Lesson 4

[Gary]

Here are two photos (out of hundreds) I took using a polarizing filter.

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Both images are very strong. Congratulations!

I’m most impressed with your experimentation with line and shape. In your first image the lines are largely horizontal. In your second image, the lines are predominantly diagonal and that leads to some really interesting triangular shapes. For instance, the horizon is slanted, the road is slanted and there is a hill in the background. Not only diagonals and triangles be found in those areas, but you’ll also find smaller triangles in the hub caps and in the windows of the car.

Secondly you’ve used the cracks in the ground as great “leading lines” helping to draw your viewer’s eye into the composition.

Another common thread in both of your images is that you’ve used highly textured negative space. Your audience can identify this in your skies, and your ground (or water). What’s important is that you didn’t over simplify your composition. For instance, even though (in the car image for example) you have large potions of sky and ground, both of those elements are visually interesting in their own right. The ground is full of texture, cracks and rocks. Your sky is equally as interesting being made up of gradients of blue, grey and white.

The same is true in your first image. The water is being hit by wind with is making the otherwise flat surface, more textured and interesting. Light is hitting it differently in different areas which helps break up that area of your composition a little more.

You’re doing a very good job of using negative space. I’m also impressed you’re finding ways to simplify very large geographic spaces. This is exactly what we want you to accomplish with our course.

Great work!

[Author]

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