lesson 1

[Jarrad Casey]

lesson 1

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Hello Freedom,

Thanks for submitting your first assignment to the Icon Photography School student forum. Don’t forget to follow on Twitter to keep up to date with IPS.

Now your first assignment is all about trying to start seeing the world like a photographer. This isn’t some fancy art school crap either. This is really about learning to train your eye (or more specifically your brain) to start seeing the world a little differently. To start noticing instead of ignoring the visual stimuli we encounter all the time. Once you start to see like this the next trick is to learn how to capture it. Once you’ve got that figured out you move toward seeing the shot in your mind and then creating it… This evolution can take quite some time and lots of practice!

You’ve shot a couple of images here.

In your ‘boring’ image you’ve shot a generic photo of a plant in the style of every person who is new to photography.

In your ‘interesting’ image you’ve shot an image that is frankly far more interesting. You’ll find that it is almost always the case if you have two images of the same thing the one that is closer is almost always the better image. So it almost never hurts to get close. Also you’ve composed the image in such a way as to accentuate the curve of the catus’ pot. As you will see in further lessons using curves, lines, and shapes like this can really help add some punch to an image.

One thing you’ll also notice here is that there is some shallow depth of field going on here. In this case it helps a bit to make the image a bit more pleasing but it doesn’t really do much to focus your viewers eye.

Overall you’ve done well here.

Keep this assignment in mind when you go forward. Ask yourself, how can I make what I’m shooting more interesting? Can I shoot this from another angle/perspective? Whenever you are taking photos always try to keep a sense of play and experimentation in your mind. There is no rule saying every photo needs to be shot at eye level with the thing you’re shooting in the middle… Have fun, get close, and play.

More importantly, get out and shoot as much as you can!

Don’t forget you can send an @reply on twitter or email office@photographyicon.com if you need some help.

You can also use the live chat (if it’s online on the main page of the site).

See you on the next assignment.

😉

[Author]

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