Photography Classes Online – Icon Photography School › Forums › Photography Lessons › Lesson 1 › Assignment 1 – Beast to Beauty
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Duncan Rawlinson.
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June 22, 2009 at 2:25 pm #17814
Victoria
ParticipantFor Assignment 1, I decided to shoot a bundle of clothes that are always piled high in my bedroom. I rarely take any notice of them so I thought it would be a good place to start. After looking at it from many different angles, I finally decided to go with a close-up of my Jeans and Green Blanket. I loved the colours and different textures present and I felt they made a boring and mundane thing look rather beautiful. I welcome all comments. Thanks V
June 27, 2009 at 2:31 am #19247Duncan Rawlinson
KeymasterThis is a wonderful assignment.
You’ve essentially taken a wide shot of a pile of clothes that showed the context of the shot (i.e. a clothing hamper in a room with shoes scattered on the floor, a wooden closet and other secondary objects that help your audience identify with “place”), and you’ve transformed that image into a close up photograph that instead of focusing on context instead focuses on color, shape and texture.
In fact, in your “beauty” photograph your audience has no visual cues in regards to location. You’ve decided to make “place” a secondary element to “form”. There is nothing wrong with what you’ve done. In fact it’s exactly what was asked of you for this assignment. That being said, it’s important to recognize why you were drawn towards macro / close up photography.
For starters, it allows you to control your color palette more precisely. It also allows you to control your context with greater accuracy. In large part, photographers are drawn towards close up photography because it simplifies the composition.
However, it should be noted that the same elements of simplification in both color, composition and content can be found in larger scenes. It’s your job as a photographer to find ways of simplifying chaos. You’re doing this instinctively in your close up shot above, but now you need to be thinking of ways to incorporate the same visual ideas into larger scenes.
For example, your priority with your “beauty” photograph was color simplicity in a close up environment. However, look at the following two photographs and notice how the photographer was able to achieve color simplicity to some degree even though the scenes are much larger.
http://www.blacklakewebdesign.co.uk/samples/smallbusiness/images/template/photos/landscape.jpg
You’ve done a great job on this assignment. Keep up the great work.
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