ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author extends the idea of 'language awareness' to the practice of everyday photography and the meanings of the photographic image, with specific reference to visual composition. He argues that there are, at the origin of every practice, explicit normative discourses and legitimations, and that, in the case of everyday photography, these have been in particular created by advertising campaigns for cameras and film in the days that easy-to-use cameras began to be mass-marketed. The author outlines a typology of normative discourses. These types of discourse can not only combine in different ways, but also have specific distributions in different stages of the development of practices, in different types of practices, and among the social classes whose practices they seek to regulate. To conclude, 'composition awareness', like language awareness, takes different forms in different social contexts, based on different principles and values.
