OCA Photography Learning Log: 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.