Vertical and horizontal frames - part 2

I returned to Arundel for part two of this exercise. The shots that had been taken in part one were now re shot in landscape format. The exercise was meant to show that it is just as easy to take a portrait shot as a landscape one of a given subject. Although this did appear to be the case I had some trouble getting a 'nice' image in some of the landscape modes. I didn't make it easy for myself with some of the portrait shots I took!

 

I wasn't really to keen on this exercise and struggled a little with my subject matter. Although the task did prove a point I still believe that some subjects are better represented in landscape format whereas others are better suited to portrait. Agreed though, that the different format of the same subject may present a totally different view.

Vertical and horizontal frames - part 1

Part one of the vertical and horizontal frames exercise required me to shoot twenty frames in portrait mode. I reviewed my growing list of locations and set out initially for the sea front of the town where I live. When I arrived there wasn't much going on and the sun was high in the sky causing some very harsh shadows. I got back in the car and headed for location two, the town of Arundel which is not too far away.

The sun was still fairly high in the sky but I spent a pleasant few hours in the town centre photographing the old buildings and alley ways. Below are the twenty frames I selected. These locations will be revisited for a re-shoot in landscape mode.

As the exercise suggested, I did find myself looking for upright objects to shoot. In some situations the portrait mode was not the most suitable orientation resulting in large empty areas in the foreground. Sometimes this space was not easy to fill with something of interest. There are a couple of pictures in the collage above where this is the case, namely the white house on the corner (picture 11) and the large expanse of water in the image with the boats (picture 15). 

Positioning the horizon

In each of the following shots we have divided the frame horizontally. By varying the position at which we have done this, we have created a different balance in each shot. Taking the first shot which has been divided equally as our reference, notice that the second shot has become about the foreground. The same does apply to the third shot and this appears more interesting to me than the second as it includes a little more sky. If the sky and foreground had been more interesting this may have been a nice picture.

Moving on the the next three pictures. To me these are all skyscapes. The first really does not work for me. This picture would be better with no landscape at all. The second and third images on the bottom row are very similar - I did struggle to find a sixth image that was different from the first five. Both would have made impressive skyscapes had there been better clouds.

This exercise highlights that there can be many ways to represent a subject which may all work, but give a completely different impression.

Cropping

I still haven't managed to get my horizon shots so I am going with the cropping exercise to keep things moving along.

I have selected three images from my collection of photographs which could all benefit from some cropping. In doing so I have had to consider what I am trying to achieve by cropping an image. One of the main reasons is to focus the attention on a particular area or object in the frame.

My first image is of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth taken from a cross channel ferry in the early hours of the morning. The original frame had a lot of extra sea and sky. The subject of this image is the tower and the buildings leading into it. I think this is better reflected after cropping.

Another good reason to crop is to get rid of unwanted intrusions. In this case the picture of our model Zoe is being spoilt by the intrusion of the person in the stripy top. We could of course try and Photoshop this out nowdays but cropping this to an almost square shape has given us a different feel to the image.

It was of course necessary to decide how much to crop. Here we have roughly divided the frame diagonally in half.

The final image is of a mediaeval story teller. The interest in this picture is the characters face. Some of the surrounding information is very distracting and awkward. By cropping in closer we lose the distractions and make it clear to the viewer they should be looking

Preparation for Assignment 1: Contrasts

I have been spending a little time on preparation for my first assignment until I can get out to take the shots for my next project. This involves selecting contrasting pairs of images from the collection of photographs I have already taken. A list is provided with contrasts to select from and here are some of mine so far.

Light/Dark

The first is light and dark. The light is the white stone of a statue, a section from the impressive war memorial at Vimy Ridge in France. This has been contrasted against the dark clouds of a storm.

Many/Few

The next image shows the contrast between many and few. The 'many' parasols were decorating an entrance way to a Thai festival while the 'few' stones were seen looking down from Bognor pier when the tide was out.

Rounded/Diagonal

The third pair were both taken at the same location, Fort Nelson in Hampshire. The 'rounded' image is a rusty canon ball stuck in a bronze canon. The second image is of the fort itself, showing the strong diagonals in the shape of the wall. Fort Nelson is a Napoleonic fort that now houses the Royal Armoury collection.

High/Low

The final pair represent high and low. The high shot was taken during a hot air balloon flight. The low shot of Saltdean Lido was a tripod mounted camera with the tripod set almost at ground level.

Out of this selection the canon ball really does it for me. This also has a contrast within the picture - rough and smooth.

Balance

The balance of a photograph can be made up of many different factors such as colour, tone and the placement of objects within the frame. In this exercise we will be looking at the balance in some existing images.

Vimy Ridge War Memorial

In this image the balance is fairly obvious. The photo has its elements centred forming a symmetry around the vertical centre line. The two main elements are also balanced in numbers - there are two columns and two people approaching them. You could argue that there is a slight in-balance in the colours of the jackets of the couple.

Canon at Fort Nelson, nr Portsmouth.

In this second image the composition is balanced by the positioning of the canon, which is a little off centre to the right. The wall is right up to the left frame. Although the size of the wall is still quite large, the dark colour of the canon adds to it's weight thereby balancing the picture.

The balance in this picture is more difficult to represent in the scales diagram. The balance is created by the dark objects in the opposing bottom left and top right corners. Although the tree is smaller than the road, the fact that it is situated higher in the frame seems to add extra weight to it.

A storm at sea

Here we have a storm at sea photographed from Worthing pier. This images is divided horizontally into three strips. The centre strip consisting of the horizon line doesn't really play a big part in this picture although the small boat in the middle of it does. This is a central point in this image even though technically it is not in the absolute centre. Above we have the sky while below the sea.The sea is denser and balance is achieved between it and the sky by allowing a larger area of sky in the picture.

Fisherman's hut, Dungeness

The fisherman's hut has an orange gas canister nestled in the bottom left of the frame. This is balancing the mass of nets from the right of the frame. As the gas bottle has more mass the balance is achieved by having a larger area of nets.

Ghent, Belgium

For my final image I want to include these buildings in Ghent, Belgium. I really don't think this can be represented by the scales but still think this picture balances very well. I believe this is a good case of strong movement in one direction having an opposite sense of movement to balance the photo, as discussed by Micheal Freeman in his book 'The Photographers Eye'.

With the exception of the last image these pictures were all reasonably straightforward to represent with the scales diagram. Other images in my collection had a clear balance but this was achieved through methods that were better demonstrated by other means.

Focal lengths

17mm Wide Shot

I just managed to capture the shots for this exercise before the rain set in! We are examining the difference in view achieved by using different focal lengths.

To change the amount of view we can change the focal length of the lens we are using. This is not the same as moving closer to the subject. The image at the centre of a wide angle view will be the same as the image you see in a telephoto lens if taken from the same place.

105mm Zoom

The exercise confirms this. I took my widest angle shot with a 17mm Wide angle lens and the most zoomed in with 105mm, both of the same subject. The camera was mounted on a tripod to keep the position constant.

From the widest shot I made a crop of approximately the same dimensions as the zoom shot capturing the same view. As you can see the cropped and zoomed in images appear the same.

Cropped 17mm

Compare this to the previous exercise to see the difference between taking the camera closer to the subject or changing lens to get closer from the same position.