Part One Review - Reflections on Compositon

Reflections on Composition:

Before moving on to the Cropping exercise, I thought it would be useful to reflect on a few points about composition and look at some general photographs that I've taken with the rules of composition in mind.

In this photo, I was mindful of the rule of thirds and wanted to place my son where he would touch on the lines, dividing the frame into the rule of thirds. He is off centre and placed in the lower right hand side of the frame, and crossing the mid, horizontal line. Ive attempted to retain, negative space in the rest of the frame. I think this image works well, it has plenty of dynamics going on, and is visually appealing.

In this image, I placed the boat in the top right hand side of the frame. Rangitoto Island, in the background provides a diagonal adding interest. I think this image works well, I did crop it however, as the Island, in full view, would have dominated the frame.

Here the lines direct the viewer's gaze to the distance and add a 2 dimensional effect to the image. Again, my subject is emanating from the lower right hand side of the frame. This is something I am to experiment with.

This is repeat of the above photograph. The yacht is in a slightly different position, ( I was travelling past it, on a passenger ferry) and the vignette effect helps to focus in on the yacht, adding a sense of drama.

Conclusion

I am growing in my awareness of placement within the frame. I used to photograph, with subjects dead centre which made for a dull static image... now I am consciously thinking about the dynamics of the frame, the various rules for dividing the frame, and the effect of vertical vs horizontal.

In the last few days, I thought I would revisit focal lengths and I in particular I set a task for myself which involved shooting images set to the widest angle i.e. shortest focal length which on my camera is 24mm. I wanted to see what effect a wide angel had on subjects at close range. I was particularly interested to see if I could achieve interesting distortions at close range.

I have managed to achieve some interesting distortions with subjects at close range - especially with architecture. The wide angel exaggerates or accentuates the perspective of the buildings. I would not usually have got this close up with a wide angel focal point, but here I think this focal length has produced dramatic results - which again is something to keep in mind when thinking about the frame and composition.

I repeated this exercise with my longest focal length, or telephoto lens. The longest focal length actually brings the subject closer. Telephoto lenses seem to distort in the opposite direction to wide angels.

It is interesting to see how the telephoto focal length, actually compresses the image. This is particularly evident in the shot of the building above - which looks flat. I quite like the abstract effect this gives to the image.

Exercise: Focal lengths for cameras with variable focal lengths (zoom)

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate the impact different focal lengths can have on shots of the same image. We were required to take a number of photographs of the same image, but using different focal lengths on the lens.  My lens range is 24 - 105mm, so I took a photograph at the widest angel setting / focal length of 24mm, one at the mid range about 45mm and then a telephoto @ 105mm.

Photograph one 24mm wide angel.

This photograph uses the smallest focal length and gives us the widest angel of view. This angel captures the wide expansive skyline, hills on the distant horizon and the large expanse of foreground.

Photograph two 45mm standard view

I decided on 45mm as the mid range standard view point on my lens.  Here the hills in the background are more noticeable. The foreground decreases and the bee hives become closer. After viewing this on the monitor, iam more aware of the "long white cloud" - the Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa which means the land of the long white cloud.

Photograph three

The long white cloud has disappeared into the top of the frame, and the hills in the background are much more prominant (with the naked eye, they have a 3-D effect, on this picture though they are flat). The bee hive at the forefront is now the dominating feature and the foreground has reduced dramatically.

It has been a day or two since I took the above photographs, and I wanted to re-cap on the intention behind this exercise - basically to consolidate a few points. 

• we have a horizontal gaze which focuses sharply in the middle to vaguely across a wide angel (oval shaped) with our peripheral vision (p 46 of the course materials Photography 1 The Art of Photography). 
• when we use a standard focal length lens we get a similar view as with the unaided eye - albeit sharper across the whole image (in my opinion) not just in the middle as with the unaided eye.
• a telephoto lens, draws the image closer - however, this is not the same thing as moving the camera closer to the subject. As the focal length changes, the character of the image changes, as you can see, with Photograph one, the smallest focal length of 24mm,  gives us the widest angel of view - thereby capturing the distant hills and the wide expansive skyline. In contrast, the narrowest angel of view is captured using the telephoto focal length of 105m. This magnifies the bee hives and draws them closer - the crux is the angel of view narrows as the focal length increases.

The next exercise, focuses on "moving" towards the subject to explore the effect of focal lengths.