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“Compose and Wait” ~Sam Abell
“One of the things that I most believe in is the compose and wait philosophy of photography. It’s a very satisfying, almost spiritual way to photograph. Life isn’t’ knocking you around, life isn’t controlling you. You have picked your place, you’ve picked your scene, you’ve picked your light, you’ve done all the decision making and you are waiting for the moment to come to you.”
Sam Abell video
For over forty years (born 1945) Sam Abell has been a photographer, educator, author, and mentor. He learned photography from his father at their home in Sylvania, Ohio where he lived for eighteen years. Abell states that the flat landscape of Sylvania —one of the flattest landscapes in North America — developed his signature composition style;
“the background is level, horizontal, and cleanly divides the frame, top-to-bottom and near-to-far. I find it, in addition to it being a graphic element, to be an optimistic or positive element… The horizon to me always meant possibilities…”