Looking through the viewfinder: A sequence of composition

This exercise is about composition and in particular, composing the shot in in the viewfinder. I looked for a suitable subject in my growing list of locations and picked this sculpture in the middle of the town where I live.

Here we see the subject in the distance. It is the tall sculpture in front of the white building. I take the first shot. The camera is fitted with a 24 -105mm zoom lens. As can be seen in the pictures, the conditions are making it quite difficult. We have a very bright day with very strong shadows.

I have moved a little closer. Still not really a good image.There are many distractions around the subject. It's going to be difficult to get a good shot!

From the same position I turn the camera to portrait mode to see what this looks like. Not bad but the picture is still very cluttered and the sculpture doesn't stand out as the main subject of this image.

I need to try something different so cross the road. How does it look from here. Not perfect but the sculpture is becoming larger in the frame and it appears more obvious this is the subject.

I zoom in a little to see what that does. No, still not what I am after. Then a little break. I have almost literally walked into two members of the nearby Chichester camera club. Bear in mind I am doing this exercise with the camera up to my eye almost constantly!

We exchange pleasantries and I am on my way again. I cross back over the road. We are now a lot closer to the subject and I am starting to wonder if it is possible to get a good picture of it.

I am back in landscape framing so try portrait again from the same place.

I get closer still to the subject and start moving around it. Now I am starting to see some possibilities. Portrait mode works as it is a tall object. I am also starting to get some separation from the background. I try another zoom in  to see what happens.

With the camera still to my eye I move around some more, keeping the object in the viewfinder. I zoom back out but this is losing what I had a moment ago. Time to get in closer still.

Somebody stops with their dog at the base of the sculpture. Could this be a grab shot? No, they have their face covered and turn and walk of in an un-interesting manner! Onwards!

I am now almost in front of the sculpture. Maybe I will get something different here. Another zoom to see what this does. I am starting to get the main street in the right of the shot. I will try to incorporate this into the frame.

Hmm. interesting - lots to look at but I don't think it helps the shot. Glimpsing the gold of the sculpture against the blue of the sky is exciting though. In fact all the colours work well against the sky. I want to do more with these combinations of colours.

I move around again to try and separate the sculpture from the surrounding buildings and some phone or power cables that also run overhead. Finally I find the frame I have been looking for.

Standing almost at the base of the sculpture looking up, I have my shot! It is fairly abstract but then so is the art work. I take several shots from slightly different angles and using both landscape and portrait mode.




Although this has been an interesting exercise, I am not totally convinced that I have got this right. There is a lot of mention of people in the brief part of me thinks I should have been photographing people. I do think that this has addressed the objective of showing how I arrived at my final shots even if I did not manage to capture any other interesting shots during this process.

It was quite odd walking around with the camera up to my eye and I must admit that every time I lowered the camera it was apparent that people had been watching me wondering what the hell I was doing! Still, I think it will  now be easier to do this in the future!