Charles Twist - Photography

Code of photography

Stripped to its essentials, a photograph is a flat surface, imprinted with visual cues in order to reveal information about what is photographed and sometimes about the photographer too. While the questions of what was photographed and why have provided fruitful discussions, the conclusions from these discussions are seldom finite: there is always room for further interpretations. However, all this talking is based on one single word: contrast.

For the visual cues to be identified at the outset, they need to stand out as such. They need to have coherence and a well-defined identity. They can be grouped into families to create new cues. But, at the end of the day, any cue has to be identifiable and contrast between it and its surround will be paramount. Many different visual properties can be contrasted: tone, hue, saturation, texture, form, etc. This portfolio is an exploration of contrast abstracted from the wider meanings attached to the cues.

Click here for the next gallery: Code of Nature.

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Dark lines, colour, texture

Light and dark, blue and yellow

Fine and coarse

Hues, texture, tone

Singular shape

Orange and blue, pocked surfaces

Planes of uniform tone

Scallops