Exercise: A sequence of composition

The purpose behind this exercise is to make you think about the practical purposes of composing an image whilst keeping your eye to the viewfinder. I decided to shoot a scene outside one of my local cafes - I had to be quite mindful though of the actual people sitting outside, so I tried my best with about 10 shots.

Photograph 1  Wide angel view of cafe

Here I wanted to capture the people sitting outside on the pavement.  I was not thinking too much about the composition but just viewing the scene through the viewfinder to see what caught my eye. 

Photograph 2

I moved in slightly and shot the mid scene.  It was at this point, when I realised I should have probably had my settings on aperture priority or on automatic. I was still wondering what to focus in on. A group of women in the far right hand corner caught my eye.

Photograph 3

I thought I could compose a shot out of the group of women in the background -  I later cropped this shot - unfortunately I could not get closer in without attracting too much attention to myself.

Photographs 4 - 7

I then moved to the centre of the pavement and decided that I would focus on the woman in the foreground with the tan jacket.  I took about 5 shots, and after printing these, I decided that they produced the most interesting focus - the final photo of the hands and mobile being the tighest framing.

I decided to have another go at this exercise and took some shots at a busy Sunday market.  It was slightly easier this time, I was a little bit more inconsipcuous.

In the series of photographs here, the stall owner is having a dialouge with a customer. I took a wide angel view of the scene and then a few mid shots and finally zoomed in on the father and son who had been at the stall.   I quite like my final shot, eventhough it is a bit blurred.

In conculsion, this exercise highlighted the importance of actually "moving" around your potential subject to explore the best composition.  I had to force myself to keep the viewfinder up to my eye.  I may try this exercise with a landscape - just ro reinforce the principles here.