In other words, this is a very inefficient use of your time. You are spending just as much time shooting one second of footage and breaking it down into separate images and obsessing over them as you would if you shot 20 different images or more.

As for taking photos from video, it has happened with Esquire where the cover shot is a still from video footage.
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/video/megan-fox-images-0609

The difference is that the photographer already has the shoot planned out and knows what he’s looking for. He’s already at a good spot to drill down.

I don’t think the gorilla is the subject in any of them. The issue here is the old art trick of the eye following a pointing hand (and in this case also the person’s gaze).

In this case I believe the first picture looks the most balanced in terms of where the eye lands, whereas the later ones lead the viewer off the left edge of the frame. (In this case it may be a good thing; is the picture meant to be a “gorilla surprise” like that basketball experiment?)

If the person on the left side of the image was simply flipped likely in at least one of the examples the gorilla would become the subject.

Returning to the “does it matter if we don’t understand aesthetics” question, this photo set is like how a magician distracts an audience with their hands without them even realizing it.

Yes. Although it gets to a level that might be called something other than aesthetics.

Very few enthusiasts of action movies would likely be able to give detail on the shot-by-shot, yet the clarity of action (and hence intensity, hence enjoyment) is affected by the “aesthetics”.

The reason I shy away from using the word when referring to unconscious effect is it more along the lines of “ease of understanding the intuitive constructive space”.

(One can artistically deconstruct that ease — see jump cuts — but then one should want to break up the intuitive constructive space in an intentional way, not a random way.)

In the case of the above, I believe asking about the composition is the wrong question; it seems relatively similar to me across the shots. The poses of the people strike me as the better point of focus. Take the first picture: it is unclear the person in the background is walking forward, it looks like maybe he’s just leaning. Whereas the picture right below that signals the action with great clarity.

So, if there is no connect between your passion for photography and your pedagogy, then I sincerely apologize for sticking my nose someplace it doesn’t belong. But the fact that you post this on dy/dan tells me that somehow you’re connecting this to all of your other posts re: aesthetic and design and how they shape you as a teacher.

If I didn’t read this with enough of a critical eye, then I suppose I’ll stick to commenting on the stuff that is explicitly related to teaching.  Mea culpa.    

Am I affected by aesthetics whether I understand them or not? If “never” is a possible answer to the question on composition or subject, then isn’t the question is entirely subjective. I’m all for kicking around subjective questions; in fact I think the “why” is way more important than the “what.”

If I am affected by this without knowing it, then you’re right and I am asking the wrong questions.