Showing posts with label composition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label composition. Show all posts

Friday, August 13, 2010

Resting - Breaking Down Your Composition

At 5:00 am the mosquitoes are hungry. They've been fluttering around all night with no people to snack on, and with sunrise coming, they know they don't have much time left to feed. They attack like they're invading Normandy; wave after wave, with no end in sight, but if you can withstand the onslaught for an hour, the sun will be up and the bugs will have high tailed it to their day time hiding place, surely in the bowels of hell somewhere.

I park my truck on top of the hill near the gate of the cemetery where I'm going to shoot this morning. The old gnarled trees, the rusted wrought iron fence, and the lichen covered stones are all silhouetted against a dark blue sky. I gather my equipment and press my truck door quietly shut as if I slam it and make too much noise the cerulean blind will go rolling up uncontrollably, dragging the sun with it, and ruining my morning of shooting.

©2010 Scott Bulger, All Rights Reserved
ISO 100 ----- 60mm ----- f2.8 ----- 1/2

Oftentimes, when composing an image, I'll back the focus off of my image to verify my composition.

"What are you talking about Scott?" you ask. "How do you verify your composition by making it OUT of focus?"

The first element of the composition is always the shapes involved and their relationship to each other. The easiest way to assure that you aren't being duped is to eliminate the distractions, and reduce your viewfinder to it's simplest components. Understand the primary shapes involved; cubes, cuboids, spheres, cones, cylinders, and their 2 dimensional counterparts; squares, rectangles, circles, and triangles. Understand how they interact with each other and their place in the frame.

The second element of the composition that you need to understand is the color palette and how it works in your image. If you work in black and white like I do, you also need to understand how those colors that you are seeing are going to translate to black and white.

See what I mean? This is not a trick. The second Red/Green image is simply the first Red/Green image converted to grayscale. If you are shooting film, and don't account for this with the proper filtration at the time of shooting, you are going to be pretty much stuck. If you are shooting digitally, you'll have options, but in order to pre-visualize your image, you are going to need to recognize the issue and determine how you are going to handle it when the time comes.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Image Critique #7

Today's installment of "Image Critique" has been generously submitted by Allie. Let's have a look, shall we.....


Scott Bulger Photography Blog

This is really a very nice shot. Nicely exposed and well composed. There is detail available in all parts of the white orchids petals, as well as plenty of detail to be plucked from the shadows. The small bud in the lower left corner is a very big part of the composition, as is the nicely diagonal line of the stem.

Just a couple of small things to note:

  • The upper right hand corner has a light fixture in it. It's pretty dark, and not offensive in any way, but being such a natural photograph, you might want to darken up that lamp if you can or eliminate it from your composition if possible. It just detracts from the naturalness of the scene a bit.
  • The ratio of this image as presented is 576 x 551. Close to, but not a square. If you actually crop it to square, the edges of your frame get too close to both the bud on the left and the bloom on the right.

Scott bulger Photography Blog

Any attempt at putting a matte over this image will result in a further encroachment of these two important compositional elements. This can be solved in a number of ways, but it's just something to think about when shooting in 35mm with the intention of cropping to square. The sooner you recognize the issue, the easier it is to correct.

Bottom Line: I wish that this blog post was longer, but this is really a terrific image. Well composed and well exposed. Very well done with a delicate situation.



Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Image Critique #4

Todays image was submitted by an on-line retailer that goes by the name WaterRose, who has a shop on Etsy.com, which is a collection of artisans that sell their hand made goods. Product photography is a huge deal for these retailers. When a potential customer cannot pick something up in their hands and hold it, feel it, and examine it, the photograph becomes your main selling point. Typically, a photograph is only selling itself, but in this circumstance, the photograph is responsible for selling what is "in" the photograph.

Here is the image that WaterRose submitted:

WaterRose

The first thing I want to talk about is the background. While I'm not opposed to text as a background for this type of photo, I think I would like it just a little more out of focus so the viewer isn't trying to read it. You really want them concentrating on the product here. I would also slide the book all the way to the top of the frame so:

A. The cuff doesn't break the plane of the edge of the book (think about a portrait and how the nose shouldn't break the plane of the face)

and

B. There isn't a gap between the top of the book and the edge of the frame, adding another element to the image that is unnecessary.

The image appears to have an overall green caste to it, which in an "art" image, could be intentional, but in a product image, you should be rendering the image as close to reality as you can get it. Maybe this adjusted image is closer, and maybe it's not, but I think it would be.

Photobucket


I feel like the main piece in the image is a bit distorted due to the close proximity of the lens to the subject. For this particular shot, I think I would back up a little bit and use a longer lens to compress the image and reduce the distortion of the cuff.

I would give it (the cuff) just a little more room around the edges, letting it "breathe" and reducing the amount of "tension" created by the amputations. In many circumstances, tension in an image can be a good thing, but when dealing with a product, I'm not sure that it is such a good idea.

You've filled the frame with your product, and that is a very good thing. Nobody will be mistaken as to what you are highlighting here. The lighting is also very nice, and lighting is no easy trick.

Bottom Line: It's a nice job and only needs a few tweaks to be really very good. If you can't adjust the color of your image after the fact, make sure that you are using the proper white balance. If you don't have a longer lens, just back up. Since this is a product shot for the web, it's only going to be 72DPI and fairly small overall, so making a moderate crop to get it to where you want it to be isn't a big deal.






Submissions for critique are always accepted. Attach your image to an email that says "Image Critique" in the subject line and I will get to it. Keep shooting.


Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Image Critique #3

This is a tough one to talk about because I'm sure it is an emotional image to both the photographer and to the people it was done for. I'm sure that the parents of this image really loved it.



It appears that this was a spur of the moment idea that grew from a seed while doing a portrait shoot for this newly adopted child, that arrived while her new father was serving his third tour of duty in Iraq. I say that because, while I like the idea and can see the vision, there are quite a few little things that really turn me off as a non-attached viewer of this photograph.

These are in the order that I noticed them. Whether that carries any importance or not is up to you to decide.

1. Grab an iron. Iron the flag. It looks like it just came out of the package and the creases really stand out.

2. The flag is not parallel to the focal plane of the camera, causing the lines to converge. They aren't parallel to the edges of the frame.

3. I don't like the way the flag bleeds past the edges of the frame. Partial stars sticking into the frame and half a stripe on the right hand side, and a missing stripe on the left hand side are distracting at the least.

4. The toe of the bag that the child is in sticks into the blue field of stars.

5. This one is last; the baby in the bag kind of gives me the creeps.

Good Things

1. The lighting is very nice. Soft and even.

2. The colors are very nicely rendered. I might brighten the white just a bit, but it is certainly very nice as it is.

3. I'm sure that the parents loved it, and that is important.

What I would suggest:

Forgive my clumsy cutting and pasting, but believe me, this looks better than my clumsy cloning did.


Keeping the child in the bag, I would include the entire field of stars on the left and eliminate the partial stripes that were beneath it. Include all the stripes on the right. This balances the background. You can see how my "nicely ironed" flag looks much cleaner. Make sure that the flag is completely parallel with the focal plane of the camera to make sure that none of the lines are converging. I would also raise the child up, so that she was mostly above the horizontal center line, effectively splitting this image into three parts. make sure you keep her toes out of the blue.

There is a lot of symbolism in this image, and symbolism is always open to interpretation. I think I would have laid the flag down flat and let the child lay on it, wrapping it gently over her body to symbolize the way that she would be protected and comforted. In this presentation, with the flag behind and the child in a bag (constrained), I get a sense of foreboding and doom, like the overwhelming power of the flag (government) is hovering over her.

Bottom Line: Good idea that I'm sure the parents loved. My nit-pickiness is only to help you think of these things in the future. Take your time and prepare. Don't rush. Symbolically, my interpretation is just that, only my interpretation and feeling. Others, including the parents and you might just as accurately feel differently, and since it really isn't an image for public display, the interpretation of the parents is the one that matters here. But don't discount the compositional and preparational issues just because the parents like it. This is where you will really shine.