Exercise - Horizontal and vertical lines

Horizontal:
1) Spectators sitting in a row

• a row of objects all at the same distance from the camera
• spectators sitting in a row watching tennis has created imaginary horizontal lines
  

2) Horizontal lines with objects in the pond

• a mass of objects seen from a low angle
• the mass of some weeds in the water viewing from low angle appears to have imaginary horizontal lines
  

3) a wooden wall

• man-made flat surface
• this is a wooden wall of a coffee shop in a park. the lines are obvious to the eyes
  

4) stairs

• man-made flat surface
• from low angle, the flat surface of stairs have created horizontal lines. if they were viewed from different angles, they would have seemed differently
  

Vertical lines:
1) long necks of Mute swans

• this is not from the list but it is problably similar to row of standing human figures
• The long necks of these swans have made some vertical lines to the eyes
  

2) Trees

• tree trunks
• two tree trunks from a park have created vertical lines
  

3)Frieze

• this can be man made structures or a row of standing human figures
• this frieze on a wall has created vertical lines to the eyes
  

4) part of a buidling

• wall/other man-made structures
• the vertical lines on a building are quite obvious

Conclusion:
It wasn easier for me to find "Vertical lines" than "Horizontal lines" in this exercise.
One of the reasons, to me I think, was because of gravity. Everywhere I see are figures, humans, trees, flowers, buildings which do stand up right.
If I go to the country I would probably see more horizontal lines, look into horizon, rice field, open field, edge of the ocean.

From "Micheal Freeman's The photographer's Eye"
1) Horizontal is the baseline in composition. Our frame of vision is horizontal, and the eyes scan most easily from side to side. Therefore horizontal lines are visually the most comfortable.
Horizontal lines generally express stability, weight, calm and resfulness.
2)Vertical is the second primary component of the frame.
Vertical line usually has more of a sense of speed and movement eihter up or down. To an extent, they can express strength and power.

In photograph, both horizontal and vertical lines are immediately compared by the eye with the frame edges, and even the slightest discrepancy is immediately noticeable.
Therefore it is best to use spirit level together with tripod when shooting a photo!

Horizontal and vertical lines create an equilibrium in the sense that their energies are perpendicular to each other; each one acts as a stop to the other. They create a sense of balance.

Exercise - Multiple points

I chose pecks as my objects as they come in different colour and the back garden as my background shot. The problem was the image was taken during the partly cloudy day so the Sun kept going in and out of cloud. This was the problem because it caused the exposure to be inconsistency. I had to wait until the cloud has covered the Sun before I started the homework.
I did this homework about 4 times. this set was the last set and I am quite happy with the outcome.
The previous sets had some problems
a) inconsistency of exposure
b) when I added one peck at a time, I didn't like how the pecks stayed in the centre of the frame because it lacks dynamic so I redo and try to make sure the composition of each image has dynamic















FINAL Image


The image was a set up. if I just dropped a set of pecks onto the grass, they won't be in this arrangement, will they? they will be scattering about in their naturalness form.

Exercise - The relationship between points

Finding two points was not easy. It's the viewpoint that came into play.
Most objects I found tend to be occupying a whole image that they don't represent points therefore I had to be somewhat higher so the background stay plain and the objects don't occupy so much space.
However this exercise went OK at the end.

1. The two ducks of Wetland Trust
This image was taken at Wetland Trust in Barnes. There were actually three ducks but I cropped one off so the image could contain 2 points and I also cropped some empty space around the duck off so the 2 points could be placed on the edge of the frame.
Looking at the image below, my eyes are induced to move the duck in the back before moving back to the duck in the front. The reason is the duck in the back is in focus, while the front duck is rather out of focus. Even though the front duck seems larger because it's closer to the viewer.



2. The two sets of deck chairs
This image was taken in Hyde Park Corner in London. There were many set of deck chairs out that day because the Sun was shining but it was quite breezy, nobody was using the deck chairs. They were left empty. I walked pass these two sets of deck chair and I could see them fit in one frame so I took the picture with the tree behind it.
I cropped a little bit of space out and adjusted level in Photoshop to make the image look less flat.
As the eyes moving between these two points (two sets of deck chairs) the front set of deck chairs seem to be the dominant ones because they are closer to the viewer and therefore seem larger.



3. Two Mute swans in the pond
This image was taken in the Kensington garden next to Hyde Park Corner. There were many swan in the pond on that sunny breezy day. There were a few nests in the middle of the pond.
One of the swans (in the picture) was resting in the nest while the other was possibly drinking water but some weed was stuck to its beak.
I used 55-250mm zoom lens so I could crop the unwanted area including the background and isolated these two swans to be in the frame.
The two Mute swans were not right at the edge of the frame, they were just off centre where they created moderately dynamic in the frame but balanced each other.
The Mute swan with some weeds stuck to its beak (the front one) appears to be more dominant in the frame because it's facing to the viewer and the appearance is more focus and larger.



Conclusion:
As the eyes are moved from one point to another and back (and forth), there is an implied line between these two points. This line is apparently the most important dynamic in a two point image. The direction of the line tend to be from the stronger point to the weaker one.
Sometimes it's not so obvious which point is stronger but the line is there.

Part TWO: Element of Design --- Exercise - Positioning a point

I thought this exercise would have been fairly simple, but it was not really!

1) I first went to a park intending to take some photos of some birds in water or on grass. When you are on the same level of the subject you want to take, the subject won't appear as a point. Instead, it appeared to be occupying a lot in the frame therefore it was not a single point(!)
The image below shows two swans in a pond. Because they are quite next to each other that they look like a single point (?) The swans are quite distinct and the background is quite blur. You should be able to draw your eyes to the swan instead of the background.
OK in this case I framed the subject toward the centre too much. It is not on the 1/3 of the frame so I cropped
This image was cropped so that the subject sits on 1/3 of the frame but is it small enough to be a point(?)

2) I finally took some photos of birds on the grass but I wasn't sure how small the subjects should be to be considered as "single point" in a frame(?) I used zoom 100mm fixed focal lens so the subject was not close. Is it too far?
(NOT cropped) (CROPPED)so the subject look bigger comparing to the frame but still is it big enough to be a point(?)
The foreground is empty so it might look quite boring but that could draw attention to the bird itself and nothing else!

3)I took this photo when we went to the Wetland in London. We were in the HIDE but I ended up taking a photo of some cow!
Taking photos from above does make the subjects more like "a point" with an open background. This image is not so plain and boring because the grass is quite tall therefore it adds texture to the image. The red cow colour gives a bit of a contrast with the green field back ground.
I did not have to crop this image, fortunately. I think it was OK as is in term of positioning in the image.


Conclusion:
Positioning a point-
a) size of an object to be considered as a point (?)
b) left or right - the orientation of an object makes the positioning different. for example of the cow image, the cow is facing into the frame whereas if I place this cow to the left hand side, it would have looked like the cow is leaving the scene, hence it might have looked different(?)
c) top or bottom - I still prefer a point in a frame to be in a lower part of the frame if there is only a single point there.
d) I sometimes couldn't get the positioning (compost) of the subject right at the time of shooting. sometimes it's because the subject is moving so I just had to quickly make a shot and crop it therefore cropping often comes into play of positioning the final image.
to get it right first time would be an ideal though!!