The central act of photography, the act of choosing and eliminating, forces a concentration on the picture edge – the line that separates in from out – and on the shapes that are created by it.

- John Szarkowski

For me, this quote is a very accurate description of what photography is and it speaks to me on a number of levels.  As we make each image we choose what elements to leave in, what elements to leave out, and other innumerable selections that make each composition unique.  These choices we make not only affect individual images, but they permeate our entire body of work creating a “personal style” of sorts.

We make choices each and every day - in our work, our relationships, our home, our education - and these subtle, seemingly meaningless choices are in reality the building blocks for our lives.  Photography is no different – as we make our photographic choices, we define our style, learn new techniques and new ways of seeing, and hone our skills in this art.

The image above is of Stepping Stone Falls in Escoheag, Rhode Island.  I’ve been to this location many times in autumn and, while I’ve made nice images here, I’ve never been able to make an image that truly captured the scene exactly as I wanted to.  This time, as a stood on the rocks examining the scene, I knew that the light was coming up quickly and given that it was a sunny day, I didn’t have a lot of time to make some images before the rising sun created hot spots all over the rocks.

As I looked around, I realized that I had the unique opportunity to place two waterfalls in the same frame if I could get into the right position.  I located the area I thought would provide me with the correct perspective for my vision of that scene, found a steady rock, and crossed the stream.  Upon reaching the other side I realized I had found exactly the perspective I was looking for.

Let’s stop for a moment and think about the edge of our frame, or as Szarkowsky beautifully and simply states ”the line that separates the in from the out”.  There is something so definite about the edge of the frame, yet many photographers often ignore this exact spot.  The edge is what literally creates an image.  How many images have you where the edges have a branch, or half-a-person, or any number of things peeking into the frame?  Photographers often are so busy concentrating on the center of the frame, that the edges were ignored and ultimately ruined the image. 

I’ve personally seen plenty, and perhaps even created a few myself.  The center of the frame (and I use the word center very loosely being a proponent of the rule of thirds) is no doubt important as it contains – usually – our subject.  However, the edges control the subject’s context, and can support or detract from the story we are trying to tell in our photographs.

Serendipitously, this day the light was beautiful and had still not created too many hot spots.  I placed the camera and tripod down on the rock, adjusted focus and camera angle, precisely framing the image with my lens.  I eliminated most of the upper bank over the top falls because it simply didn’t support the story I wanted to tell and for similar reasons eliminated the right stream bank as well.  I set my aperture to f/16 and looking through the lens one more time, happily tripped the shutter and created the image you see above.

© 2010 James A. Fraser