The model for searching for an image, described on the previous pages, has real practical importance in that the "repertoire" can be analyzed. Even if the visual processes involved in shooting are too rapid to be deliberated at the time, what you can do when not shooting is to review this mental library.

My argument, based on the "active" theories of perceptual psychology, conversations with other photographers, and analyzing my own experiences, is that most photographers bring to a shooting situation a mental set of image types that they like. The illustrations here are an attempt to show a partial example of this, although I'm fully aware of the dangers of being too specific. The repertoire does not actually present itself (at least, not to me) as a stack of images, but more as a set of compositional possibilities templates or schemas, if you like. In all probability, this is not one hundred percent conscious, and so these illustrations are too exact and specific. Nevertheless, with this in mind, they show the principle of bringing possibilities to the situation basically, to see what fits.

Needless to say, these are drawn from my own repertoire, and happened to be the first two dozen that I could think of in the abstract. The schemas are a kind of shorthand, and the accompanying photographs are examples from actual shoots. As you can see, images like that of the two Burmese monks on page 180 fit two possibilities at least. Most images, I suspect, fit...