This is Fun

Matt- It’s a lot of fun to know you are learning. It won’t take you long to start to see some of the different options that are available when composing a photo. You had some great elements in the picture. Keep up the great work. I hope you are having as much fun as I am. Can’t wait to see what you post next, hope others are enjoying this dialog and will add to it soon.

Thanks for the posts Tom and Jessica. Hope you have some self-portraits coming. Only composition tip to pass along to you is with sunsets and landscapes, most photography folks suggest not dividing you picture in half with the horizon. Try some with more sky or more foreground and see what You think.

If you get a chance I hope you all read over the link on composition in the activity 2 post. Just click on the word composition. It is short and easy to understand.

Keep Shooting!

-Ted

Thanks Ted

I have a lot to learn, and yes, your cropping is much better. I had the Rule of Thirds stuck in my head, but still didn't get a good picture. I did want the whole ladder, and the apples in the boxes, but the rest I didn't care about. (Even cropping me out would have been fine.) I still can see the rule of thirds in your cropping. Looks great.

Just a few thoughts for you Matt.

The bag of apples in the foreground is a bit distracting so I was glad to see that cropped out but the field next to you doesn't seem to add much and the ladder is a great vertical element so I cant help but think this should be a vertical shot.

OK, so I can't resist, what do you think of this cropping? It seems to bring together all the strongest elements of your picture. The boxes in the back seemed to get lost in the other picture but now make great background elements.

Matt's Cropping Exercise

Well, this has been a great assignment. I've never even heard of the Rule of Thirds, so this was huge for me. I don't have a great example, but I will at least be aware of this as I set up a shot. Thanks, Matt

This is the after:


This is the Before:

Tom's Posting for Assignment #2

I wish I could take credit for two of these but Jessica took them and she has been trying to school me a bit on the thirds law and using straight lines. I didn't crop these pictures because I think she did well with the composition on them. I took one of the pictures... can you guess which one? (one of these things is not like the others... but I like mine in an artsy kind of way) We took these on our way up to her parents cabin. It was so beutiful that I made us stop and take a picture.


Ted, I really like the way you made the guy in the go cart look like a professional by just cropping the picture. Very nice. I will get Jessica to take a couple of karate pictures to see if she can make me look good!

 

Ted: Sample 1

All I did to this photo is crop it. It is still cool to me what a difference it can make. This is the kind of thing I do all the time. As I get better I need to do less cropping, because I learn to compose the shot as I take them. Not only is it a great tool to improve composition but you can also learn what look you like by trying different crops. This is an example of a picture I took by panning with the car. Trying to maintain the same speed as the car so it was nice and sharp but the background blurred. This is the best out of many attempts but I didn’t get the car were I wanted it in the frame nor was I able to zoom as far in as I wanted. The great part of having the extra resolution of modern cameras is we can throw away a lot of pixels and still have great 5x7 or bigger. For the web all you need is about 72 pixels per inch.

Activity2: Composition

This is what being a photographer is all about. It will separate you from the people who have cameras and take pictures. You will create Photographs. This is really Art. If any of you have an art background you know how much emphasis is put on composition. You are free as an artist to do what you want to…But we can not avoid the fact that most people will find you art work more appealing if you follow some guidelines. My hope is for you to very quickly start so see a difference in your photos. The sooner you see a big improvement the more motivated you will be. That’s what did it for me. You can make big strides with little effort in the beginning. None of this is really hard it just takes some time to train your mind to see the world differently, so don’t get frustrated. You will start to see the world differently.

1. The first step is to read Ken’s articles on what makes a good photo and why your equipment doesn’t matter. The link is on the right under links, titled Great Photographs. I think he takes a lot of stress away and gives some great advice.
2. Look through the photos you already have for this one. Try to find a photo that you have the subject in the dead center of the photo or one that you like the subject but not the picture. It will work best if you have a bit of background around the subject. Open the photo in a photo-editing program and start to crop it. Mostly keep the rule of thirds in mind and try to crop out anything in the background that is distracting. Also if your subject is facing or moving to the right or left give them “room” in the photo to look or move in that direction. These couple of thing will make a world of difference in the way your photos feel. Play with the cropping of several photos and show us the before and after of your favorites.
3. Things to take away from this activity:
1. As you crop you get closer to your subject. Learn to zoom in on the subject and keep backgrounds simple.
2. Rarely does the dead center of a picture a good place to put the main point of attention.
3. Give some “room” in the picture for the direction of movement or the direction a person is facing or looking.
4. As you see what looks good after cropping you pictures start to crop this way as you shoot.

There is a lot of advice on the Internet on composition so read a little if you get stuck or confused. You can also look at pictures in magazines and take note of the composition of them.