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Hello and thank you for submitting your first assignment.
With this assignment our expectations from you were that you would find a creative way to re-frame a pre-existing environment. Essentially, we wanted you to take something that looked normal or boring and incorporate stronger design elements through lighting, framing, angles, lines, color or cropping (to name only a few) to help introduce a stronger sense of visual appeal. You’ve done a great job of that with this assignment.
Your first image is in soft focus which is a technical “no no” in the world of photography. Your “beauty” image however, is in sharp focus but it’s worth discussing this technical issue nevertheless. Most cameras have a “focus assist” or “expand focus” option which allows you to quickly magnify your image by 50% or 100% (sometimes more) which allows you to check the sharpness of your image before you take the photograph. As you progress as a photographer you’ll want to start enlarging your images. Having a strong sense of focus not only helps communicate to your viewer which parts of your composition are the most important, but it also ensures a sense of high production value.
Secondly, in your second image you’ve decided to limit your environment down to the essential part of the story. In your first image you’ve included more of your environment including more baskets, more of the mirror (or other room?), more of the wall, more of the self etc.
In your second image however, you’ve limited your frame to only 1 basket. This process of simplification is something you’ll be exploring more as you progress through the course. It is important to note that although it’s a great starting point to play with small geographic spaces, the same rules of simplicity apply to larger spaces as well. You can still find simplified color palettes, pattern, texture, depth and so on, in larger environments. That being said, it is a smart move to experiment with these design elements in smaller spaces first as they are easier to design and light.
I would like to see you play with light more. The lighting of your “beauty” image is fairly flat. You’ll soon learn about lighting and how the direction, intensity, diffusion, molding of shadow and the color of light all feed into your photograph to help establish a mood. Generally speaking front lighting lacks any sense of drama and it strips the image of it’s naturally occurring textured properties. A nice gentle side light (even just a lamp) could have helped you draw out more texture in the basket.
But you’re off to a great start! I’m looking forward to seeing your next assignment.
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