Project 25

Rectangles

For this project I needed to produce 3 photographs that show rectangles. It is very difficult to get perfect rectangles as if the camera is not exactly square on to the shot and level, lines will converge thus producing lines at an angle rather than square.

I decided that this would be better demonstrated if I produced two that are perfect rectangles, and one that, on first glance, looks like a rectangle but does in fact have converging lines.

The first is of a shop window divided into two rectangles.

The second, at Stonehenge is made up of a number of different rectangles.

Whilst the third, looks at first glance to be a rectangle, but this is because we all know a door is a rectangle

However, with red lines added, it becomes obvious that I was not exactly square on to the door, and was slightly to the right, making the right side of the door slightly longer than the left.

This is a lesson well learnt, as I took some time composing this shot, and at the time, thought I had it as a good rectangle.

Project 24

Shapes

The brief here is to select any 2 subjects that stress shape

Rectangle

and Circle

 

Project 23

Implied lines

This project looks at implied lines, being lines that lead the eye of the viewer to particular parts of the photograph

The first is of an eye line, and although we cannot see what the Robin is looking at, its eye line draws the eye of the viewer to look downwards in the direction the Robin is looking.

 

In the second picture, the lines formed by the roof lines, the drain downpipe and the curved join in the roof tiles, all lead the eye towards the owl statue set on the rooftop.

Project 22

Curves

The last type of simple line examined here is a curve.

Most of the curves I found were man made such as the stairs in the first two shots.

 

The second is a series of paths around a garden, again man made.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This last one was definitely not man made!

Project 21

 Diagonals

As with project 20, this project is examining diagonals.

This first shot, the statue of the diver is forming an horizontal line, whilst her arms form horizontal lines in a different direction.

 

The eaves of the buildings, and the staircase, complete with covered top, form diagonals in many different directions.

 

This building, while not diagonal, is taken from an angle, which makes the roof and ground form converging diagonals. Here it gives a sense of depth to the picture.

This ceiling is made of hundreds of different pieces, each square, with triangular ones at the sides of each join. The joins fan out diagonally, and because each square is laid at an angle, it forms a myriad of diagonal lines.

Project 20

Horizontal and vertical lines

This is a small project just to examine lines in photographs

The first four pictures show vertical lines, and although some horizontal lines can be seen in the pictures, it is the vertical lines that are most dominant

 

 

This one, which is a view of roof tiles, shows the dominance of the vertical lines, mainly because they are darker than the horizontal ones.

And here, there are some converging diagonals, but the verticals show out more.

The next four show horizontal lines.

The first one obviously has vertical lines from the stones supporting the horizontals, but, aided by the horizon in the distance, I think the horizontals stand out much more.

  

Again here, the posts are vertical, but the tops of them form a horizontal line, again aided by the line formed by the edge of the water meeting the land.

 

As with this one, where the horizontal is formed by the level plain meeting the mountains.

 

Here, there are some pleasing curves in the picture, but I took this to show the horizontal steps of the staircase.

Project 19

In this project I am placing different objects at various positions in the frame. The camera is mounted on a tripod, and the camera settings are the same throughout. The idea is to place the objects such that the shape is interesting, but to avoid regular shapes.

No matter how I tried, I couldn’t avoid being somewhat symmetrical, however, at times, the shape had to be other than symmetrical as I was adding one at a time.

Anyway, I have drawn some lines ti indicate the shapes that I see in the pictures

The first has just one object positioned in the centre of the frame. I did have a number of attempts where I put the first object at different positions, but always came back to this one.

 

In the second one I avoided putting this where instinct told me, i.e. directly horizontal, vertical or diagonal to the first.

Despite avoiding my instincts, positioning the third always made me feel uncomfortable unless it was symmetrical., hence this one being positioned equidistant from the centre as the second.

With the fourth, no matter where I placed it, it felt awkward, and to me, this was the only place it felt comfortable.

With the fifth, there was no way that I could form a symmetrical pattern (not that I am supposed to be doing this, but something inbuilt in me says it looks haphazard if put elsewhere).

Anyway,fighting against instincts (!!!!) I put the object in a took the picture quickly……. Looking at it afterwards, it does seem to have a pleasing quality something like a question mark. Is this trying to tell me something?

Ahhhh, back to symmetry (I’ll have to consult my shrink about this, it’s getting worrying). In this one, I tried all sorts of places for the sixth object, and none of them seemed to work.

  I’ve stopped drawing lines on them now, but when I look at this, I can see a pleasing semi circular shape around the right four objects, and the centre one kind of leads the eye towards the two objects on the left side, which again seem to take me upwards towards the top of the picture.

The last shot has got me back to symmetry, and in some ways, since taking the pictures, I am somewhat sorry that it is symmetrical. It’s actually boring, and I keep looking at it to see what other shapes I can see in it. I can see a horseshoe with something in the middle. It even reminds me of something a bride would carry. There’s a face also. I guess really, it’s only symmetrical left to right, as there’s and opening at the top which means the top is not symmetrical with the bottom.

 

I guess out of all this, I have to do a lot more work on seeing, and move more away from my perceived need for evenness. Am I getting there????

I’ve looked at a couple of other blogs on the subject, and there is all sorts of talk about implied triangles, implied lines and all sorts of other things, and I know from looking further into the coursework that these points are covered. However, at this stage of the course, these points have not been covered, and I guess that when they are, I will re-visit this project to see if it makes any more sense. At this stage though I am taking it piece by piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project 18

Relationship between points 

In this scene, there are two main points, the large rock on the right, and the smaller one on the left. The one on the right is stronger, both because it is larger, and also nearer. In looking at it, the eye tends to look at the larger one first, and then move over to the smaller one. On first thought, it seems that this is because the larger one is nearer, but the next picture changes that thought.

 

Again, there are two main points in the picture, but in this case, the furthest is the larger object, and it is this object that is first noticed, followed by eye movement to the smaller object being the buoy in the foreground.

 

In this next one, both points, the eyes, are of equal size, and are positioned at the same points in the frame. In this instance, neither point is dominant, and this tends to produce a conflict that makes the picture less easy to view. In fact, I tend to look for differences that would resolve the conflict such as the white point in the eyes being in different positions, one being slightly more open than the other, or one being in more shadow than the other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The movement of the eye from one object to another is in

Project 16

Defining a point

In carrying out this and the following few projects I have been struggling to understand where it is leading. OK, I understand what a point is, and I can understand that I can position points and that they can relate to one another, but what does this do to my photography?

The picture below shows a sheep as a point in a field, and i can see that it breaks up what would otherwise just be a field, but what does it prove or do? After all, it is a picture of a sheep isn’t it? What’s more, it looks as though I have just taken a very amateur photo on my Kodak Brownie!

Anyway, here is a point. I could have taken a photo of almost anything, a tree in a field, a bird in the sky, an aeroplane in the sky, any other animal, or building in a field, a boat in the water. Almost endless.

Project 17

 Positioning a point

The brief for this project states that it is similar to project 7, and in fact, I think it is so similar, there would not be too much gained from inserting the same photos and verbiage again, when I can simply refer back to 7.

I have done more research on points and positioning of points and found a number of resources that have made things a little clearer.

The first is from here http://www.digital-web.com/articles/elements_of_design/

it says

“A point is an element that has position, but no extension. It is a single mark in space with a precise, but limited, location. Alone it can provide a powerful relation between negative and positive space, but when grouped with other points the Gestalt grouping principal of closure tends to kick in and the brain compulsively connects the points together. Line or form is a natural result of multiple points in space.”

The second is from http://www.educ.kent.edu/community/vlo/design/elements/point/index.html

This one says the following:

The point serves as the focus of a visual, highlighting or drawing attention to important information.

Several points in combination may represent a more complicated object or idea. For example, constellations can be thought of as points in the sky representing the figure we "see."

A series of points can attract attention, especially as they move closer together.

I also thought the “Gestalt” principle could do with a little more examination. Without going into the whole, “Gestalt”, is a German word meaning “shape” or “form”, and the principle is that tend to perceive a shape or form from a series of individual objects. So rather than seeing the individual objects, our eyes attempt to group them into a scene.