Vertical and Horizontal Frames

The idea for the following task was to take a selection of photos with vertical frame followed by the same photos with a horizontal frame in order to encourage more vertical photography. As a regular photographer of people, I often take vertically framed photos so I used this project as an exercise in finding subjects which could fit both vertical and horizontal frames.

My first worked quite well in both formats, although I had to move around the bridge in order to suit the wider photo. This in turn had a detrimental effect on the use of depth of field shown in the vertical shot as the fence posts were a more equal distance from the camera.

My photo of the children between the rocks fit better in portrait so in order to balance the shot in landscape, I asked my son to stretch his arms out to fill the shot.

The farm building works in both formats; however I feel that the vertical is a more balanced shot. In the horizontal, the left hand side of the building fills the frame and appears much heavier than the right. In the vertical, not only does the left hand building appear smaller but the counterbalancing shed to the far right is much closer to the edge of the screen, weighing this side down.

In the shot of the power station, I feel that without the people the vertical shot wouldn’t have worked at all. The vertical setting brings depth to the shot which highlights the distance the people are walking. Without the people, the depth would have been unnecessary. The horizontal shot would have still been an acceptable photo without the people as it is showing the breadth of the power station buildings but wouldn’t have held quite as much interest without them.

With this shot, I chose to place the main subject in the lower half of the shot with secondary interest above. To fit the scene to a horizontal frame, I widened the gap between the bugs by changing my angle to them.

I purposely chose this subject for its vertical structure but with the horizontal shot in mind, I composed from an angle using a wide aperture for narrow depth of field. I felt that the horizontal variation would help to create interest in the wider shot.

As a lover of the contrast between industry and nature, this vertical scene works for me. The top half of the shot shows the grey power station with all its bold lines and curves while we see the grass, river and ducks, provided by nature at the bottom. Half way up the shot, between the ducks and the chimneys, the worlds are separated by an old boat, man made yet rotting away, gradually becoming a part of the nature which surrounds it.

Although the horizontal shot is split in the same way, I feel that the width of the shot makes the split feel less obvious, giving the shot much less impact.

This shot in vertical shows a girl climbing onto a boat. The horizontal shot show a boat with a girl climbing onto it. The change in orientation shifts the focus from one subject to the other by placing more of the boat in the frame.

In the horizontal shipyard shot, the eye is drawn to the slightly diagonal line flowing from the ship to the old boat. The vertical shot, being viewed from top to bottom rather than left to right, draws much less attention to this line. My eye is now drawn to the scaffold structure at the top of the ship.  

This vertical shot shows manmade and natural light sources illuminating the manmade road and the fields which are more a part of nature. In the horizontal shot, I couldn’t fit the main lamppost into the shot without ruining the position of the moon and as a result, have also lost most of the road. The photo now is merely of a large moon illuminating the field and the manmade elements would probably be better edited out.

The abstract nature of this close up makes it work pretty well in both landscape and portrait orientation, although the portrait version does show more depth.

These shots were taken from the opposite seat of the seesaw whilst on the move and there are elements of both photos that I like. The vertical frame seems to enhance the up and down motion of the seesaw to the point where it makes me feel slightly light headed. The horizontal shot still shows movement to a lesser extent but I feel that the included slide to the left helps to set the scene.

This shot of two cousins helping each other fits nicely into a vertical frame and if it hadn’t been for this exercise, I might have left it at that. Gladly I didn’t as I feel that zooming in for the horizontal shows so much more. Attention is now more focused on the facial expressions as well as the task at hand which makes the photo tell more about human relationships than building a rope swing.

Although the rope swing fits very neatly into a vertical frame, I feel that the extra space shown in the horizontal gives the swing a setting.

Rope swing shots often fit nicely into a vertical frame and I feel that the girl sitting on the hill creates a nice balance. My attempts at a similar horizontal shot didn’t go quite so well. I have shown two shots using this orientation, neither of which worked very well at all.

Later on, I caught a horizontal shot of my daughter sitting on the rope swing rather than hanging which fits much better with this orientation because of the less upright body position. I did feel though that I couldn’t put this subject matter to rest without including the following shot: a horizontal shot of my son hanging from a similar rope swing (taken last year.) This is merely to remind me not to keep the camera upright just because I’m photographing hanging bodies. I feel that the orientation of this photo promotes the sideways swing of the feet and creates a much more dynamic image than it would have vertically.

I leave this exercise with a resolution to avoid pigeonholing photos into the obvious orientation. I feel that I have left this challenge with several photos I may not have taken if it weren’t for the task and it will be something I will remember in future projects.

Positioning the Horizon

Before doing this exercise, my only thoughts on positioning the horizon were to consider whether you wanted to show more land or more sky. On days such as the one shown here, I might have included more sky in the shot than on days where it held less interest. For me in this set, the clouds hold as much interest as the corn so for now; the level of interest can be ignored in search of other effects.

Starting with the horizon very low in shot 1, the result is that of a shallow and very wide looking field with the sky above appearing less wide, yet showing much more depth. In shot 2 with the horizon slightly higher, the extra depth to the field makes it look less wide than in the previous shot, whereas the sky now looks wider.

I find the third shot the most interesting. As a result of the horizon being along the centre of the shot, both the width and depth of the land and sky are equal. The effect of this balance is that the eye is drawn to the horizon and in this particular set; I feel that more depth is created in the picture as a whole.

As we move through the subsequent shots, the higher the horizon gets, the deeper and narrower the field looks and the wider and shallower the sky looks.

Although the height of the horizon has a significant effect on the depth of different elements of the shot, there is another contributing factor: in the latter shots, more foreground interest is shown, drawing the eye to the front of the scene. I have noticed that the cottage in shot 6 looks bigger and closer than in shot 1. Logically, I would have thought that with the extra appearance of depth to the field, the cottage would have looked further away. Checking through the mid-range shots, I have found that as the field gets deeper, the cottage does seem further away and it is only the introduction of foreground interest that brings the cottage closer.

Having discovered these effects, I feel a need to explore my findings further by repeating the exercise with different landscapes. I would also like to explore the effect of the horizon in the same place but with and without foreground interest.

Balance

The following images have been chosen from my collection in order to show how the balance works in each photo. If two objects are of different sizes, they can be balanced by placing the larger object closer to the centre and the smaller object closer to the edge on the other side of the scale.

In this photo the boy and the thick tree are close to the middle of the shot. With the girl being further back, she looks smaller so the balance works as she and the thinner, therefore lighter tree are placed closer to the edge of the shot.

The lady and the bin in this shot balance each other well as they are similar in both size and distance from the centre. Although the pier is a single object, I feel that it can be split in two to show balance. The section at the end of the pier where the rides and buildings are taller sits close to the middle of the shot. This is balanced out by the smaller section of the pier which reaches right to the left hand edge.

The boy on the right of this shot takes up more space than the girl and doors to the left; however the slither of door to the far left makes up the difference. I feel that the fact that the subjects to the left are darker also makes them seem heavier.

This photo shows an example of a large object just left of centre being balanced by a smaller object to the far right. I feel that the balanced is also helped by the right hand object being half way up the shot which helps to weigh this side down.

The girl in this shot is just slightly to the right of centre. In order to maintain balance, the man who appears much smaller has been placed midway between the centre and the left edge.

The skater lagging behind sits to the far right of this shot balancing out the much larger group just left of centre.

Focal Lengths and Different Viewpoints

My subject for the focal lengths and different viewpoints exercise was a gateway leading to a public footpath. I used this subject as I knew that I would be able to use the edges of the gateway as the limits of the photo in order to compare the content.

Using the lens at the longest zoom of 55mm, I composed the photo using the gateway edges as a guide. The resulting shot showed the river leading away from the gate leading to the power station in the background.

I then set the lens to its widest setting of 18mm, moved closer to the gateway  and repeated. Although the edges of the gateway were still set to the edges of the photo, in this shot the power station looked considerably further away. The gate itself, being closer to the camera also seems wider in this shot.

I think that the reason for this is in the angle of view. When standing back with the zoom at its longest, the angle of what is shown is much narrower, leading to less width at an extreme distance. As a result of this, less of the power station fits in the shot so it seems larger and therefore closer. By the same token, at the wider angle, more of the landscape in the distance fits in the shot, making the power station look smaller and further away.

I have noticed this point in the past but was quite surprised at how extreme the difference was in this particular situation. It is definitely an aspect which I will pay more attention to in future projects.

Focal Lengths

On a walk on holiday, I noticed our cottage in the distance. With the wheat fields flowing and a bit of foreground interest, I thought it an ideal opportunity to complete my Focal Lengths exercise. In the first photo taken at 18mm, the cottage is only just noticeable in the distance.



 

 

Zooming in to the maximum zoom of 55mm, the cottage now seems much closer. Although the distance between myself and the scene have changed, distances between different elements of the scene appear pretty much the same.

 

 

It is clear to see from this crop of the first photo that to zoom in from the same viewpoint has the same effect on proportions as cropping. It is important to remember however, that cropping and zooming have very different effects on other elements of the photo, such as depth of field and exposure.

 

 



 

 

 

A Sequence of Composition

On a trip to town with my son, I noticed that the street was full of Army stalls. As I had my camera, I thought this might be a good opportunity to try the Sequence of Composition exercise.

My first shot was the first thing I noticed, the Army recruitment stall (1), probably showing the reason for the entire set up. I kept the ‘Caffe Nero’ sign in shot as I liked the contrast of it as a backdrop to the reality of harsh Army life.

My next two shots (2 and 3) are of a newspaper photographer taking shots of people. I noticed her confidence in asking people to pose for her and thought a candid, un-posed shot of a posed situation might work.  I quite like the shot but although the background is simple, I still find it very distracting.

As I moved along the street, I noticed that the tank was attracting a lot of attention. It must have been my lucky day as there seemed to be lots of red clothing around to contrast with the Army green (4 and 5). I noticed a boy in the tank, so got a quick photo (6) and moved around to see what else was going on.

Coming round the side of the tank, I caught a soldier’s reflection in the mirror (7).  This photo worked much better in my head than in reality. I thought that I might be able to make something of the three faces; reflection, poster and person but the scene is broken up by the fact that the real soldier is interacting with the couple and facing out of the scene.

To my left, the soldier from the reflection was leaning on the tank so I snapped him. I quite like this photo (8) as for me it’s one of contrasts; the contrasting colours of red and green and the child’s balloon against the Army equipment. The sharp focus on the tank shows the harshness of the machine’s role while the soft focus puts the soldier more at ease, reflecting his relaxed mood on what must be an easy day for him. I also think that the soldier and balloon both being soft brings them together and separates them both from the hard tank. For me it says, ‘tomorrow I may go to war but for today, I’m a children’s entertainer’.

Shots 9, 10 and 11 were taken as I caught the other soldier in a fairly good pose and started to notice equipment on and around the tank. A bit of depth of field play was used for shot 11 as I focused on the end of the gun and kept the tank soft.

My attention was diverted as the young boy started to move around the tank again (12). The soldier put a helmet on the boys head but with the windscreen in the way, what could have been a good shot kind of flopped (13). I tried to move around the front of the tank to get a better angle but there were people in the way also taking photos. As I knew the angle wasn’t quite right and I only had a moment to get the shot, I quickly made the decision to recreate the depth of field idea from shot 11. At this moment, the photographer appeared and asked the soldiers to sit on the front of the tank with the boy. As posed photos were not what I was looking for, I left the scene.

On leaving, I thought that shot 14 would be my final ‘this is what I was working up to’ shot but on reflection, I now prefer shot 8. Shot 14 had potential but the wrong angle led to a confused image. As we can’t see that it is a young boy in the photo, it is unclear what the scene is all about. There are similarities in the two photos. Both show sharply focused war equipment against a softly focused soldier. Both would have also shown a childlike element, also softly focused to connect with the soldier. Shot 8 achieved where shot 14 just missed the mark so I will have to put shot 8 as my most successful photo from the session.

An object in different positions

For my objects in different positions exercise, I chose to photograph an ornamental lizard on my living room wall. To keep the shots simple and focus all attention on the lizard and its position, I used a flat, desaturated wall.

I took one shot with the lizard in the centre and two with him on the third lines, one right one left. Although many successful images are created using the rule of thirds, I found all of these shots quite boring. Granted, I was taking photos of an ornament in a sea of grey but I felt more could be achieved.

Luckily, in my opinion anyway, I was right. My next four shots showed the lizard in the four corners of the screen. This effect seemed to breathe life into him and I could quite easily imagine him skitting across the wall. Shot five, where the lizard is far into the top right corner is definitely my favourite. The top right position gives no room for manouvre and the extreme nature of him being tight into the corner accentuates this. The shot goes against rules of giving the subject space to look or move into but I think in this case, it works.

I think that where the first three shots bring up images of someone taking a photo of a lizard, shot five and to a lesser extent the other corner shots tell more of a story. When I look at shot five, two stories spring to mind; one of a photographer, trying to take a photo of a lizard who nearly escaped from shot, the other trying to photograph a wall when a lizard scurried into view. The former story could also apply to shot four and the latter, to shots six and seven.  I feel that it is the stories evoked from the position of the lizard that make these shots more successful.