Balance

This was an exercise on balance the idea was to take 6 previously taken photographs and find the balance in each one, this was actually quite difficult to pin point in some of the photographs, each one appears to work as a picture but it was working out the balance on each one.
Photograph one the balance seems to come from the middle with no part of the picture being the dominate part.
Photograph two The balance on this one is to either side
Photograph three this one has a large part to the centre and then two slightly smaller parts to either side.
Photograph four This one is all most the same as photograph two but the balance is half and half down the centre of the two roses.
Photograph five This is a large centre object with smaller ones all around.
Photograph six This one it is in the centre.

This was a strange exercise in that it made me really think about how I take photographs, I struggled to find six photographs that I could use for this exercise, looking back over previous photographs that I have taken I could see that they worked but it was hard to say exactly where the balance points, as I said a slightly strange exercise but very thought provoking.

Focal lengths and different view points

This one I really struggled with I understand the principle and what I needed to achieve but it just seemed that no matter how many times I tried to do the set it went wrong, these two are the best of a bad job, I have decieded to move on now i hope that is ok but I was getting so dishartented I felt like giving up which obviously was not what I really wanted.

What did I notice as differences between the two shots?

I noticed that the shot done at 18mm made the car look longer in particular the bonnet, the one done at 200mm made the car look shorter, the 18mm shot looks more realistic although you do get the impression that you are looking almost looking down on it  whilst the 200 mm it almost feels like you are standing looking level with it.

As i said I difficult project for me to complete and one that has kind of held me up a bit as I want to complete the projects in order, although I have gone on to prepare for some of the other projects.

The Angle of view.

The brief for this exercise was to take between three and ten shots using a tripod if possible and either a selection of lenses or by adjusting the zoom.
I took three photographs the first at 70mm the second roughly midway on my zoom at 155mm and the last one the full length of the zoom at 300mm.
I then looked through a manifying glass to see if I could see any difference between the 70mm scene and the 300 mm one as I expected the only difference was  the size of the objects.

A sequence of Composition

Like most people it seems I wasd really dreading this project, street photography is something that I have never really enjoyed in the past but I must admit this time it was totally different.

I was getting my camera sorted when I was approaced by a very nice lady who was with the jazz group who commented on my camera, when I explained what I wanted to do she was very impressed and introduced me to the leader of the band, so a good start.

This photography was my starting point, I wanted to show the Jazz band as  a whole before moving on to photograph individual sections or whatever took my eye as I was walking around them.

This image struck me straight away the expression on his face as he played he seemed to be unaware of everything around him.

by moving the camera downwards looking for interesting photographs I noticed his hands playing the clarinet so I zoomed in to capture this.

still holding the camera to my eye I moved around to the side to continue photographing the clarinet player, this time it was not just his face but also the outfit he was wearing that caught my eye.

moving back round to the front of the group, no mean feat when you have a camera to your eye and there are people around and also equipment, I must admit I did have to take the camera away from my eye on a couple of occasions as I had already stood in front of someone accidently (they didn't mind at all luckly) but just to make sure I didn't fall over any thing.

back round to the front of the group this time I stood still to take this and the next photograph just zooming in to the trumpeters face to try and capture the concentration he was showing as he played.

this one as I said I stood in the same spot but just zoomed in lightly more on to his face.

 Just by turning slightly I saw the drummer and by following along with the camera I noticed the movement of his hands , I was lucky enough to get slight blur to his hands as well.

Still keeping the camera to my eye and moving around the group I focused on the french horn player and took the three photographs below.

I have grouped these three together as I find writing about these easier as a block.I took the first one as a fairly standard photograph, I was then luck enought to have not moved as he lifted his head up, I quickly zoomed in and took the photgraph as he looked directly where I was standing. The final photograph in this set of three I had nmoved slightly to the side to see if there was anything interesting going on.

moving about two feet gave me the photograph above which is not one of the best ones in the series I must admit.

moving back to the front again to try and capture a bit more of the group, this one I turned slightly to my left to see what was going on and captured this gentleman turning round to conduct the drummer.

by now I am just moving my body and trying not to walk around too much just moving the camera from one side to the other and just seeing what I could see.

Swinging the camera back again I saw this shot.

Staying where I was i just zoomed in on his face, before deciding to move again, this time I decided I had plenty of photographs so would just move around from one side to the other, just to see what I could capture, rather than strting one side moving to the middle and then the othr side as I had been doing, below are my final shots.

My thoughts on street photography have changed I found that people was interested in what I was doing I had no negative reactions whether it was because there was a jazz fesitval on or not i don't know, I also say a couple of buskers further along the road who although they had really xpressive faces it was very hard to capture exactly what I was looking for.

The above set of photographs were the third set I tried on that day I did two sets of the jazz group above the first one when they was setting up then the one of the buskers, but after a quick look I wasn't happy with them so tried a third time I am glad that I did.