Waiting for Curves

I'm sitting here looking out of the window at the rain waiting to get out to take the images for my next exercise, 'Curves'. Bah! first chance to get out and the first rain since before Christmas!

In the meantime I have continued reading 'The Photograph' by Graham Clarke. As some of the other students have mentioned, it can get pretty heavy going in places! I do have to wonder sometimes if the author of the photograph actually read as much into their picture as they were taking it as the author of the book subsequently does?

For my own interest I am going to look further into the work of Lee Miller.I have come across examples of her work in various publications and have for some time been intrigued by her life. In particular the transition from model to surrealist, fashion and war photographer.

Diagonals in the text book

As part of the exercises about diagonals, I have looked at the photographs in the course text book, 'The Photograph' by Graham Clarke. There are many examples which show diagonals in various ways. Here are the pictures I found.

Photo 1. View from a Window as Gras, 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.The shadow of a wall causes a partial diagonal.
Photo 13. The Open Door, 1843 by William Henry Fox Talbot. Partial diagonal by broom standing against the door frame.
Photo 19. Garden Implements, 1847? by Calvert Richard Jones. Diagonal caused by step ladder amongst collection of items.
Photo 22. Gathering Water Lilies, 1886 by Peter Henry Emerson. Diagonal caused by the location of the row boat.
Photo 27. Grand Canyon of the Colorado, 1883 by William Henry Jackson. Dark rock face diagonal in frame.
Photo 30. Dunes, Oceano, 1936 by Edward Weston. The sand dune creates a shallow diagonal.
Photo 52. Untitled, 1942 by Helen Levitt. Diagonal layout of stair bannister extended through the position of the three children.
Photo 67. The Chiffonier, 1904 by Clarence White.The way the woman is sitting creates a diagonal across the frame.
Photo 73. Bernard Berenson at the Borghese Gallery, Rome, 1955. The posture of the statue forms a diagonal.
Photo 89. Accidental Napalm Attack, 1972 by Hung Cong ('Nick') Ut. The children form a diagonal across the frame.
Photo 95. The Steerage, 1907 by Alfred Stieglitz. The gang plank of the boat leis diagonally across the frame.
Photo 99. Wall Street, New York, 1915 by Paul Strand. .Strong diagonal formed by the edge of the building and implied by the walking people.
Photo 101. Pool in Brook, 1953 by Elliot Porter. Diagonal created by the current of the stream and streak of light across the water.
Photo 104. Untitled, 1979 by Zeke Berman. Interesting diagonal created across the wooden block and the implied cube.
Photo 110. Jealousy, 1928 by Lászláó Maholy-Nagy. Diagonal formed across the frame by small and large rectangles.
Photo 112. Glass Tears (Larmes), 1930 by Man Ray. Strong diagonal caused by close up of eyes running corner to corner.
Photo 127. Rhodesian Refugees in a Camp, Zambia, 1978. The arms of the refugees create a diagonal across the page.


A surprising number of images have diagonals to lesser or greater extent. This may be an indication as to the importance of diagonals in photographic work.

Diagonals

The following four photos use diagonals. The first is similar to the 'Shaker Meeting House' image in the book, taken using a 17mm wide angle lens and displaying converging lines - including the implied converging lines in the cloud formations.

All the shots were taken on a trip down my local sea front. I found that most of the diagonals were not natural but rather caused by the way the photograph was taken. 

Some of the diagonals were stronger than others. See the shot below of the breakwater. It is the contrast with its surroundings that is making this diagonal stand out. Compare this with the shot above. The diagonal is there but is more 'implied' as there are a fair few elements that give the shot its 'motion'.

The final shot was my least successful. The diagonal runs from left bottom left to (almost) top right. Looking at this now I notice the eye is drawn more first by the telescope and then by the dark breakwaters behind.

One of the comments in my tutor feedback after assignment one was that I may wish to leave a little more space around my images on the blog. I have now adopted this new way of posting my images to give each one a little more 'focus'.  

Horizontal and vertical lines

For this exercise I went out to explore horizontal and vertical lines. In doing so I found lines everywhere and managed to get quite a lot of images. After completing the photographic part of the exercise I read on through the chapter. The book mentions some examples I may have captured and I found that this was indeed the case.

Looking through my shots it became apparent that on the horizontal lines it was very easy to lose the 'line' if the picture was too busy. In several of the shots that were not selected for this feature this was true.

The purpose of this exercise was to show different ways in which vertical and horizontal lines appear to the eye and the camera. The book mentions that a successful example of a line will draw the viewers eye. I feel that the following images demonstrate this well.

Horizontal Lines

In this image the line is created by the white wall of the car park. The white of the wall divides the blue sky and the grey of the tarmac. F4 1/3200 ISO 200.

The top of the railing creates a line through this image. F4 1/1600 ISO 200.

Here the line is created by the horizon that splits the frame. F4 1/3200 ISO 200.

A lot of horizontal elements in this photograph. The one that stands out is the row of bricks on the top of the wall. F8 1/2000 ISO 200.

Vertical Lines

The long vertical wave forms the line in this image. F8 1/200 ISO 200.  

Not totally successful I think, but the edge of the building creates the divide here. F4 1/3200 ISO 200.

The CCTV mast creates a strong vertical. F8 1/400 ISO 200.

The frame is being divided by the yellow double line. F8 1/320 ISO 200.

Multiple points

This exercise took the form of laying out multiple points to form a still life. As can be seen from the pictures, first one object was added, then another and so on. The final image has ten objects. It was permitted to change the layout as the objects built up, to keep the arrangement interesting.

A still life with multiple points.

The camera was tripod mounted and aimed at a chopping board. I laid out some garlic just to create a little extra interest without it being too distracting. My objects were pieces of pasta.

I started laying out the pasta pieces one at a time, pausing between each new addition to try and keep the composition interesting. It proved quite difficult to do this and I made a few changes along the way. I think the most successful looking group is around the seven and eight pasta pieces. After this the group becomes to big and I found it difficult not to make it look staged. Less than seven pieces and the composition looks a bit 'empty'.

The lines that relate the objects.

The final composition with all objects in place has some direction and movement. There are two triangles visible with an implied third triangle between them. The pasta pieces also seem for the most part to be pointing towards the edge of the board.






The final two images were just a little experiment to see the layout of the objects if they were allowed to fall naturally. Interesting that the second shot almost seems to form a 'two point' composition.

Objects allowed to fall into random position.