Exercise 22

What: The brief of this exercise was to examine and produce two sets of triangular compositions, one using real triangles and one using implied triangles.
Where: Various Locations
When: All times of the day, sunny, rain and dull weather.
How: I did find this exercise quite difficult in two ways; the first problem is that I have not regained full mobility and after a surgical procedure I was unable to climb stairs, walk distances, etc. This had an effect in that I could not travel to some of my subjects and when I got there I could not always find a way of obtaining a suitable location or perspective. I found this quite frustrating and at times I was quite concerned that I would be unable to complete this exercise.
The second problem was that I just made a dyslexic mistake and misunderstood the brief of the exercise and made a basic mistake in how I was to photograph using perspective. It was not until I was writing up my notes that I realised what a mistake I had made.

Since starting this part of the course I have started to “see” shapes in all sorts of locations and structures. This has been a real surprise and has made part of these exercises quite fun as I point out shapes and forms.

Real triangles

Brief: Find a subject which is in itself triangular.
I did find this difficult stuck inside as there were not a lot of triangular things that I could get to easily. It was only once that I had gained some mobility that I was able to move about outside. I quickly spotted this triangular shape at the top of a window in a nearby building. It was quite easy to photograph and have it as the main item in the frame.

D80,Aperture f/6.6, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 400, 210mm (35mm equivalent 315mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Aperture Priority, Hand Held, VR lens.

Brief: Make a triangle by perspective (top).
This was quite easy to do, with a wide angle lens it is quite easy to position a subject in such as way that it converges towards the top of the frame.

D80,Aperture f/14.0, Shutter Speed 1/50 sec, ISO 400, 11mm (35mm equivalent 16mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held

I produced a number of this type of perspective triangle, I have uploaded them into my Flickr pages so that they would also be available to view.

Brief: Make a triangle by perspective (bottom).
This was not quite as easy to do as I thought, as in a lot of the locations I found there was no good way to photograph the subject which would produce a triangle by perspective where it would converge towards the bottom of the frame. This gave me a lot of frustration and it was not until we were making our way back from an unsuccessful shoot of another subject that I managed to take this shot.

D80,Aperture f/14.0, Shutter Speed 1/40 sec, ISO 400, 11mm (35mm equivalent 16mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held

Implied Triangles

Brief: Make a still life arrangement to produce a triangle with the apex at the top

I had a bit of fun with this as I was stuck inside and with limited movement I could take my time and experiment with different styles of still life arrangement. I used almost the same items for this still life arrangement as the next brief where the apex is at the bottom.

D80,Aperture f/29.0, Shutter Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 800, 65mm (35mm equivalent 97mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted

Brief: Make a still life arrangement to produce a triangle with the apex at the bottom.

D80,Aperture f/29.0, Shutter Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 800, 65mm (35mm equivalent 97mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted

Brief: Arrange three people in a group picture in such a way that either their faces or the lines of their bodies make a triangle.

D80,Aperture f/4.5, Shutter Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 100, 52mm (35mm equivalent 78mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, Flash Fired.

On the whole, although limited in what I could do and shoot I enjoyed the exercise and it has helped me understand triangular perspective and the vanishing point.