Composition

Fundamentals of Digital Photography: Assignment Seven

Photos taken with composition principles in mind, namely, the Rule of Thirds, Fill the Frame, Viewpoint, Framing, Leading Lines, Symmetry/Reflection, Isolation, and Depth.

Photos by Natalie Cherie Campbell. October 20, 2023, Belmont, MA, USA. 

Reflection

This assignment led me to take more photos than I have yet for any other assignment. Trying to find what scene might best reflect the eight compositional principles made it hard to stop and say, “It’s good enough.” It was also really difficult to have many excellent images that just didn’t quite hit the mark with the principles and ended up staying on my computer, unpublished. I also ended up choosing more photos of Spencer and Tristan than I originally intended for this same reason.

I’ll offer a few thoughts about the experience of capturing each principle. The Rule of Thirds was relatively simple. What I enjoyed most was being able to be purposeful about where in my viewfinder I placed the subject of my image. In Tristan’s picture where he shows me his flu shot, I wanted to zero in on his eyes, which, though bright with their blue color, are heavy with exhaustion because he didn’t sleep well the night before.

Filling the frame was fun because it allowed me to let go of the sense of giving a full picture and just zero in on creating a specific mood or a more pinpointed viewing experience. I had the most photo options from this principle, everything from colanders to frayed edges on crocheted blankets. I ended up choosing the photo of the bamboo leaves because I liked how the light was hitting the leaves and the rim of the glass vase. The vertical lines of the window pane behind the vertical bamboo stalks was also nice. By zooming in I love the colorful array of rocks in the base of the glass vase as well as the overall shape of the plant presentation, but by zooming in, I created an entirely different picture experience.

Viewpoint was the easiest composition principle for me to take into account when shooting my photos. I like taking photos from different angles and heights. By taking a shot of the memory chest from above, I hoped to create a sense of looking down into a treasure chest filled with little items just waiting to be lifted out.

I found framing to be somewhat difficult because it was so manufactured in this particular experience. I do like that I was able to frame Tristan, who had fallen asleep on his bedroom floor, in his most recent preschool project, a leaf wreath. However, I would also like to find more spontaneous ways of implementing this compositional principle. The colors and lighting in this photo were also tricky for me. I wouldn’t be satisfied without Lightroom editing beyond white balance correction.

The hardest part of implementing the principle of leading lines was not finding naturally occurring line, but, rather, finding some sort of payoff at the end of the line, something worth drawing your eye to. I eventually made my way to a parkour park near my home. At first, I thought that the scene wouldn’t work because the lines were chaotic. However, now I think that the chaos may have worked in my favor. Tristan was in the center third of the image, sitting at the end of the largest beam, which dominates the picture and drags the eye from the bottom-left corner to little Tristan in the center. Despite the chaotic beams and rails around him, they all seem to frame him and pull the eye toward him because of the dominating effect of the largest beam. I’ll admit, I didn’t take the picture with these observations fully formulated, just the idea that Tristan was at the end of a long line. It was fun to discover my feelings about the image after the fact though.

For the symmetry image, I enjoyed the obvious intentionality of the symmetry as demonstrated by the placement of the jack-o-lanterns. The family, whose balcony I photographed, obviously wanted a symmetrical look and were foiled by the double window on the right side.

I felt a bit lost in trying to create an image based on the principle of isolation. I'm just not sure if I understand yet exactly how to adequately isolate a subject in an image. With the picture I took of Tristan, it was actually not originally meant to be the image I chose for isolation. I thought it might be for the Rule of Thirds. However, I did take into account the light that was falling on Tristan and making him stand out in comparison to his neutral background, and I think in the final product it goes a long way in isolating him from any distractions, particularly the leaf wreath in the background, which seems to just not matter in comparison to Tristan's lit-up, expressive self. Even so, I'd like to feel more confident about how to implement various methods to create isolation in an image.

Finally, I chose the image of Spencer and Tristan playing a computer game because of the levels of depth that naturally occurred at that angle in our apartment. Spencer and Tristan are obviously the foreground, with Spencer's hand on the mouse being even closer. The cabinet fills the place of the midground and the dark kitchen and back door form the background. The decreasing light as the photo "moves" back helps accentuate the depth of the image, as does the wide aperture.