Exercise 1.4: Frame

The brief for this exercise was to make use of the grid display on the camera. A nuber of shots were to be taken, each composed within a single section of the viewfinder grid. The rest of the frame does not need to be composed.

Any combination of grid section, subject and viewpoint can be used.

When reviewing the shots evaluate the whole frame and not just the part that has been composed.

The first three shots below were taken from the window of the rear bedroom at home. I was focussing on the house that can be seen. By composing each shot around the house and focussing on this particular area of the viewfinder I missed different things in each image.

In the shot about I was quite happy with the rest of the shot when I examined it as a whole. The hedge and roof of the garages lead the eye towards the house. The disappointment for me with the image is that because I wasn’t paying attention to the whole short I missed some smudges on the window pange which become apparent in the final shot.

Again I was happy with how the house came out. The image is a bit overexposed I feel and go do with being a bit darker. When exploring the rest of the shot, the overhead cable becomes apparent. This could have worked nicely within the composition as a way to lead the eye through the image if it had been leading from or to something and not just moving from one side of the image to the other, in this case it leads the eye out of the picture and is a distraction. The slight blurring at the bottom left of the image is also a distraction because it wasn’t noticed. Cropping the image would remove this but it becomes a lot more difficult to remove, and harder to ignore in the shot below.

The whole left hand side of the image has been obliterated by a figure that was dangling in the window and went unnoticed when I was composing the shot around the house.

From the above three images it becomes obvious that even if you perfectly compose a shot around part of a scene, if you don’t pay attention to the rest of what is before you then a shot can easily be ruined and if you only have a limited amount of time to get capture a shot you may end up missing out.

In the image above I was composing the shot around the singer. Looking at the shot as a whole I think it is fairly well balanced throughout, although I do feel that it needs to be cropped slighly on the left hand side and some cloning done at the top left in order to remove a section of white that would still remain even after cropping.

Above I was composing the shot around two friends who were dancing. Reviewing the rest of the shot I would want to crop the right hand side to remove the chair and people. I would also want to crop the bottom of the image to remove out the blurred out people but that would then leave the figure of the man in the middle, looking as if his head had been cut off.

Above I was focussed on my partner in the middle of the image in the red, spotted dress. Although I’m quite happy with the image’s composition in the centre of the shot it is the figure of the guitarist that spoils it as a whole because I’d cut off his head. If I’d been composing the shot as a whole then I would have zoomed out more in order to get more into the shot, including the guitarists head.

In the shot above I was aiming to compose the image around the singer. Once again focussing on a specific part of the view left me missing things that left the image being a disappointment.

The shot above was composed around the videographer. There are bits that I would change with the image, I would crop it to remove the area to the left of the curtain edge. The blurriness of the people at the bottom of the image adds to the focus on the videographer allowing the viewer to see more of the details concerning her, without distractions. Her smile, indicating she’s enjoying what she is doing and even small pinpoints of light glinting in her eyes.

With the image about I was aiming to compose the shot around the Elvis impersonator. When I looked at the rest of the image the Elvis figure on the screen at the back added to the composition. Almost as if the real Elvis was joining in with the show.

The image above was taken using a Lensbaby Sweet 35 optic. I composed the shot so that my friend’s face was in focus and allowed the Lensbaby to work it’s magic with the rest of the image. It’s one of the images I’m most happy with of those I’ve taken recently.

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