THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EYE

chapter 12 Things
y now, you should have a
good grasp of the basic elements
of photography.
You may even have the beginnings of
a personal style. The most important
thing at this stage is practice. So, with
the exception of the Appendix, the remainder
of this book is devoted solely
to exercises.
Each exercise assignment promotes
specific skills and insights. The
assignments can be as challenging (or
as easy) as you choose to make them.
Almost all of them can be accomplished
with the knowledge you have
already acquired. (If and when you
feel the need for more information,
the Bibliography will give some ideas
of where to start looking.)
For the first category of exercises,
you will be photographing "things" -
isolated objects. Things are generally
easier to photograph than places or
people (the next two categories).
However, it's not necessarily easy to
do it well. Before you set out to capture
your bicycle (or any other subject)
on film, it's a good idea to set
some objectives for yourself, beyond
those required just to complete the
assignment. In fact, this a good habit
for photographing anything.
Clearly it is not enough merely to
produce an accurate image of your
subject. A photocopying machine accomplishes
that objective quite well.
Student photograph.
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