Composition in photography

[One4UAll]

Have a good trip, Hawkeye. I look forward to seeing how your photography has improved in light of this thread. Bon Voyage!

David

[TreesOfMyTime]

Originally Posted by hawkeye60

Thanks to everyone for their informative input...I am leaving for a trip to Israel and then on to Egypt (my 2nd time there) next week. I'll definately be taking more photos, hopefully I'll be taking along a "better eye" as well.

Travel safe, and don't forget your charger!

[hawkeye60]

Thank you all for the help and the kind send offs. I leave next Saturday.

In the mean time, at the risk of monopolizing this thread, I'll make this my last post....This is a picture I took in 2004 of a small village in Egypt. As it was taken from a moving bus, there was no chance to change perspective or get another shot, and the composition was obviously rushed.

[LonK]

For a drive-by shooting, this is right on target and nicely composed as is, hawkeye. If anything, trimming a bit off the left might help a bit. I could perhaps suggest some subtle enhancement strategies, but the composition is quite strong IMO.

P.S. Have an enjoyable trip...

[One4UAll]

I agree with Lonnie. Taking a bit off the left will move your focal point off-center to the left more. Also, you might try cropping off the bottom a bit, as the pavement adds no info to the photo, other than this is a roadside scene.

[palms]

Hawkeye have a great trip and as you are going to Egypt will you be taking some photo's of pyramids ? becuse you will have the triangle bit of composition done for you

Janet been a bit bust of late but will get around to looking at your people photo's and maybe asking a few questions

Palms

[LonK]

Let's keep this going shall we?

Generally speaking, people photos have a more specific subject matter than scenics or architecturals. Janet already offered a portrait of an individual and demonstrated a very effective tight crop interpretation.

With that in mind, here's another people snapshot with some scenic value. However, it suffers from a couple of very typical "point and shoot" shortcomings. How would you correct/crop this photo? State your reasoning.

Disreqard the low quality (small size, jpeg artifacts, etc.) and concentrate primarily on composition.

[0lBaldy]

As a side note to Janet..

Originally Posted by Janet Petty

I've been helping teach beginners the basics of photography; <clip>
One of the reasons I ask is that even after drilling composition into students for a full semester, the majority of their portfolios at the end of the semester ignored composition. Bull's-eye vision was the predominant theme.
<clip>
Janet

I am sure your photography classes spends time studying famous photographs by respected photographers. Have the students imitate the same styles and techniques. For example, look at close-up photos by any of the renowned photographers and talk about their careful use of shadow and texture to help the viewer see ordinary objects in totally new ways. Then have the students select an object of their choice and, using the same techniques, come up with their own versions of his photos. The resulting images will be original and creative, even though they were directly imitating another artist’s work. In fact, the more restrictions you placed on the compositional elements within a given photo project, the more creative the students will become.
Learning by imitation will give them practice and experience they would not get otherwise and may become second nature in the future. (The Photographers Eye)
Just a thought!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lonnie,
The photographer's intention is clear and the main subject is obvious, after straightening I cropped out extra elements that I was not interested in and felt distracted from the subjects. The perspective leads the eye to your main subject and suggest depth to the photo. All the parts of the picture work together to maintain the ambiance of the shot. As it is, the photo speaks for itself and will probably bring back some fond memories.

[palms]

Late in the day and a bit tired so i had a go at this but what i thought and not what i have learnt from this thread

I made the two ladies a bit more prominent, but left the street in with the man as i wanted to see where they had been and what was round the corner, and cut out what i thought was extra mainly at the top and bottom and tried to straighten a bit

Palms

[TreesOfMyTime]

Originally Posted by palms1

Late in the day and a bit tired so i had a go at this but what i thought and not what i have learnt from this thread

I made the two ladies a bit more prominent, but left the street in with the man as i wanted to see where they had been and what was round the corner, and cut out what i thought was extra mainly at the top and bottom and tried to straighten a bit

Palms

The hydrant or whatever it is does seem intrusive to me. I would probably try to crop that out as well.

[One4UAll]

Originally Posted by palms1

I made the two ladies a bit more prominent, but left the street in with the man as i wanted to see where they had been and what was round the corner, and cut out what i thought was extra mainly at the top and bottom and tried to straighten a bit Palms

Here, again is, I think, an example of trying to make one photo do two separate things. If the ladies are the focal point, make them as such & crop out everything else. The street they're on is a background, nothing more. You've got to decide whether this is a documentary of your two friends (in which case this photo works, as I've cropped it) or if it's the street. You can't split attention between the ladies and the street. They or the street have to predominate.

To get your friends into the scene of the street, make them models that add to the composition, as I've done in the second attachment. Don't make them compete with their environment. On the trip I was on with my two friends, I later took a portrait of them, straight on, in a different setting. I admit I could crop some of the foreground a bit. I'm not saying this is a great shot, but it shows how I had to decide whether my friends were to dominate or whether they were elements in the scene. For this shot, I chose the latter.

[Janet Petty]

Both of the crops are good.

The thingy in front of the two women is the problem. Too bad to have placed them behind it rather than in front of it...unless...the thingy was to be part of the picture in the first place. In which case, I would have placed the three subjects either in a triangle pattern or had the ladies rest a portion of their bodies against it with the thingy in the middle.

BTW, was a hard picture to shoot and expose as well as you did with the lighting in the alley being so shadowed and the bright light at the end.

Janet

[lurch]

This is definitely one of those "we were here, on this picturesque street, behind this cool hitching-post thingy" point-and-shoot snapshots - made for memories, not for art. Therefore, I didn't see any point in trying to make it a superb arty composition. Just tried to make it a more pleasing memory to look at. Yes, the hitching-post (might it be a communal water faucet?) is distracting, but it was a part of the locale important enough to the couple* that they wanted it with them. With that in mind, I just offset the two people, cropped out excessive building parts, and let the curving street have a little more prominence.

*The Adam's Apple on the camera right 'lady' should have been a dead giveaway, guys.

[LonK]

Before anyone else gets carried away making profile assumptions, let me share some facts. The lady on the right is my cousin. She is 62 (widowed with two grown sons) and is a personal care nurse living in Germany with her charge (on the left) who is 87. Together, they travel throughout Europe quite a bit.

This photo was taken by a bystander of the two of them enjoying a site-seeing stroll through the old streets of Riga, Latvia last September. In that respect, I have little doubt the photo was primarily meant to document their presence there. I don't know what that fixture is in front of them (I would guess it is a hitching post), but I'll ask if you really want to know.

Nowthen, back to the subject at hand...

[CathyH]

Originally Posted by One4UAll

Here, again is, I think, an example of trying to make one photo do two separate things. If the ladies are the focal point, make them as such & crop out everything else. The street they're on is a background, nothing more. You've got to decide whether this is a documentary of your two friends (in which case this photo works, as I've cropped it) or if it's the street. You can't split attention between the ladies and the street. They or the street have to predominate.

To get your friends into the scene of the street, make them models that add to the composition, as I've done in the second attachment. Don't make them compete with their environment. On the trip I was on with my two friends, I later took a portrait of them, straight on, in a different setting. I admit I could crop some of the foreground a bit. I'm not saying this is a great shot, but it shows how I had to decide whether my friends were to dominate or whether they were elements in the scene. For this shot, I chose the latter.

I really like your suggestion of making the people part of the scene, as stated the first photo is obvious a snap shot, and I cropped it like most of you, in a 4x6 ratio for prints.
But I'm going to remember to also place my friends and family into the scene.
This is a great thread.
cathy

[lurch]

Woops! Sorry I accused your cousin of having an Adam's apple, Lonnie. /Hangs head in shame/

[grannysdc]

The purpose of the photo dictates how to crop.

I would crop/print it as a straight up tourist shot. "Here we are in WhateverLand, look how happy we are!"

Sort of like a "grin and grip" news shot.

[One4UAll]

Using friends, family, even yourself as a model in a photo is nothing new, btw. Probably 50 yrs ago, I read a photo magazine article on how to avoid the "this is us, here" kind of photos. You know, people standing in front of some monument, famous landscape, or other famous site, grinning, straight-on into the camera. You can include them as an element in the composition while retaining their identity. But, don't have them looking at the camera!

A couple of more examples I can give, w/o attachments: When my wife & I were at a view of the Eiffel Tower, I put my camera on a tripod with self-timer & positioned my wife & I over to one side, as two people looking on the scene. More recently, I was in Greece & was asked by a mother & daughter to take a picture of them with a temple in the distance. I did so, but later thought, "Why couldn't I have placed one on the left, the other on the right, with the one on the right pointing to the temple in between, with the two of them looking at each other in profile in a kind of conversation?" There's all kinds of things you can do with this. Provided that you think of it at the time, which I didn't do in this second example. Don't be satisfied with one shot. If you have time, try 2 or 3 in addition to the head-on shot, unless your "models" get bored easily.

[LonK]

I can see most are making great progress in understanding many of the basic elements of effective composition. It most certainly has helped me to review the guidelines.

One of the most challenging tasks any photographer faces is converting a real 3D scene onto a 2D medium while trying to retain the dimensionality. To do this, he must employ some visual "trickery", if you will.

If I may, let me suggest a few depth enhancing techniques that can dramatically improve some compositions:

1. Color contrast. Warm colors project. Cool colors recede. Another way to punctuate a subject is to accentuate its warmer colors and contrast that against cooler, less saturated colors in the surrounding (supporting) setting.

2. Luminosity contrast. Bright objects project. Dark objects recede. A brighter subject placed against a darker background inherently exacts more attention.

3. Focus contrast. A subject in sharp focus draws attention. By controlling the depth of field in a photo, an image's center of interest can be ensured.

While these psychotropic compositional aspects are also best attended to in camera, they can be convincingly imitated to a certain extent in post to enhance a composition.

[crazyfly1]

Here's one I thought would be fun. I find portraits pretty easy, focus on the eye. Landscapes can be pretty straight forward too. This is one of a type that always baffles me.
I'll post my attempt after this one. Have fun.

[crazyfly1]

That first one is out of camera btw. This one is color fixed and sharpened.

[Janet Petty]

crazyfly1, I'm waiting most anxiously for comments on your hoar frost. Macro work is something I'm nuts about. All I really have to say is KISS, which you have done in the second shot. You might want to take out the distracting bit of frost at the bottom left.

Janet

[crazyfly1]

Originally Posted by Janet Petty

crazyfly1, I'm waiting most anxiously for comments on your hoar frost. Macro work is something I'm nuts about. All I really have to say is KISS, which you have done in the second shot. You might want to take out the distracting bit of frost at the bottom left.

Janet

That's how you spell that! I never knew there was a term for it untill my sis told me a after I took the shots and sent them to her.
Good suggestion on the lower left.

[palms]

Lonk thank you for some more great tips, crazyfly i like the frost shot

lots of food for thought, I think i will have to divide my "snapping" into two for a while the usual no thinking ones and the other the thinking ones
(Rome wasn't built in a day )

Palms

[crazyfly1]

hmm, Palms I divide mine into baffeling and not so baffeling. In fact I have some portrait shots ready to post in the critique area that I want suggestions on. Those I put one 3rd over an eye and call it good. Here I have no eye, what to do? So I too am anxious to see how others would go about figuring how to crop and image like this frost.

[LonK]

I never really got interested in macro photography, crazyfly. However, I think your frost photo has a rather strong composition as is. The heavy diagonal is very dynamic and the repetition of the branches provides nice symmetry. The texture is intriguing.

I did take it upon myself to enhance the photo a bit -- a very slight crop, adding a suggestive background to improve the feeling of depth and blending a slight blue tint to emphasize how cold it must have been.

[crazyfly1]

Hi Lonk, I like the backgrond and edit into more blue. I'm not at all familiar with the triangle or theory of the heavy diagonal. That is why I really like this thread. I'll have to do some reading on a couple of the links that have been posted so I can learn more. Right now all I know is the rule of thirds.

So every one knows, I'm not sure what qualifies as a macro, these were shot rather close but not with a macro lens.
These were taken after 3 increadible days of blowing mist in temps just below freezing, in colorado springs.
The first picture was shot at 1/60, f/8, iso100.
Here is a pic to bive some scale and show how really increadible it was. Those Ice crystals in the first picture are actually about an inch or so long.

[Ziaphra]

My try...the road leads my eye...hence the crop.

[crazyfly1]

Ziaphra
Nice crop, that was kind of the same idea I had. Here is the origional out of camera with no edits.

[Ziaphra]

Here we go...lovely photo.