The Real Composition Starts at F/8

Shallow depth of field is for amateurs. Or is it?

An exhibition by Paolo Pellegrin. Photo by author.

A while ago, I visited a major exhibition by Paolo Pellegrin, one of the defining voices of contemporary reportage photography. A member of Magnum Photos since 2005, Pellegrin has spent decades documenting conflict, displacement, and the fragile beauty of daily life, building a body of work that is both poetic and brutally journalistic. His photographs move beyond the surface of events, probing the emotional landscapes of war zones and borderlands, where individual stories emerge from the chaos of history.

Throughout the exhibition, one thought kept echoing in my mind: My God, this is a masterclass in composition. It shows what reportage photography can achieve when it captures not just what happened, but what it felt like to be there. These black-and-white images distill chaos into moments of clear storytelling.

Framed photo by Paolo Pellegrin, reproduction by author. Fair use.

And guess what — they are all sharp almost from the surface of the lens to infinity, suggesting that the aperture on what seems to be a fixed 28mm or 35mm lens must have been at least f/8 or smaller. Nothing is hidden in blur, nothing melts away. Reality is there in full…