Exercise 15

What: The brief of this exercise was to locate where a single point could be identified and take 3 photographs where the object was repositioned each time.
Where: Whitesands
When: Just after 16:30.
How: I looked around to find a single identifiable point surrounded by a relatively plain background, which is quite hard to locate at times. I reshot this exercise four or five times as I was not happy with the outcome each time. I also experimented with doing this exercise as macro photography, but I could locate a suitable object.

As I walked back from shooting another subject I spotted this Victorian water drinking fountain sitting surrounded on three sides by mounds of grass. I shot a succession of photographs, where I repositioned the object within the frame and also I moved around a little to obtain better compositions. At the end I chose the ones which I preferred.

[I seem to be having some form of cropping problem with the blog, so I shall be inserting smaller versions of the images linked back to my Flickr account]


f13 1/125 ISO 160 52mm (35mm equivalent 78mm) Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance. Hand held.




I main reason I positioned the water found off to the right, but within the middle of the frame was to balance the ground with the horizon. At this distance I felt that the water found could easily have been lost within the composition if it had not been put in such a prominent position.
The sky gives the image a sense of distance and it also emphasises the colour of the water fountain.

The three main lines that I could identify within this image are the horizon itself, the break in the clouds which form a straight line and the water fountain itself. The water fountain has been manufacturer with flutes in the uprights which strengthen the line



I moved to a new position for the second photograph. I moved closer to the water fountain and dropped slightly down into a dip


f18 1/100 ISO 160 29mm (35mm equivalent 43mm) Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance. Hand held.


I did this so that I could emphases the water fountain itself, I wanted to capture some of its design in the photograph. I moved more to the left of the water fountain so that the sun was over my left shoulder. I did not want it to burn out the image with the whiteness of the fountain, so I waited for a cloud to pass in front of the sun.
I set the water fountain slightly lower off centre and off to the right in the frame so that it stood out more. I did not want too much of the grass in the foreground as it made the composition very messy and drew the eye away from the main subject. I also did not want too much of the sky in the frame as this also left the main subject looking isolated and not the main subject of the photograph.

Again I could only spot about three main lines in the composition, the horizon, feathered by the outlines of the grass, the break in the clouds and the water fountain itself. There are a number of smaller weaker lines within the grass itself.



In the third photograph, I moved so that I was more level with the water fountain.

f25 1/40 ISO 160 70mm (35mm equivalent 70mm) Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance. Hand held.




I positioned the main subject within the frame like this as there were a number of distraction objects within the background, all of which would have drawn the eye away from the main subject.



Again there are three main lines within the composition, the horizon, the clouds and the water fountain. There is a fourth line which runs at an angle through the frame which intersects with the main subject and the horizon.