“Cut away all the bits that don’t look like a fish”

Oh fish where are thou? © John MacPherson

When teaching night class students, and workshop participants, one of the key aspects of the photographic process that causes many of them lots of hand-wringing is composition. Truth is it’s an intensely personal thing and often very intuitive. It’s something that’s really hard to articulate in words and in reality is more often than not simply ‘felt’ when peering through the viewfinder at a scene. Intuition achieving better results than the rigid application of the so-called ‘rules of composition’.

I’ve tried to get people to think around their subject and try to determine “what is it that I am trying to say here, what is it that has attracted me to this” and to consider “what in front of me is relevant to portraying that, and can be included in the frame” and “what is not relevant, is distracting, and should be omitted or given lesser prominence”.  By this process of consideration, and inclusion or elimination, you can often lead yourself towards ‘trimming the fat’ from your frame and making the image ‘leaner’ and perhaps more meaningful.

It all sounds rather artful and pretentious, and so one day listening to the radio, a programme about country craftsmen, I was delighted by an interaction between a very ‘proper’ woman interviewer and a gruff west country wood carver who was in his 70’s with a lifetime of wood carving behind him.

Interviewer: “I have Bert here, and he’s a wood carver, making the most astonishing wooden objects from timber taken from the woods around his home. I’m holding one of his pieces, a walking stick, with a glorious carved handle, made of…..I think it’s ash..is it ash Bert? …. (Bert obviously nods in agreement)……ah yes it’s ash, and it’s beautiful.

It’s a most astonishing reproduction of a leaping brook trout, and as I hold it the arching curve of its back falls perfectly balanced into my hand. I can feel each scale of its muscled back through its ‘skin’ which is of course simply carved wood, but Bert’s careful use of grain and texture of the timber has made it almost alive, and the ridge of its dorsal fin is just there under my thumb, I can caress it.

This is….is…..simply breathtaking craftsmanship, that such ‘life’ can be wrestled from a piece of wood is quite remarkable. Tell me Bert….how…..how is it possible to do this, to make such a thing of beauty, and seemingly so ‘alive’,  from a lump of ordinary wood………?”

There followed a silence. A long bottom-shuffling silence as Bert carefully digested and considered this difficult question…..then……clearing his throat, and speaking in a stern and clipped tone….

“…er…..umm…..ye….well….er…..ye just start wi a block o wood and er….cut away all the bits that don’t look like a fish…..and …er….eventually yer left wi a fish.”

And then fell silent. Like the process of ‘composition’ Bert was describing in his method of work, his use of words was equally lean and meaningful. Leaving the presenter to hastily try to respond to this wonderfully simple, but deeply profound response. She failed.

I thought this a beautiful description of the deeply personal process that is composition, responding to the qualities of your raw material and creating what is required and appropriate simply by removing that which is not.  Now when I teach composition I tell that story, and ask people simply to “….cut away all the bits that don’t look like a fish”.

It’s deeply satisfying as a tutor to hear the delighted call from a student: “Yessss! I’ve got a trout!”