Photography Classes Online – Icon Photography School › Forums › Photography Lessons › Lesson 1 › Assignment #1 : Beast / Beauty
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Duncan Rawlinson.
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November 24, 2008 at 4:45 pm #17543
kcartuk
ParticipantThe attached are the photgraphs I chose for Lesson 1. I chose the photos of my husband’s guitar.[attachment=1:rxhlmbjj]Lesson 1 Beast.jpg[/attachment:rxhlmbjj]
November 26, 2008 at 6:14 am #18951Duncan Rawlinson
KeymasterGreat assignment. You’ve done a terrific job on the composition of your “beauty” picture and you’ve advanced both “technically” and “artistically” from your “beast” picture.
Let my speak on your beast photograph for a moment. The reason that this photograph doesn’t catch the attention of the audience is because the image is flat and distracting. When I say flat, I mean that the lighting in the shot is not very flattering and it merges all of the layers of the image together. The guitar just seems to bleed into the wall. I don’t see any depth in this image. That is what I mean by flat.
It’s distracting because you’ve amputated (cut off) many important and not so important parts of the picture. It’s so important to pay extra close attention to the 4 walls of your photograph. This is undoubtedly the biggest mistake that photographers make. They focus too much on the main area of interest (in this case the guitar), but ignore secondary objects that help provide context (such as the floor, the door, the walls, the shadows and the lighting). Notice how you’ve amputated the door with both the top and right side of the photograph’s walls. Also notice how you have distracting secondary objects on the floor on both the right and left side of the picture. I have no idea what those things are and they don’t seem to back up the story of the photograph and serve no purpose other than to distract the audience. This is the easiest thing to fix, but also the most common composition mistake. It’s important to always be aware of these details.
So moving on to your “beauty” photograph. You’ve done a great job with cleaning up the composition in this photograph. You’ve closed in your attention so you can control the shapes, the composition, the lighting and the color and object organization. In short, you’ve simplified the photograph. Most noticeably, you’ve simplified the colors (to be discussed in an upcoming lesson) and you’ve simplified your objects. There are now no distracting secondary objects that are popping into your frame. Your composition is fairly balanced and symmetrical and the 4 walls of your photograph are nicely cleaned up.
I think this is a great first assignment. I look forward to seeing what you do next!
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