More Than a Rock, 2nd Edition

35The Concept

There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.

—Ansel Adams

When teaching workshops, I always emphasize the importance of starting an image with a concept—something that stops you in your tracks and whispers in your ear, “there’s something here worth photographing”—something the image will be about, beyond just having aesthetic appeal.

A concept has no visual characteristics of its own. That’s where you come in. Your role as an artist is to find a way of expressing your concept through visual elements—lines, shapes, color, and tone—by arranging them into a considered composition. What the concept does have, however, is significance—a message, an emotion, an idea, a sensation, a statement, a metaphor, or a story. ...