The Photograph: Composition and Color Design [Hardcover]

Update for the second edition: 17 November 2012

The main part of the review is of the first edition below. This second edition is the English translation of the German third edition. The content of this edition is identical to that of the second except for some new topics, some reorganization of the sixth section, and the addition of two new sections. I did not do the translation of the new material. "Identical" is not quite correct. From his first German edition to this one, the photos he uses to introduce each section change and are almost reason enough to own each edition. They are excellent and beautiful.

In the sixth section, "Using the Tools," Mante has inserted a chapter on visual aspects of the square format. From this same section, he has broken out the chapters on photographing sequences and series into their own two chapter section. Lastly he has added a new, eighth section on analyzing images to discern their elements, universal contrasts, and color contrasts.

This last section reminds me of the presentation in his Van Nostrand Reinhold books in English from the 1970s and is an important addition to the content of the 2007 edition. This new section should be several times longer, or given more chapters. It shows in schematic manner, using both a color and B&W rendering of each image along with small thumbnails, how a shooter or viewer can start training oneself to see the components of an image's, or potential image's visual structure. The thumbnails identifying the main color contrasts are less useful, as they do not indicate where in the image such contrasts are, but they do encourage the viewer to search for them in the main image. The text for each image is in the manner of "formal criticism." This new section makes this book unique among all "composition" books currently or recently in print, and is a near culmination of why Mante's approach is so important, useful, and lacking in availability in the market. It gives the reader a model of how to begin to visualize images' architectures. The closest other such book is long out of print and deals with paintings and drawings.

This revision leaves a reader to surmise that somehow an image's success rests on the presence of several elements and contrasts spread throughout the frame, but the parameters of using those tools are not thoroughly spelled out. He doesn't go to the next logical place, and that is to take his approach to the elements, contrasts, and formal analysis to show the reader how to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses in an image's visual structure. The next edition needs to venture into this territory to be fully satisfying. The new last section on image analysis is the logical place for a new chapter on evaluating the strengths and weaknesses in an image's architecture: how well used and placed are the elements and contrasts for an image to be architecturally successful or need something in or out. There are hints at points throughout his text, but no unified, coherent argument in one place. That is the last step, missing from all current literature.

Too, I would recommend an expanded analysis chapter incorporating several more images; the ones in the chapter, while sophisticated enough in content and structure, leave one wishing for analyses of, say, the images he uses to introduce the sections, which are really good.

He can do this. It is a logical arena for the next edition. It may take him out of his comfort zone, but one legacy he could leave to all of his fans is a finished argument - and this reviewer counts himself as a fan since the mid-1970s. He hasn't done that yet in print.

Even so, the merits of this book hold their own against any other out there. There is no other book that does the job of this book, and it remains one of the very few indispensable volumes in the library of any photographer who wishes to understand images beyond the intuitive, elementary level: that is, to learn to incorporate what is objective about images into one's way of seeing and creating them. Get this book, even if you have the earlier edition.

Now, to carry on back to the

Review of the first English edition, 2007:
First, the disclaimer: I translated this book from the German 2001 and 2007 editions of "Das Foto." So errors of translation are mine. I did so for my own edification. I encouraged the publisher to find a way to get this information into English, because I thought the content of this book should be available to the English language readership. As it turned out, the publisher eventually asked to use my translation. I was paid for my work, but do not receive royalties from sales.

Now some history on Harald Mante's books. The last time his books were available in English was in the 1970s, when Van Nostrand Reinhold published his "Photo Design" and "Color Design," the first covering the design elements and contrasts in B&W and the second covering the color contrasts and their effects when incorporating the design elements. These books are classics of long standing among people interested in analytical presentations of these subjects. Over the years he has written several other instructional books, but until now, none had made it into English.

This is the second truly outstanding book on the subject to appear in less than a year, the first being Michael Freeman's "The Photographer's Eye," on which I have a review elsewhere. The bottom line is that my strongest recommendation is to own both of these books. Together they constitute the strongest, most thorough presentation of composition/design up to the intermediate level available anywhere in print in English. No other books in English deal with this material in the depth, breadth, and level of these two books, for photographers or for drawing/painting artists.

Now to review Mante's book. Mante was taught and presents his material in the tradition of the teachings of such Bauhaus masters as Vassily Kandinsky. Aspects of his presentation, adapted to photography, remind one of Kandinsky's landmark book, "Point and Line to Plane."

Whereas Freeman starts in a more traditional photographic writer's manner with a consideration of the implications of different viewing frames, Mante assumes the 36mm x 24mm frame and starts right into the grammar of visual structure in the first section with the point: a 26 page chapter about the point. How one point works within the 35mm film frame, then two and more, and the visual implications. Then 26 pages on lines. He moves on to shapes, in fewer pages, but with equal thoroughness.

He moves then to what I have translated as "universal contrasts" in the second section, covering figure-ground, tonal contrast, and representation of space. In the third section he covers the seven most commonly recognized color contrasts, along the lines of J. Itten, as they pertain to photographing.

The last, long, section in a number of chapters covers techniques and considerations the photographer can use to improve the chances of achieving one's goal in taking an image. Several of the topics relate to the ratio the photographer has to choose between objective representation and subjective interpretation, another important topic in Kandinsky's writings. The last two chapters are on photographic sequences and series. Mante has used these two techniques as elements of his teaching over many years, and has published and exhibited students' work using these ideas.

The over 600 photographs illustrating the topics are signature Mante, based solidly on strong visual design. Many of the illustrations occur in his fine art portfolio publications and have been exhibited in many countries. The large number of diagrams also support his textual argument.

Short digression: One measure of the value of this book may be that "the Rule of Thirds" does not appear anywhere. He prefers the European use of 5/8ths and 3/8ths. It turns out that between the two guidelines and the third way of using the frame diagonal and dropping a perpendicular from an opposite corner, all three points are pretty close. However, the primary advantage of the 3/8ths;5/8ths division is space management. The Thirds Rule divides the frame into nine identical rectangles, overzealous use of which is a prescription for boring space management. The Europeans' preferred approach encourages a more varied result. The diagonal/perpendicular technique also produces a variety of rectangles dividing the image frame.

This book contains no camera/lens/aperture/shutter/photographer's thoughts about the illustrations. Mastery of the equipment and what it can do is assumed. This book is all about the image - building it and analyzing it. It is not elementary either in topics or presentation: basics, yes, elementary, no.

Art/photographic practitioners, historians, teachers, students, and arts administrators would find this book an excellent text. Mante's presentation equips one to understand the structure and dynamics of an image in one's viewfinder and to analyze the result after firing the shutter. No other book does that in quite so elemental and analytical a manner.

The chapters are either six or eight pages long. Each chapter has 20 or more photographic illustrations and several diagrams. Since a photograph or diagram may be referred to more than once in a chapter's text, the reader will be obliged to move about within the six or eight pages of that chapter. While this may be offputting to readers used to the text and illustrations generally coinciding on the same or a facing page in elementary presentations on this subject, it is difficult to build the argument as the author has and not have to do some page turning. Read more :

Product Description

Born in Berlin in 1936, Harald Mante studied graphic design and painting at Werkkunstschule Wiesbaden. He taught Photographic Design at Dortmund Polytechnic and at the European Art Academy in Trier, as well as many seminars and workshops. Professor Mante has authored numerous art books and textbooks. His photographic work has been exhibited in museums and private collections world-wide, and his books and calendars have become collector's items.

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