triple window of water-stained board becomes a holy triptych. “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.”

Red Rectangle, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

Will humanity one day emulate and extend the act of creation, seeding life on Mars or other planets? Or will we destroy ourselves in the fire of our own consumptiveness?

Blinds, 2002, photo by Fred Hatt

Someone who likes to hide in shadows got a building made for putting things on display, and so they put their depression and decay on display.

Rectangles and Diagonals, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

The paper in these windows, raked with shadows from an awning frame, looks like a silken kimono decorated with delicate diagonal stripes.

You Us We Now, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

This scraped poster has remnants that suggest a landscape, with brown below and blue above. The black shapes in the lower left seem to be figures sitting in the landscape.

Blue Rectangle, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

Here on a plywood fence the artistic battle between figuration and abstraction is being waged.

White on Black, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

I almost think I can read a message in this remnant in poster paste, but it’s illegible, a distorted echo, a white shadow.

Stone, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

An artificial texture reminiscent of coral, surrounded in a bold rectilinear frame, marks this stone. From a distance, it’s just a random pattern, like camouflage, but looked at closely it has a great writhing energy.

Empty Display, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

This storefront window between displays is the stage of a shabby rundown theater in an entertainment district the cool people no longer frequent.

Antidepressant, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

I think maybe this window is supposed to be a conceptual art installation, but it doesn’t look much different from the definitely unintentional depressing empty windows elsewhere in this post. I like how the neon sign casts its shadow on the plywood – the shadow of light. This was a storefront window in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The artist is unknown to me – let me know if you know.

Dusty Window with Rubber Cement, 2008, photo by Fred Hatt

This dusty window depicts an encounter between a rather rigid character whose plaid slacks are seen in the lower left pane, and an angel of anunciation, descending from heaven in the middle upper frame.

Restaurant, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

Paper is often used to block the windows of defunct businesses. Fallen paper, rumpled and stained behind the glass, is an emblem of fragility and collapse, but the rest of the world goes on, and that outside beauty is also seen in the glass, in reflection.

Van Windows, 2002, photo by Fred Hatt

Some kind of film has been applied inside these van windows to block the interior from outside peering. The sun (?) has caused this fascinating pattern of cracks, both dark and light, to appear in the film. It reminds me of the tessellation of a dried lake bed.

Pink Window, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Notice how much more cheerful satiny pink fabric is in a covered display window, compared with the dusty blinds, tarps, or collapsing paper seen in other images of this post. But it doesn’t completely overcome the depressing aspect of a shrouded display case. If the window showed us a colorful piñata donkey, or a tin man made of stovepipe, with the pink fabric behind, that would liven it up nicely.

Window, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

I think this one may be a bathroom window. The glass is frosted and there seem to be little shelves and a towel up against the window. The frames always make me see these empty windows as abstract or minimalist compositions.

Governors Island Window, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

This is a view looking out from a window by the waterfront on New York’s Governors Island. The simplicity of this view, with tree branches in front of silvery water, is another lovely minimalist composition, made so by its frame.

Niche, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Something – a bust or a plaque, perhaps, surely once occupied this niche flanked by cornucopias and wreathed with ornate floral decorations. Now it is a beautiful monument to the mystery of the void. The gaps are where imagination comes to life, where memory and potential coexist. Sometimes our world is overfilled with stuff and messages and sensations. I value the absences, the empty spaces, the shells left behind by things that are gone. The frame around emptiness says here is art, contemplate this. And nothing rewards contemplation as much as does no thing.

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2012/05/25

A Foraging Eye

Filed under: Photography: Framing — Tags: Landscape, Nature, NYC, Seasons, Snapshots, Urban Landscape — fred @ 19:13

[Before getting to the subject of this post, I’m pleased to announce that my drawing is the subject of a new post by Courtney Jordan on the Artist Daily blog. Check it out!]

Lean on Wall, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Photography satisfies the ancient human instincts of hunting and gathering. Armed with specialized gear, photographers go out in search of their particular quarry, chasing after it or lying in wait for it. At just the right moment, with sure technique and trained reflexes, they shoot and they capture. Nailing the perfectly-timed shot of an epic sports moment, a stunning nature scene, an indelible image of war’s horror, or a celebrity wardrobe malfunction is like bagging the big game.

I lack the aggressiveness and the single-mindedness it takes to be a great hunter. I’m more of a forager. I walk around the city a lot, and I usually carry a camera with me (a dedicated camera, not a phone). I rarely go looking for specific images; instead, I just go about my normal business and social life, constantly scanning the environment for the kinds of images that feed me. Usually, that means some combination of natural or cultural phenomena, contrasting forms, and striking effects of light.

I don’t think of myself as a Fine Art Photographer. I have no concern for reaching a pinnacle of craft or making a bold statement through this work. It is in my drawing practice that I am serious about constantly challenging myself. Photography is a more casual pursuit, a way of gathering impressions so I can study and contemplate on them later. The concern that unifies the drawing practice and the photography practice is an effort to hone and expand visual perception.

Here are some of the fruits I gathered in my photographic foraging in New York City since the beginning of this year, presented in random order.

Sunset Reflection, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Because the nerves of our eyes feel light, we can touch at a distance everything the light touches. But light does not simply show us where things are and their shapes and sizes. Light is a mercurial substance that can be knife-sharp or misty, golden or leaden.

Bike Cluster, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Humans like to think of themselves as free and unencumbered like birds, but we are more like corals, building around ourselves great accretions of stuff.

Scraped, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The constant building and tearing down, refinishing and repurposing, makes hidden layers and then sometimes reveals them, a world of palimpsests and pentimenti.

Broken Mirror, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The world is a shattered mirror that makes the one thing look like a complicated lot of ragged striving things.

MoMA Garden in Winter, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Organic forms and rectilinear forms go together like a bow-legged woman and a knock-kneed man.

Bench with Rings, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The rain has cleared this park bench of sitters, the better to reveal its ring-and-spiral ironwork.

Mister Softee, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A cop on the beat, a man with a baby stroller, a Mister Softee truck, and a steam vent in the street – a Manhattan melody.

A Frames, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Sure, the Brooklyn Bridge is a beautiful piece of engineering, but look at all the geometry some designer put into these simple plastic barrier frames.

November, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Another palimpsest – scraped away layers of advertising on a Subway poster frame. Is this great abstract painting an accident, or someone’s deliberate creation?

Rust Drips, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Water leaks in around the ironwork, leaving blood-like trickles on a concrete wall. The roughness of the wall makes the drips scribbly and frizzy.

Orange Blue, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

At just a certain time of the evening, the deep blue of the twilight sky and the golden orange of the sodium-vapor streetlamps balance each other just so, giving magic to the most mundane features of the environment.

Gate Shadows, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

This sidewalk at night is haunted by the shadows of the old cast-iron fences and gates.

Mobile, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Street art is exposed to the chaos of the unsecured environment. This skull with a cell phone has flyers pasted on its forehead and is joined by a painting inspired by chemical diagrams, orange construction webbing, and some yellow caution tape that says “Screwtape” (a C. S. Lewis reference?), and then the shadows of leaves give the whole thing a mottled camouflage effect.

Wet Horsehead, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Beads of rain bejewel this fiberglass horsey-ride painted in psychedelic colors.

Banana Peel, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A minimalist found composition in red, green, gray and yellow.

Concave Plywood, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

These warped plywood sheets looming over the sidewalk remind me of Richard Serra’s space-bending steel walls.

Hands to Face, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

This one is definitely a deliberate bit of sabotage collage of a kind often inflicted upon the posters in the Subway stations. The anonymous cut-and-paster has a certain surrealist flair.

Reflective Row of Cars, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A row of parked cars has to be the dullest thing in the modern world, but even here that great conjurer light works its enchantment.

Reclining Forms, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The rectilinear, the organic, and the circular will all lie down together.

Evening Blossoms, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A bare tree in twilight and a blooming one in warm light, all of it crackling with the life force as it expresses itself in forms.

Night Shadows, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Mixed light sources and the shadows of foliage give the camouflage treatment to this stack of rectangles.

Mural, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

This mural turns a plain street with a windowless wall into an 8-bit video game.

Perspective with Lamps, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The oblique angle and the compressed perspective of a telephoto lens emphasize color shifts across this row of windows and sconces.

Golden Female, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A womanly figure beckons from a back-lit sign. The golden glow and the elegant curves beckon grail-like in dim and ragtag surroundings.

Lace Curtain, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The lights of night are seen behind the homey screen of a lace door curtain.

Embroidery, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A tree is the earth exploring space and air by reaching and branching into it.

Chainlink Fence, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

At night a fence and a vacant lot full of weeds are a veil of mystery. Although I used a randomizing program to put these pictures in a thoroughly mixed up order, these last three all suggest lattices that reveal nocturnal space behind them.

Compressed Stairs, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Looking up a really long flight of stairs sometimes feels like standing at the base of a Mayan pyramid.

Fountain, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

It’s hard to get the esssence of water in a still photograph, because it is all about how it moves. Sometimes, though, just the right kind of light and just the right amount of motion blur get the feel of movement in a still image. Can I get that kind of energy in my drawings?

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2011/04/02

Vertical Panoramas

Filed under: Photography: Framing — Tags: Nature, NYC, Snapshots, Technique, Urban Landscape — fred @ 22:38

Stairs and Skylight, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

We’ve all gotten used to the terms “landscape” and “portrait” being used to designate the orientation of a rectangular display screen, printed document, or photograph, though there’s no reason a portrait can’t be horizontal, or a landscape vertical. I live in New York, a famously vertical city of skyscrapers, but even here most of the locals scurry around the streets like the inhabitants of Flatland, never imagining that third dimension. In 1998 photographer Horst Hamann published a book called New York Vertical, that showed how excitingly the upward thrust of the city can be captured in a tall and narrow frame.

I believe Hamann used a 6 cm x 17 cm medium format film camera like this one (though not necessarily this brand or model). I can’t afford one of those, so when I’ve wanted to capture a very wide or very tall view I usually just take anywhere from two to six sequential panning shots on a fairly humble digital camera, stitching them together later using computer software. I started doing this with the Canon G1 I got back in 2001. It came with a “stitch assist” mode that helped align such a series using the LCD viewfinder, and a program called PhotoStitch to put them together. Today Photoshop includes a panorama merging function, and Sony has a “sweep panorama” mode where you just pan over the landscape and the camera automates the whole process. I don’t have one of those, but I’ve had pretty good results with combining a series of photos the “old fashioned” way.

Javits Center Geometry, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

If you’re looking at these pictures on a small screen or a short wide display you may have to scroll vertically to see the whole picture. This is actually the most natural way to look at these pictures. They capture a larger vertical field of view than you can take in in a glance. They represent looking at something head-on and then tilting the head to move your view upwards, or vice versa. When you make one of these images small enough to take in the whole thing at once, it looks very distorted. In the shots above and below, the lower part of the picture is a straight-on view with the gaze parallel to the ground, while the upper part is seen as though the head is tilted back at a severe angle. They represent a movement of vision, not an instant of vision.

Puck Building Fire Escape, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

The picture below shows an audience on the sidewalk, watching one of the storefront window performances at the arts organization Chashama in 2002, with the newly constructed Condé Nast building towering overhead, 48 stories high.

Welcome to Chashama Land, 2002, photo by Fred Hatt

Sometimes the tilt of the view is not from horizontal to upward, but from horizontal to downward, as in this view of the stairs going into a Subway station at the south end of Central Park.

Subway Stairs, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

Towers and stairways are not the only vertical presence in the city. Trees are the great mediators between earth and sky. Here are butoh dancers Moeno Wakamatsu and Celeste Hastings, performing in the 17th century graveyard of St. Marks Church in the Bowery, where Peter Stuyvesant is buried.

Celeste and Moeno at St Marks, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Reddish streetlights make a bare tree at dusk look like arteries and capillaries.

Vascular Tree, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Here’s a view from inside “Big Bambu” a sculptural/architectural temporary evolving installation by Mike and Doug Starn on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art last year. (An outside view of this piece is the third photo from the bottom in this post.)

Bambu Interior, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Finally, here’s one of Manhattan’s earliest skyscrapers, the Flatiron Building, a favorite subject for photographers since the time of Stieglitz and Steichen.

Flatiron Lamppost, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

All the photos in this post are stitched panoramas, made from multiple original shots. See this post for a vertical panorama of the World Trade Center.

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2010/11/06

Magic Squares

Filed under: Photography: Framing — Tags: Nature, NYC, Seasons, Snapshots, Technique, Urban Landscape — fred @ 01:30

Sunset Construction Shed, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

A lot of writing about proportions and composition focuses on the golden ratio or phi. Relationships based on phi appear everywhere you look in natural forms and cycles. Artists, architects and designers frequently use the golden rectangle based on this ratio, and it’s often considered the most beautiful of all rectangles. But it could be argued that the square is an even more harmonious quadrangular shape, and its perfect evenness has very special compositional qualities.

The 6 x 6 cm square film format became popular for magazine photography partly because square images could be cropped to either vertical or horizontal rectangles by the editor, but photographers often found that the square frame facilitated particularly bold arrangements of their subject matter. Designers discovered the special qualities of the square frame in creating sleeves for LP records, leading to some of the most iconic graphic designs of the last century.

Here I share a selection of my images of New York City from the past decade, selected as examples of square compositions. I don’t have a square format camera, but I find that many of my photographs are improved by cropping, and the square crop is one I frequently consider. A criterion for choosing images for this post is that I don’t think any of these images would work as well with a vertical or horizontal frame.

The top photo in this post is a perspective through the roughly square corridor of a construction shed. The setting sun casts long diagonal shadows of the scaffold columns, and those diagonals are countered by the thicker shape of an inclined tree trunk. The square frame really highlights the contrast of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines. Here’s another example:

Oblique Light, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

A square crop can break down a unified design into an arrangement of shapes and lines.

Automotive Shapes, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

A beautiful three dimensional shape, compressed into two dimensions and framed in a square, becomes somehow even more abstractly sensuous.

Steel Helix, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

This classic bit of architecture (The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx) is designed with golden ratio proportions, but a square frame really flatters it:

White Dome, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

This view from a Brooklyn rooftop shows the special properties of the square picture. A wide image would be a panorama, focused on the horizon, and a tall image would emphasize the height of the vantage point. The square equalizes the vertical and the horizontal, and thus shows height and depth in equilibrium.

Brooklyn Crepuscule, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

In a square frame, what is centered is idealized and what is off center is dynamic.

Heaven and Earth, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

Straight lines and organic forms complement each other in perfect tension within the square.

Diagonals, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Dark and light, rounded and rectangular, perpendicular and angular: Simple polarities of form spring into relief in the balanced space of the square frame.

Urban Sundown, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Straight lines make quadrilaterals and triangles within the square, and curved forms break the rigidity.

Street Fair Decorations, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

The simplest contrasts reveal their full complexity in the square.

Piece of Gold, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

The perfect regularity and abstraction of the square can be an ideal frame for the fractal chaos of natural forms. Any other rectangle partakes of a bit of chaos itself, but a square remains rigorously neutral.

Rainy Berries, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

The square’s geometrical balance can also highlight the gestural quality of a figure or sculpture.

Command, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Sculptural Hands, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

The converging lines of perspective take on a special quality in a square frame, where verticals, horizontals, and diagonals exist in egalitarian relationship.

Subway Perspective, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Fence Growth, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

Perspective compositions are made even more interesting by the addition of curves or random angles.

Cast Iron, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Barriers, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

The elements of a square picture rest in balanced relation to all their companion elements.

Flushing Meadows Globe, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Perfect symmetry is actually heightened by slight elements of asymmetry. The harmonious square frame magnifies both qualities.

Church Garden, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Stone Yard, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

A square is naturally divided into rectangles and other shapes, a la Mondrian.

Drawer Pull Display, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Eighth Avenue, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Leaning or angular shapes have a certain natural dynamism based on their contrast with rectilinear forms. The square composition gives these shapes their full measure of potential energy.

Angular Structure, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

In a square image, a living element can be a point of active concentration, seen off center in relation to a more abstract, more chaotic space, illustrating the tension inherent in the relation of the living being to the natural world.

Fountain Joy, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Snow Mound, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Wet Asphalt, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Plywood's Red Glare, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Expressions of style can be abstracted from their complex personal and cultural manifestations, to be observed in their purely formal aspects.

Mosaic, 2005, , photo by Fred Hatt

Instruments and Shoes, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Just as fractal mathematics shows the rational order underlying complexity, the square frame in photography puts the unbalanced world, snarled, tangled and scattered, into a context of perfect equilibrium, illuminating the logic of chaos.

Linear Arrangement in Streetlight, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

Composition in Gray, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Spilt, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

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DRAWING LIFE by fred hatt

2014/07/28

Ultra Wide

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2012/07/15

Framing Absence

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2012/05/25

A Foraging Eye

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2011/04/02

Vertical Panoramas

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2010/11/06

Magic Squares

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