Pixiq

Being Square in Photography? I hope the title got your attention. If it has... it's awesome. What somehow is, nowadays, and from a non-English speaking point of view, the contrary of being square. Or something of the kind, I dunno.

So, now that I've grabbed your attention for a minute, understand me that it's not easy for people to be square these days. I mean square in their photography, as in square format. Because most cameras have sensors with the rectangle shape, in various side size relations, but not the equal sizes proportion, we tend to forget that the square format was once a regular choice for photographers, from the Rolley Twins to Hasselblad.

In fact, we're so much "locked" into the 3:2 proportion and thereabouts  that we forget we have the ability to crop to our hearts content and redefine our photography to be square. In shape. That's what Andrew S. Gibson tries to explain in his new eBook, launched a few days after the Craft & Vision edition of his Beyond Thirds, an eBook about the Rule of Thirds. Not happy with writing a book that tells people to explore further than THE RULE, he now publishes a book where THE RULE makes even less sense. Because there's no way to get that thirds concept working within a frame that is balanced, a 1:1 side that opens for some new adventures.

And it is about adventure that Andrew Gibson writes. He states that "this year I’ve found myself using the square format more and more. I enjoy the challenge of composing within the square frame and ‘seeing’ images that would work well in the square format. Like the majority of photographers with digital cameras I don’t have a square format camera, so the process of working within the square format involves visualization at the time I take the photo and cropping in post-processing."

What Andrew tries to explain is that we now have more options than our ancestors in this photography path. If you had a square format film camera, usually a 6x6cm... you had just a square to fill with your dreams. Owners of 35mm would have a 24x36mm rectangle they could crop... but not many people would think about it. Digital makes it easier to experiment, especially now that sensors have so many pixels you can well crop some of them out. And some cameras - like my Olympus E-PL1 - even have the option to do different formats, the 1:1 square included. I wonder, sometimes, why people don't use it more often. It's like having an old Hasselblad to play with. And now the LCD on the back even seems to work like to focusing screen on an old Hassie. Or a Rollei Twin. Try it and you'll agree with me.

So, now that I've placed my note in this article, let me get back to Andrew's eBook. Square: The Digital Photographer’s Guide to the Square Format, is the first eBook he launches on his own (welcome to the club, I've three on my account...) and it's a 52 pages trip into the mysteries of the square format, from the perspective of photographers that use digital cameras.

What I like about this eBook  is that it does not make rules, it points directions for everybody to explore (God, I hate rules, I love hints...) and Andrew S. Gibson is humble enough to state that he is learning everyday along a path that he knows not where will lead him. It's good when we feel our photography is renewed every day as a clean slate where we can mark our new experiences.

As usual, even if there are no rules, there are directions. So one has to understand that the square format as a life of its own and it's not  simply a matter of cropping. Andrew says that "the square format demands a new approach to composition. The rule-of-thirds (which readers of Beyond Thirds will know I’m not too fond of in the first place anyway) no longer applies. Instead the composition relies on aspects like shape, simplicity and balance.

Square photos are very much the realm of fine art photographers, states Andrew, and this eBook kind of shows that through the pages. But it does not mean that one cannot use the square for other photography experiments, and that's what Andrew shows too, taking the reader through fields like the use of Instagrams, the creation of diptychs & triptychs, simple framing, vertoramas, the creative layout within the square format, a rich "all options" show that also includes "case studies" with two photographers using the square format - and Holgas -  and notes about other photographers whose work can be seen online.

Somehow through the reading it seems that the eBook as lost direction, so many things the author seems to touch, but at the end you understand that it all fits together, because doing square format photography is not just shapeshifting your photographs with a digital pair of scissors but understanding all the venues opened to them. And that's what this eBook does. So if you want to go square, have a go.

Square can be bought from Andrew S. Gibson website. The normal price is $US5, but for the first seven days only, Square is available for $US4 when you use the code square20 at checkout. This code expires on Wednesday 30th November, 2011 23:59 GMT.