Lesson One Assignment

[Stephanie Cabral]

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[Duncan Rawlinson]

Hi there!

Welcome to the student forum.

Firs things first. If you aren’t already please add yourself to the IPS newsletter.
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That said I’m currently on holiday for the weekend. I will post a full critique of these photos after this weekend. (Probably monday or tuesday) Is that ok? If not let me know and I will spend some time on these on my weekend/holiday.

Thanks!

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Hi there,

Thanks for submitting your first assignment. I’m please to see that you’re on your way with the course.

Do you have any questions or concerns at this stage?

The first assignment in this course is really designed to effectively prime the pump if you will. The idea is that I’d like you to start to see the world as a photographer. To see the world full of visual opportunity. Once you start to play around with the world around you like this you will see there is almost always at least 10 interesting things to take pictures of around you at any given moment. It just takes some time to develop an eye for it.

In your first submission you’ve done a couple of excellent things.

For one you changed your perspective. This is always one of the most underused ways to improve your images. Just change where the camera is in relation to what you’re shooting. It’s deceptively simple. In this example here you can see your second image is far more interesting than your first because you chose to put the camera in a different place. 90% of mediocre photos are shot at eye level with the subject matter in the center of the frame.

The other thing you’ve done is you’ve gotten closer. This is another one of the most fundamental things you can do to improve your images. Another way of thinking about this is to fill the frame. If you always have the idea in your mind that you want to fill the frame it can make a world of difference.

One way you could have improved this image is to use a tripod and to turn off your flash. If you have to work in a dark space like this your camera’s automatic settings will try to compensate by using it’s flash. If you take some control and turn your flash off the image would be more pleasing. However given that it’s so dark your image would be blurry because you would’t be able to hold the camera steadily during the longer exposure. This is where the tripod comes in… It keeps the camera stable and helps you make sharper images when you need to shoot longer exposures or just want razor sharp images.

Nice job see you on the next assignment.

[Author]

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