Project 15: cropping

Summary of the exercise: Select 3 photos, of different subjects. Produce various crops explaining why you chose them.

Tree

The Original

A different cropof the tree. I removed some of the sky and grass, these weren't particularly interesting. The panoramic style makes the eye travel in the horizontal and the viewer will naturally look to see what's in the distance.

The scenery in the distance. This is another pano, the brightness of the church is the first object to catch the eye, behind the village there are lots of outlines of trees. I picked this crop to show the detail that was in the original, it's a different picture altogther. (This might have been better had I cropped off the left 1/3rd of the frame).

The scenery in the background with a part of the tree and grass in the foreground. I kept part of the tree to add some forground interest. I kept the village church to act as a focal point in the background.

Canal scene

The Original

A close crop of the Lock. This removes much of the foreground that was in the original. This was selected to allow the viewer to concentrate on the action around the lock.

Dafs with the canal. I went for this to show off the dafs whilst keeping some of the key context. I like they way the reflection in the water shows a few chimneys. Not sure about the balance of this shot?

Just the dafs. Cropped in a very narrow portrait format to emphasise their height.

Windmill

The Original

I went for a square crop with much of the surroundings included. This allows the track to lead ones eye into the windmill, the square I think works with the centre placement of the windmill. i put the horrizon on the lower third line.

A very veryical crop. This was intended to keep the track to lead the eye, and then to allow the eye to work it's way up into the frame. I think the sky and clouds are worth including.

I selected this crop, putting the windmill on the lower left, it's on an rules of thirds intersection. I kept the bold blue sky to add to the contrast of the shot.

This shot shows the windmill and some of it's surroundings. I like the heavy looking clouds separated by patches of blue. The windmill in on the right hand 1/3rd vertical.

Project 13: the golden section

After reading the text in the folder, I still had gaps in my understanding of the Golden Section and so went searching for more information. Here's a resource I found useful: Apogee Photo Mag: Creativity and the Rule of Thirds and there's a useful Photoshop script to add a layer to images with the rule of thirds or golden section: GoldenRatio.zip and in addition there are lots of sites that talk about the Fibonacci series and how that relates to it. On with the task, six pictures which fit the rule: "A simple approximation of these proportions is the Rule of Thirds, i.e. if the frame is divided both horizontally and vertically into thirds, lines such as the horizon or important focal points can be placed on or near to the intersection of these divisions to achieve a balanced composition".

Does this fit the Golden Section? The horizon is on a line and the main subject is on an intersection. So Yes.

Does this fit the Golden Section? Top to bottom I think it does may be in the horizontal plane it doesn't.

Does this fit the Golden Section? The boats are on an arc which crosses two of the four intersections. So I think this does.

Does this fit the Golden Section? The orange area fits (just about) in a large rectangle, and in the smaller, diagonally opposite rectangle is the stem, so yes.

Does this fit the Golden Section? Eyes are on the intersections, so I think it does.

Does this fit the Golden Section? The horizon is on a line.

I think these pictures look balanced from a compositional perspective.

More EOS 5D Sensor Cleaning

I moved the posts about cleaning the sensor of my EOS 5D over to another blog, they were off topic.

Project 11: balance

I've been working on Balance this afternoon, here are my results:

In this shot, if you draw a line along a diagonal that runs through the knife then you have the line along which I have considered the picture. The black area on either side are the two large blocks on the see-saw and the knife sits on the centre. This shot is balanced.

In this picture of the glass, the objects considered for the purpose of balance were the glass and it's shadow. I think this shot is balanced.

This is a picture of some bark on which a sheep has caught some wool. When converting to BW I tried to ensure that there was a balance of tones. Light on the left, medium in the middle and dark on the right. I've put the light, dark and piece of wool on the see-saw. I think this shot is pretty much balanced.

The next shot is some trees at sunset (or slightly after). I considered light and dark areas, the light being the sky and the dark being the trees. (The ground was excluded since it is a dark band running from left to right and doesn't seem to impact the balance along this axis - although it does if you consider the balance vertically). As you can see from my sketch, I think the shot is balanced.

A shot of the local canal, it's the Grand Union Canal as it passes through Berkhamsted. There are plenty of individual items in this photo, but I went for areas; the dark area on the left (includes the building and dark trees/shrubs), the light willow tree and then the light area on the right (includes the pub, the cruiser and the lighter buildings above it). This is maybe a little unbalanced with the left side having more weight. I'm not altogether sure.

Now we are at Ivinghoe Beacon looking at a couple of sheep who are enjoying the scenery (honest). Here I'm not sure exactly how best to analyse the balance of the scene. I've just gone for sheep as the only object to consider, but maybe I should have also considered the grass??? So this is unbalanced.

Sunrise

I got out early this morning, by about 6.15am, hoping to catch the sunrise. I got in the car and headed over to Ivinghoe Beacon (Bucks) and the sun was already up! It was -1.5C according to the car, and there was no wind, just the sound of the birds. I headed down from the car park, through the gate and down towards the bottom of the Beacon, the light was very soft and there was a hint of mist. Here are a few of the shots: By 8.30am I'd completed a circuit taking in the top of the Beacon and made around 60 shots. I've put a selection of these on my home website.

Colour

I shoot with a Canon EOS 5D, whilst looking through the flickr groups I came across discussion on the 5D and colour, in the discussion was a description of how Johnny Blood adjusts colour. I'll have to give his approach a try. http://flickr.com/groups/canon5d/discuss/72157594509485029/72157594509682449/

Snow in April

Today I woke and outside was covered in a blanket of snow. It was about 7.20am and it was still snowing. After feeding the baby his milk, I was ready to head into the back garden armed with my tripod and camera. I took some shots of a spiders web which was holding snowflakes, daffodils bowing their heads and other flowers and objects. Here are a few:

and

A little later, I headed down to the canal where it was very peaceful, hardly anyone around. On my walk back to the car, I had a chance to think about the Contrasts assignment, I'd been trying to decide how best to depict Strong without using too obvious a subject, so I came to the conclusion that either a strong looking tree might do the trick or a photo which is lit with shafts of light (which might be difficult to make). Anyway, the tree idea would be easy and I already have a suitable picture: Strong I might try making shafts of light if I get a spare hour or two this week. Another option might be to cut out a shape (like the Chinese symbol for strength) and light through it; the shape on the wall/floor might work?