Class #2 - Composition

Today's Topic - Composition and understating the Journey of the Eye
Our eyes are constantly looking and scanning objects.  You want to create a picture where the eyes of the viewer keep moving.  Once their eyes stop moving, they are done with your picture.  If you can figure out where your eyes travel in a picture - pretty good chance you'll understand where the viewer's eye will travel.  This will help you in framing a picture that will lead the eye of the viewer to your focal point.

The result of good composition is balance of the shapes, textures, colors, tones and the light in our pictures, and interest and attention of our viewer's eye.  This will take some practice.

A few basic ideas about Composition.....
Focal Point
- Main subject of an image and hopefully where the eye ends up.

View Point
- Think about where the photo is taken from.  Don't just stand there and point and shoot.  Look at different angles and height levels.  If you take the picture low, it will make the object look bigger and cut out the middle ground.  If you take the picture high, it will make the object look smaller.

The Rule of Thirds
- By drawing two horizontal and two vertical lines through your object - you'll create 4 intersections, or 4 sweet spots.  These are prime locations for your focal point.  Little pointer.....Horizon lines tend to look more natural if they are on one of the horizontal third lines.  You really don't want to put a horizon in the middle of a picture.  By using these sweet spots, you'll create negative space, which keeps the eye busy.

Strong Lines
- This can usually lead your viewer's eye to your subject.

Pattern
- This can create visual harmony and order and a striking picture.  You can also lead the eye to your subject by breaking a pattern.

Depth and Perspective - the below can trick the viewer's brain
- Linear Perspective - is a convergence of lines as they recede from the camera.  Think a long straight road that seems to grow closer together.  This can create depth.
 - Atmospheric Haze - Depth is captured with objects further from the photographer becoming less colorful, light and lower in contrast as the light reflected is scattered.
- Diminishing Scale - Objects appear smaller as they move away from the camera

Scale
 - It is important to provide clues in the picture so the viewer can calculate the true size of an object.  Think of El Presidente in Yosemite.  If you took a picture with no one climbing up - it might look like any other rock wall.  But, if you include a climber, so the viewer can calculate the true size, it's even more impressive.

Frame within the Frame
- By including a foreground object in the picture, the viewer must "get through".  This creates depth.


Mom and Dad....get ready to participate in this week's assignment on Saturday.  I have a feeling our assignments will get harder each week.

Assignment #1 - Review

I believe I passed Assignment #1!  I was the last person to have their pictures reviewed, which was a little nerve racking.  But, the instructor seemed to like my pictures and thought I did a good job with accomplishing the assignment.  One down, 10 more to go.....

Dad - I asked about the light meter - he said I should have one built into my camera and F-stop will be covered in Class 3.

First Day of Class! Part 2

I realized that if you guys are going to learn from my Blog, I should provide a little more detail/explanation from the topics covered in class.  I didn't do such a great job with the Six Qualities of Light.  So I'm going to try this again.....

First - Our instructor keeps repeating something along the lines of......"As a photographer, we're taking a 3D image and capturing in 2D.  Our job is to try and create depth in the picture."  This is what I'm trying to think every time I take a picture.

Brightness
- By determining how much light there is, you can set the mood of the picture and create the "key" of the photo.

Direction
- Front lit objects create a very flat picture because there are now shadows.  It is very difficult to make a front lit object interesting because there is no depth.
- Side lit objects create textures through the highlights and shadows.
- Back lit objects throws a shadow to the viewer which can create depth

Color
- Not sure this requires much explanation.  But usually you'll have COOL/WARM colors as the sun is rising and setting and NEUTRAL colors in the middle of the day.  As the day/color changes, it can set a different mood to your picture.

Contrast
- High Contrast - this creates a heavy shadow and can almost black out/outline the subject of the photo.
- Low Contrast - no shadows which can make an object look flat

Specularity
- Think Bright Sunny Day.  In this light you'll want to capture dull objects.  This will allow you to capture the hard shadows of the object and create depth and texture.  If you took a picture of a shiny object, it will wash out the picture.

Diffuse
- Think Cloudy Day.  In this light you'll want to capture shiny objects.  The diffused/dull light will cast soft shadows and broad highlights that will bring out the depth of a shiny object.  But for a dull object, it will make it look flat.

Hopefully this was a little more helpful than my first post.....I'm learning.

Assignment #1

For our first assignment we were sent on a scavenger hunt.  We were given 13 lighting scenes we needed to capture.  I spent most of the weekend walking around Hoboken, Weehawken and Brooklyn with my camera just in case I found the correct light.  I'm pretty sure my friends are going to be sick of me by the end of the class.  As you'll notice, I think Duffy got into being my model.

For all the pictures I had the Mode Dial set on P (Programmed Auto).  We'll never set the Mode Dial on Auto.  I also messed around with the White Balance setting and went back and forth between Auto and Direct Sunlight.  The last two pictures required the Direct Sunlight setting.

1. Bright Scene

Church Square Park in Hoboken

2. Dark Scene

Taken from Kennedy Blvd in Weehawken

3. Back Lit Scene

Gowanus Canal on Carroll Street in Brooklyn

4. Side Lit Scene

Gowanus Canal on Carroll Street in Brooklyn

5. Front Lit Scene

Gowanus Canal on Carroll Street in Brooklyn

6. High Contrast Scene

Diane's garage in Weehawken

7. Low Contrast Scene

Jackson Street, Hoboken

8. Dull Object in Specular Light

Sinatra Drive, Hoboken

9. Glossy Object in Specular Light

My newly clean car on 3rd Street, Hoboken

10. Dull Object in Diffuse Light

Jackson Street, Hoboken

11. Glossy Object in Diffuse Light

Monroe Street, Hoboken

12. A Scene with Warm Light (shoot in Direct Sunlight Mode)

Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn

13. A Scene with Cool Light (shoot in Direct Sunlight Mode)

Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn

 

During class on Tuesday we'll project our pictures on a screen and review.  I'll let you know how it goes.  Fingers crossed I did a good job!

Class Structure

Our instructor provided a Structure/Syllabus for our 12 week class.  Thought I'd share so it gave you some idea of what we'll be covering and might help you think of possible questions.  I've already received a couple of questions from Gerry, so if there are more let me know.

Adult Digital Storytelling Class Structure

1. Six Qualities of Light: Where it all begins

    The chip, formats, why your pictures suck, etc

2. Composition: The Journey of the Eye

    Raw files

3. The Lens 1: Depth

    Manual exposure: ISO, F-Stop and Shutter Speeds

4. The Lens 2: Dept

    ISO Test

5. The Shutter: Time

    Visual Communication Assignment (VCA)

6. The Picture Story: Creating Visual Narrative

    (VCA) Your Neighborhood

7. Color: Mood and Fidelity

    (VCA)

8. Raw Workflow and Archiving: Get it right and make it last

    Notes on book design

    (VCA)

9. Flash: Moving beyond illumination

    (VCA)

10. People: Capturing character

11. Final picture story books due

We have a field trip the weekend of June 25.  Unfortunately that is also the same weekend I'll be in AC for Dave Matthews Band.  He said he'd figure something else out for me.  Also, we have off July 5th, so I guess it's really a 11 week class.

Shopping List......

On our first day we were provided with a list of Equipment and Materials we'll need.  Looks like I'll be doing a little shopping

Must Have:

• Best Digital camera you can buy (Thank you mom and dad!!)
• Camera User Guide (To be with you at all times!)
• Computer with CD/DVD burner and internet access
• At least 2 4GB cards (You never know when your card might die on you.  So he suggests that when you're out taking a lot of pictures, you rotate your card just incase.  That way you won't loose it all.  He suggested storing in a Gepe.
• External Hard Drive (Learning from the recent death of my desktop - I've got this one covered.  By the end of the class he'll want us to purchase a second.  He's big on backing up your files!)
• Small notebook and pen (He suggests you take notes on the location of your photos)
• USB Jump Drive (Each week he'll put our homework assignments up on a projector so we can all review)
• Micro fiber lens cleaning cloth (Sorry dad....he's not a fan of the tissues and drops you gave me)

Should Have:

• Adobe Lightroom (They offer a student discount - so I'm harassing a co-worker currently a MBA student at NYU.  Saves me $100.  Poor Steve......)
• Card Reader

Optional:

• Assortment of lenses (Thanks to mom and dad I already have a 55-200mm)
• Adobe Photoshop (Elements is fine)
• Cable release or electronic release (Helps take a steady picture)
• Small flash (Apparently he things our built in flashes are pretty sucky)
• Circular polarizing filter (This might fall off the list)
• Tripod
• A good basic digital photography book
• Subscription to National Geographic Magazine (Great source of pictures and inspiration.  Crossed this one off the list today.)

First day of class!

Can you tell I'm excited for class to start?!  Best part is I'm taking the class with my friend Sarah.  Day 1 we met the instructor and other students in the class.  He went over a few basics and told us why all our pictures suck.  But that is all about to change.....

What we learned on Day 1

- How pictures are captured, mega pixels and memory.
So if you have a 12 MP camera - it contains 12,000 receptors that capture light.  The receptors are divided into 3 colors (red, green, blue) that capture the light.  The light then turns into electricity then into a number.  This number is the RAW data.  Most cameras are set up to save as JPEG - which cuts the size of the picture way down...the camera makes a few general assumptions about the picture (like maybe generalizing a white back ground to only one shade of white vs. the true multiple shades it contains) so you loose a lot of the detail.  FYI......every time you re-save a JPEG, you're actually loosing more data.  I think he said you can save a JPEG 90 times before its nothing.  When working in PhotoShop - most likely saving the file as TIFF.  With TIFF, you won't loose data every time you save. We'll be working with RAW eventually.

- Six qualities of Light

• Brightness
• Direction
• Color (Cool, Neutral, Warm)
• Contrast (Hard vs. Low)
• Specularity (refers to the size of a light source - so think a bright sunny day)
• Diffuse (think a cloudy day)

We had a little quiz to see if we could identify the different light qualities....I might not have a natural eye for these things.  I have a lot to learn!

First assignment - we have to take 13 pictures using the above light sources.