The Formal Language of Photography: A Primer

Photography works as a language on several levels. At an abstract level, the image is viewed as a set of formal elements rather than signifiers representing objects from the real world. This chapter, from the point of view of a professional photographer, breaks down the underlying structure of photographs into simple elements and enumerates the emotional responses attached to them, generally along the fundamental polarities of harmony and tension. Those elements are primarily tones and colors, from which are derived the secondary and more abstract elements of line, shape, and texture. As a result of how cameras transform the world, besides representing three-dimensional space, all photographs share common qualities specific to the medium: vantage point, frame, time, and focus. If all those elements are the words of the visual language of photography, then composition principles such as contrast, balance, unity, and emphasis are its syntactic rules. A formal analysis of a photograph depends on minimum domain knowledge, however, a complete account of how humans read photographs should also involve the world being photographed, the photographer, and society.