Student Critique: Interruption of Patterns

This week we have an image by Kristin, of a stadium near and dear to Norman-ites: University of Oklahoma! :) Great job. The assignment was interruption of patterns.

Kristin chose to make the image powerful by centering the top dark area in the center of the frame, with the bleachers seemingly pouring down towards the camera. With such symmetry, the eye is drawn to first the interruption of the dark lines with the repetition of the bright red seats and OU logos. Next, you start to see the absence of those logos-- the cement and empty bleachers. You see the dark spots as you work your way back up to the top dark area-- your eyes were lead around the whole image.

One suggestion, which would have taken probably 20-30 minutes, was wait for the sun to set just a bit more so the sun wasn't hitting the cement on the left. Being the brightest part in the whole image, that rectangle is a bit distracting. Another option would be to walk up 10 or so bleachers and then you would be farther up with essentially the same composition without having the sun-lit cement in the frame.

Great job, Kristin!

See all of you Photo Basics students tonight in class!

Student Critique: Near/Far

Our "back to school" September Photo Basics class is doing great. And we only have 2 spots left for Photo Basics 2 in October!

Here's one homework set from this week that i want to share with you! For this assignment, they chose to focus on something near, and then on something farther away in about the same location. Hilary chose this beautiful ... sunporch is it? It makes me want to go grab a book and some cocoa and enjoy the morning and evening sun. 

In the first frame, we see the cat with its head turned toward us. Both the cat and the plant are "framed" by the window panes, forcing us to see and separate the two. Both are crisp and clear, and the image is well exposed. 

In the second, Hilary has focused on the window panes themselves, leaving the cat and plant into more of a blurry impression of objects. This creates an artistic softness that almost makes you want to enter in and see the objects yourself.

Both images are successful in their own way. Great job, Hilary. 

A few suggestions for both setups--- as you shoot down on something, perspective begins to change-- you can see the panel on the right side is slightly warped in, while the left seems to be vertical. With so much design to this image, that can be distracting. How could she fix this? There are things that can be attempted in post-production software, but as always, i'm all about fixing it IN camera. If she bent her knees a bit, and came down a little, she would be shooting straight at the window panes, instead of down, and the lines would even out a bit. 

Before you click the shutter, let your eyes take a trip around the edge. Ask yourself: are you including everything you want to be including? Are you excluding everything you don't want in there? More in the second image than the first, there's just a smidgen of trees a the very edge. It would be a little more powerful if she had come down just a tiny bit so the frame cut through the middle of that molding (is that what it's called?? :) and to the left a bit-- there's a corner in the top right. 

If there were a way to center the cat and the plant exactly between two full frames of the window, it would be even more powerful of an image. 

Keep up the good work everyone! I can't wait to see what you come up with this week! :) 

Make a great day!! Amber