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February 02, 2026

The What and the How

I recently watched a video about abstract photography, and how it can help to engage with the fundamentals of composition and form. Photography is a medium that can get really bogged down in technicalities, to the point of becoming more utility than expression. Of course, it all depends on application. If the aim is to record, document, and reproduce, then aspects like resolution, sharpness, distortion, and color accuracy are major priorities. In artistic pursuits, though, getting caught up in hardware specs can turn into a distraction and hinder the creative process.
I'm not an expert in compositional rules and theory, so I won't try to flounder around explaining those things here. However, I will state that even if you're focus is reportage and documentary work, it is extremely important to have a grasp of the foundations of artistic composition (something my highschool photojournalism teacher actually disagreed with! She argued that art had no place in journalism... I don't think she was a good teacher or photographer). How you frame a subject can have a massive impact on what the viewer focuses on and even how the subject is judged. Just take a look at Christopher Anderson's Vanity Fair photoshoot of Republican cabinet members to see this principle in action. It isn't just about what is being shown, but also how.

Subject Matter

In the service of honing focus on composition, choosing subjects that are not readily discernable can actually be helpful. Concentrate on textures and shapes. High contrast lighting with sharp, well defined highlights and shadows can help simplify. Rather than trying to photograph a specific object, such as a person or a building, aim to photograph forms, shapes, and their arrangement. Being able to define the actual thing being photographed is not the priority, and it's ok for it to be unrecognizable; just try to work on interesting shapes, textures, and placement. See that what is in the frame is not any more important than how it is framed.
I'm not saying this is always how one should take pictures, just that changing what is prioritized can be a greatly rewarding exercise. But if this is the type of photography you want to concentrate on, I enthusiastically encourage it! Starting out, learning how to shoot, develop, and print, my foremost inspiration was Man Ray, learning how to make photograms and solarized prints in the darkroom myself (I'm probably part of the very last generation of students to primarily learn on analog equipment... kind of weird to think about).

Aquatic Exercises

    This particular blog post is more than discussion; it is a recommendation. I am imploring you to go take photos at an aquarium with some very specific constraints. Aquariums typically do not allow flash, and the tanks are often set up with exotic lighting. Being a film photographer, I don't shoot over ISO 1600 very often, and even 6400 is considered pretty extreme, so such a setting is less than ideal for getting conventional pictures. Though of course, limitations can lead to creative results.
    I brought along a few rolls of Tri-X pushed to 1600 and a 50 f/1.4 lens. Shallow depth of field, high contrast, and prominent grain is the order of the day with this setup. If you're shooting on digital, just set your ISO to 1600 or 3200 (and don't change it), use a high contrast black and white profile when editing, and don't correct for underexposure too much. You will absolutely miss some shots like this. Some subjects will be moving too fast or not be lit well enough, but the point is to get unique results, so stick to it! Even better if you commit to manual focus only; slow yourself down and hamper your camera's capabilities.
    Most of the time, I didn't even bother to meter, setting my shutter speed to 1/60 or 1/30 (trying to be as still as possible) and aperture lower than f/2.8, I took these shots and just hoped something would come out. Film doesn't handle low light as well as digital, so a lot of shadow detail just gets lost. Again, I'm not in it for technical perfection here, so that's ok, and this attribute actually contributes to the look I'm going for. I want to see odd creatures set in an almost otherworldly scene.

Results and Lessons

So how did I do? This isn't supposed to be an evaluation of the resulting photos, but rather of the resulting lessons learned. I found the limits frustrating at times, but I really enjoyed the experience of letting go of considerations for exposure and lighting. I just shot, trying my hardest to make sure what little I assumed would show up on the film was at least an interesting shape. Let's take a look:

Here, I'm not even sure what the proper orientation of the photo should be. I don't remember if I had the camera rotated or not, but it's ok being presented like this because, again, it's more about the form rather than a perfect representation of the actual subject.

With the background being pure black, I get the impression that these are part of some sort of alien landscape, rather than an aquarium display.

This is probably my favorite picture from the shoot! Tri-X at 1600 is really contrasty, as demonstrated by this photo. The shrimp (or is it a lobster?) is blown out, hardly more than a white silhouette, while the background is totally black. From the standpoint of capturing the subject and by all technical considerations, this is a pretty bad photo (I think I even missed focus a bit). However, from the standpoint of making an interesting and pleasing image, I think it succeeds (at least in my opinion)!

This is a much more conventional picture, but I really like how the spots on the eel look similar to the pitting on the rocks around it. Honestly, I don't think I noticed this when taking the photo, but seeing it in black and white emphasizes patterns and textures.

Again, if I wasn't constrained by the limitations of my setup, a lot of these pictures would look quite different. Here, only the fish's face is visible, the rest of its body just a faint outline. This makes for a moody, dramatic portrait... of a fish.

This is a photo I wish I had taken a little differently. I would have liked to have all the lines parallel, instead of converging. At the same time, I kind of like the off-kilter angle, as I think it compliments the grunginess. Though I know it isn't, the spots look like corrosion, making it seem that these prawns are arranged in a rusty basin.

Trying to nail focus in a dark room is pretty challenging, but again, we can recontextualize percieved failure into an unintentional boon. The mottled pattern of the water's reflections, the impression that the shark is floating in mid-air, and even the soft focus (generous way to say out of focus, lol), makes the subject look surreal and dreamy.

Here, my favorite aspects of contrasty black and white film are on display. I love the silvery tones on the wet turtle shells, and the lower shadow detail and lack of color makes the scene much more impressionistic. This too, is a more conventional picture, but those small changes made to the scene by the chosen medium add layers of abstraction, carrying the resulting image further and further away from what I had seen with my eyes. The opportunity to see moments in a totally new way is one of the biggest thrills that photography affords me!

Doing it Again

Taking black and white pictures at the aquarium was really nostalgic for me, as it was one of the very first places I shot when I took my first photography class at 16! Back then, I was using my grandmother's long neglected Konica Autoreflex T2, loaded with Ilford HP5. I remember making an 8x10 print of a lionfish on Ilford paper (pretty sure the class was all using Ilford chemistry too). Sadly, all my early film and prints were stored in a non-climate-controlled place, got moldy, and had to be thrown out (don't let your parents hold onto your entire body of work while you're away at university). I've been pretty good about archiving, both physically and digitally, since then.
Going back to the aquarium, I'd probably bring an autofocus body, and I'd probably load it with P3200 to give myself an extra stop of exposure. Though in truth, I think the technical limitations and uncertainty are what made these photos so interesting to me, and I have to wonder if giving myself such advantages would actually end up making for less satisfactory pictures and a less engaging experience. Of course, there's only one way to find out, and I urge you to do the same!

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