Composition Photography Experiment

 

In this photograph, I was experimenting with line composition. From this, I learned that using shadow to lead to a subject works well as a feature but in my photograph, my subject needed to be much further back as the shadow carried on behind him making it seem as though there was more to come in the picture behind him. 

I experimented with upward tilt and eye line in this photograph to make my subject seem more powerful and dominant. With his eyes being above the third line and the tilt, it makes the photograph seem as though he is towering above everyone and is thus, more in power and control. 

 

Downward tilt is the feature I was trying to achieve in this photograph to make the subject seem weaker. Downward tilt is a particularly hard feature for me to achieve as I was too close to his eye line and had to have him looking down to achieve the desired affect. From this experiment I have learned that I must work on this element of photography to be able to get the composition correct. 

Within this photograph, I experimented with the frame shots idea of composition. I decided to make the focal point of the photograph the centre of the diamond within the mesh and put my subject off centre and blurred in the background. I enjoyed playing with the idea of frames and focusing the image on different areas so that the attention is drawn to different features. I learned that it is hard however to get the camera to focus on such a tiny detail as the mesh because even with using manual focus, the camera wanted to focus on the bigger aspect in the picture, i.e. Joe: my subject. 

With this photograph, I decided that I wanted to play with the idea of thirds. The aim of this photograph was to have my subject in the centre of the picture with his eye line on the third line. The use of the rule of thirds is much more difficult than I first anticipated as I have him too far over to the left and his eye line is much further down than it should be. From this exercise, I have realised that the rule of thirds is something that i should work on before my final photography project. 

A long shot is what I was trying to achieve here with also another attempt at the use of line composition. The shadow due to the backlighting leads into the focus of the picture but in the case of this, my subject should have been much more central than as far off to the left. The use of backlight and the raking light coming from the sun works well in this however to produce the texture of the grass. I am proud of my use of backlight but again, I must work on my rule of thirds composition and line composition.