Anyone who has taken a college level English or Creative Writing class has likely stumbled upon a little book entitled The Elements of Style. This is a classic about writing the English language, but despite its bland subject matter (grammar) is a surprisingly fun read. It is not to teach you grammar that I write this post. Rather, as I was paging through the book last night, I found a short passage from E.B. White's introduction quoting William Strunk that I found interesting:
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
It struck me right away how that paragraph can easily be interpreted to photography. In fact I think that is the best non-photographic, photographic advice I've encountered. So bear with me as I take the liberty to re-write it in photographic terms:
Vigorous photography is concise. An image should contain no unnecessary elements, a photo essay no unnecessary images. This requires not that the photographer make all images simple or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in the abstract, but that every element counts.
I think that last bit is the key to the it. Include what you need, and nothing more.
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