I am adding Days 5 – 7 today so that means 9 photos. I am starting a new challenge today so need to wrap up this last challenge tout suite, or at least bietôt. (Well, getting that o with the accent took as much time as figuring out what to write about each of the composition skills!)
Day 5
Depicting Motion takes some practice since photos are, essentially, still. One way is by panning as your subject moves by you (there are other techniques as well). On one of BD’s and my walks during COVID-19 social distancing we went down to the river walk and watched 2 young boys practicing their dirt biking. I asked this one if he would mind me practice motion photography while he practiced his jumps. He proudly said, “Ya, sure!” And did some of his tricks for us.The Dynamic Angle (or Dutch Angle) is meant to catch the viewer off guard. We would normally see the camera set so that the lines are parallel to the horizon or side of the frame. This technique angles the vertical lines toward the side of the frame to create a sense of uneasiness or tension. I’m not sure that this sail does that though so it may not actually be a Dutch Angle (which incidentally originated in German films and Deutsch was mispronounced as Dutch which stuck). You will see this technique often used in Noir Films. This photo was taken on our catamaran sailing trip to BVI.Texture: this is a door at the Sicamous Skating Rink. I used to like texture primarily as a layer in Photoshop. I used to do that a lot; take pictures of textures and layer them on top of a photo. In fact it was the first and only thing I even knew how to do for the longest time. And then I started using Lightroom… I am only just starting to go back to employing Photoshop as a tool now. But, texture can be used in many ways in photography, it makes images “speak”.
Day 6
Rule of Odds – love it (aesthetically pleasing to the eye and used in art and design for that reason) or hate it (think about your next appie in a restaurant when you are out with your buddy… there are two of you and the server brings three spring rolls -aarrgghh!!! ). The favoured number is 3 because as you increase the number (5,7,9) the effect diminishes. Visual Weight is a balancing act. As a photographer I want you to first see the spout (the darker / heavier colour) in this image but to have it really close up would not draw you the viewer in. So the trickle of water (motion and what I hope you saw next) and the light colours of blue and white (negative space) are used to balance the image out. I feel like I’m starting to give a lecture in the mathematical theory of viscous incompressible flow. I hope you staying with me in all of this! But if your not, don’t worry, I get it – you can just look at the pictures 🙂
Another Mr. Zeller photo workshop – Spirals. We were out getting photos of night skies but as you can see the sky was not cooperating so, true to Neil, he made it fun for us! Spirals are said to have symbolic meaning and dating back to the earliest humans; they were thought to be mystical. They convey feelings of fertility, expansion, transformation, direction, energy, whimsey, and adventure. Neil rocked all of these that evening…. except the fertility thing.
After this mystical spiral light ceremony he expanded our territory in search of clear skies, we were all transformed by his imparting of knowledge, he took us in many, and eventually, the right direction with energy and whimsey AND FINALLY, it was, as always, an adventure!
Day 7
Contrasting colours – check your colour wheel!! There is so much on colour theory out there it’s enough to boggle the mind. One thing that will truly make an image stand out is using contrast of colour – colours that are opposite on the colour wheel. But there is more to colour than what hits the eye and seems pretty, it can convey feeling, help tell a story and provide context to an image (time of year for example), it has symbolic significance, moves the eye around an scene, makes an object stand out or recede… I could go on. Relative Size: I wish these panoramas showed up better on the interwebs for me… anyway, this is about 5 or 6 photos taken one after the other and overlapping by about 1/3 as I go from left to right. You can see Neil and his dad, Dave exploring the wonders of the vast Yukon landscape that is laid out before them. Photos that explore the vastness of the wilderness or size of an object can become more powerful if a reference is provided to establish size. As opposed to colour contrast (remember, opposite sides of the colour wheel) Tone Contrast is defined by the lightness or darkness of a single colour. It is usually used to set a mood. Knowing what colours mean and how they affect the mind can be useful and sometimes important part in photography , especially if you want to intentionally direct the mood of your image. Knowing the theory and psychology of colour certainly won’t hurt your photography or other artistic endeavours.
Well, I do hope you are not getting too bored. I did not intentionally start out by making this a lecture on basic photo composition skills but that is where it has lead. I did not get started on my new challenge (oops) and will be behind on that one until this is all done. C’est la vie.
