Exercise 12

Project - Dividing the frame

Exercise - Positioning the horizon

The aim of this exercise was to experiment with the placement of the horizon in the frame. The location seemed suitable for this - and extremely flat horizon on a day with good cloud interest. The foreground could have been better, but you can't have everything....

horizon at midpoint

This is perhaps the obvious shot - horizon at the midpoint. It feels like an honest, complete (but dull), representation of what was before me.

horizon toward top

Here the land is emphasized. The horizon feels like a long long way away. The sky simply marks where the land ends. My shadow adds a quirky interest.

horizon toward bottom

And now the sky has it's turn. The land just serves to emphasize the enormity of the sky.

horizon at very bottom

Now the shot has lost it's balance. The land may as well not be there at all.

horizon at very top

Similarly in this shot there is no balance. Even the shadow has ceased to be quirky and just becoming imposing and out of place.

Phillip Lorca diCorcia

Another photographer that I've come a across a number of times over the past few weeks is Phillip Lorca diCorcia.

I understand that he sets up hidden flash units in the street and then takes pictures of people as they pass. I guess this is a bit different to the norm of street photography which is for the photographer to try and remain covert throughout the shot. But there a number of shots in the following collection that I really like - http://www.thecollectiveshift.com/show/portfolio/diCorcia/ . "Street Work" in particular I found striking. The light is quite unnatural as the flash lights up what (I'm guessing) is a covered area. And it's this light which gives the scene a cinematic, staged quality. The subjects (characters...) play their part well - the business man and the homeless person - this moral contrast along with the staged quality (and the muted colours?) gives the shot quite a classical feel. One of my favourite shots that I've come across since reading for the course.

"Hustlers" is quite a different shot. It's not very clear whether the shot is staged or not (or is the subject actually diCorcia?). But the thing which makes the shot is the colours. The warmth of the red and the clinical cold of the blue.

Thomas Humery website

Can't remember how I found it, but I came across the website of Thomas Humery recently (http://www.thomas-humery.com/index2.html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews), and really liked the layout and concept of his site.

The site consists of a series of pages, each of which covers a single project, the shots of which are scattered in various sizes down the page. It's particularly good on a mobile device or other touchscreen device where you can scroll around the page and zoom in where you're interested. It makes the experience quite tactile and "interactive" (I hate that word). It also seems like a good way to display photographs which may work better as a collection which should be digested as a whole rather than as singles or even a sequential series. If we look at a book of photographs we'll often flick through, back and forth, this is often harder to do on a website, but not with this one.

Exercise 11

Project - Dividing the frame

Exercise - Balance

In this exercise I have to take 6 of my shots and draw out the balance of the composition.

Composition 1

Until I did this I actually thought this shot was well balanced - because o the strong dividing line - but now I'm thinking I should have pointed to the right slightly. I think.

Composition 2

Not sure if I should have had each band as a separate rectangle or not?

Also, this would imply that the shot is not balanced - is that wrong? It's better than the car being dead centre surely? Or does the fact that the car is pointing into the shot kind of extend the length of the car...?

Composition 3

This was certainly the hardest as there are no defined, separate subjects or delineations between parts of the picture.

Composition 4

Fairly obvious this one.

Composition 5

Composition 6

Julie Blackmon

Whilst browsing through xaxor.com I was drawn to the photos of Julie Blackmon - http://xaxor.com/photography/photography-julie-blackmon.html . They have a strong fantasy quality to them (some are more obviously fantastical and cut together using photoshop than others), but many of them also feel very 'real' and also humdrum. There is a dream like quality to them where you know that something is not quite right, but you can't pinpoint what. None of the humans look as though they have real solidity and weight or like they've only just appeared within the scene. And it is a scene, stylised and theatrical. There are things out of place in the shots, but clearly deliberately so - the geometry and composition of these shots is not simple, but it is clean. Clinical almost. I also very much like the colours in the shots and the flat lighting and subdued levels of contrast.

A few of my favourites below

Exercise 9 & 10

Project - Looking through the viewfinder

Exercise - Focal lengths & 

Exercise - Focal lengths and different viewpoints

I don't have a lens which has a focal length greater than 50mm, but I do have a lens which opens up to 10mm so I was still able to achieve a fair degree of variance from standard to very wide.

As the focal length decreases more of the scene in front of me was included - but as I wasn't moving the perspective didn't change. I was reminded of the first exercise and could envision that A4 photograph (or in my case tablet device), moving back and forth in front of me and cutting a rectangle out of reality.

50mm - position 1

20mm - position 1

10mm - position 1

In each of the above shots I've naturally included more of the foreground - wasn't aware I was doing this at the time.

I then took a series of alternative compositions.

10mm - position 1, alternative composition

The above shot brings more of the foreground in, but while the green "alive" trees frame the main "dead" tree quite interestingly, ultimately they just clutter the horizon and so the shot feels a bit pointless.

50mm - position 1, alternative composition

With the dead tree off centre the bush to the right enters the frame and so a potentially simple graphical shot is ruined.

20mm - position 1, alternative composition 

The above is my preferred of these alternate compositions. I like the simplicity and the off centre subject works well.

The shot below probably would have worked better without the distracting aircraft trail running across the sky. Again, this breaks the simplicity of the shot.

20mm - position 1, alternative composition 2 

Exercise 10

The above photographs are in relation to the first exercise. In the following shots I moved progressively closer to the same subject (as required for the next exercise), and took more shots at 50mm and then 20mm ( the exercise only required the shots to be taken at one focal length, but I thought it would be interesting to take at 2).

Clearly as you get closer to the subject it gets larger in the shot, but also it starts to feel more intimate and imposing. Even in shots "distance 2- 50mm", "distance 4 - 20mm" and "distance 6 - 10mm", where the subject fills the frame in each shot, as the focal length decreases you feel much closer to the tree, it reaches into the shot and looms over you, whereas at 50mm it feels considerably more distant and more compact. Also there a broader perspective of background in the wide-angle shots - though the background detail is smaller.

When the subject became too big to fit in the frame, the branches became the most interesting part of the subject. The clouds in the sky also provided a good opportunity to provide contrast to the spike and sprawl of the branches. In the final shot I put the 10mm lens on in order to fit in roughly the same amount of branches but while getting really close to the tree. Again this stresses the difference achieved by shooting the subject closer with a wider angle lens - intimacy and imposition vs a more objective, dispassionate view which is achieved at a distance with a higher focal length.

distance 1 - 50mm

distance 1 - 20mm

distance 2 - 50mm

distance 2 - 20mm

distance 3 - 50mm

distance 3 - 20mm

distance 4 - 50mm

distance 4 - 20mm

distance 5 - 50mm

distance 5 - 20mm

distance 6 - 10mm

distance 7 - 10mm

William Eggleston film

I watched "William Eggleson - Photographer" (Directed by Reiner Holzemer), the other day. The film showed how he found some of his subjects and then approached shooting them. A number of things really struck me. Firstly, the seeming banality of his subjects and the fact that he finds them so near to his home - just by driving around until he's taken with a certain location. Secondly, that once out the car he walks through the scene and casually takes his camera to his eye when approaching a subject composes for a fraction of a second then takes a single shot and moves on to the next subject which interests him. This seems entirely counter to the principal of planning a shoot, picking the time of day, walking round the subject and spending several minutes choosing the right composition, waiting for the right light, taking a shot, trying another composition, etc etc. In the film he states that he always takes one shot so as to avoid the annoyance of having to choose a preferred shot afterward. He speaks about being inspired by Cartier Bresson in the film and this would be in keeping with the principal of the decisive moment, but he doesn't seem to wait for the decisive moment, he just grabs the shot and moves on. Clearly this ability comes from decades of practice and looking at some of his photographs, I can't believe that they were taken in such a seemingly casual manner. Moreover there must be a lot of pretty dull photographs taken via the process. However, the principal of choosing a seemingly uneventful location but committing to finding something beautiful in the seemingly mundane is a compelling proposition. As is committing to a single shot of each subject while on location. It's got me thinking about some potentially interesting (or not as the case may be) locations I pass on the way to work. Think I'll give it a try over the next week or two......

Morten Koldby

Came a series of animal portraits by Morten Koldby on Cuded recently - http://www.cuded.com/2012/07/animal-portraits-by-morten-koldby/?wt=3.

 I'm not typically interested in nature photography, but I find these images fascinating. The sense of character captured in these shots is amazing. I'm intrigued as to how they were captured. How did he manage to get these animals to look so directly at him and display such a variation in facial expressions which are so anthropomorphic? My guess is that they're mainly taken in captivity. I'm assuming the white background is added later (no big deal), I just hope that the facial expressions are in no way Phtoshopped as (for me), that would reduce these shots to just being clever and amusing rather than amazing.

On a separate note it does make me think about some of the portraits that I see of humans and wonder whether they really portray the genuine characters of the subjects. i.e. if it's possible to convey these characteristics with animals that don't have human characters, then it must also possible to convey false character onto humans. I just wish I knew how photographers go about creating/drawing out these character portrayals, is it the editing, does it come down to waiting and patience, is it in the lighting or by engaging with the subject in the right way? I just know I can't do it, my portraits are always dull as dishwater.

Shirana Shahbazi

I've included below another image that was in the Genius of Photography. This one is by Shirana Shahbazi who photographed in Iran in order to show a developed, forward thinking aspect of the society which was often neglected by western commentators.

The image below was the only scan of this image which I could find online. However, it's considerably darker and more contrasty than the copy in the book and this takes away from some of what I like about the shot.

Irrespective, I love the use of colour in the shot. Most of the other shots I've liked lately have been black and white. This photo is equally geometric and graphical in nature, but this is emphasised (and perhaps dependent on), the subtle use of colour.

Everything in this shot is required in order for it to work, if one element were removed it wouldn't work - including the telephone wires which line through the top of the frame and hold everything in place, keeping the industrial balance with bottom of the frame stopping the blue sky and mountains becoming overly whimsical.

This is undoubtedly one of my favourite photographs that I've seen in a long long time.

Regrettably, I looked for some more of Shahbazi's shots online but couldn't find any others which tried to tackle the same subject matter and were any where near as successful (to my tastes).

Exercise 7

Project - Looking through the viewfinder

Exercise - Object in different positions in the frame

The exercise states to take 4 shots:

1. "normal" / uncomposed
2. right in the centre
3. a little way from the centre
4. close to an edge or corner

(To be honest, I failed to get the uncomposed shot for the simple reason that I approach the subject already knowing that I was going to start by putting it directly in the centre of the frame. As such, I couldn't deprogramme myself from taking one of the above as my uncomposed/natural shot.)
I've order them in order of preference below, from favourite, to least favourite.

centre shot

near the edge shot

off-centre shot

This was interesting as I didn't think that "centre shot" would work. However, against the mottled sky the lamp post looks strangely defiant and proud and this is emphasised when it is square in the middle. There is a definite anthropomorphic quality to the subject.

The "near the edge shot" also works well to me as it again plays to the humanesqe quality - as such the lamp looks dejected or maybe that it's looking on from the sides of the shot.

Surprisingly the least interesting is the "off-centre shot" where the subject is falling roughly on the third. This is the one which I expected to work best (due to the rule of thirds). But it results in a fairly dull shot where the composition is perhaps more balanced, but the character of the subject is lost.

Alternative images

I actually took some alternative compositions which I've included below. In these I deliberately pushed the subject to the extremes of the frame. Again, I'm surprised to say that I still quite like these, they look over the top, almost like these should have some kind of joke caption, and they lack all balance, but they still have character and almost humour.

However, the following shot doesn't work for me on any level. It looks accidental and without balance.

Finally I took a vertical shot which had to include the tree. This shot has a degree of balance to it and the contrast of the angular metallic lamppost works well with the natural quality of the tree.

Previous attempt

This above is actually my 2nd attempt at this exercise. I've included the first attempt for completeness. The reason I attempted the exercise again was because I realised I hadn't followed the exercise thoroughly and as such my findings weren't satisfactory. I'd confused the purpose of the exercise and toyed too much with size of the subject in the frame and effectively changed the subject by getting my son to turn around (my thinking here was to see how the direction of his gaze may impact on the way in which the viewer's eye flowed across the scene). However, this experimentation was premature as I hadn't followed the original steps dictated by the exercise - i.e. central, then off centre, then at the edge. As such, I decided to start afresh with the above.

My lesson here was to stop rushing and to consider the requirements of each shot more completely.