Vertical and horizonal frames

I think I should have called this woodland walk, as basically its a series of photographs taken at the old disused gun powder works and county park about nine miles from where I live.

I tend to take my photographs in vertical as I normally take people or animals as my subjects of choice or even some still life.

This time I wanted to tackle something abit different and the one thing that I find hardest to do is landscape photographs, hence while I thought I would give it a go for this project just for something different to do.

I didn't think when I choose this particular subject to photograph I would find it so difficult to get the horizontal shots I wanted, and how I would almost have to rethink the way I did some of the shots, i went back a couple of times, once it was so bright that I just couldn't get many shots, what I really wanted was a shot of the sun shining through some of the tall trees but nature didn't really want to play, on one of the trips I took my long suffering hubby he was resting against a tree and I just managed to catch him before he moved off, which is why there is only a vetical  picture of him, but I don't think it would have worked as a horizontal shot anyway, as I would have lost some of the impact of the photograph.

The one thing I wanted to try and capture was the sense of peace and tranquility in the park, and to try and show the almost hidden pockets of water or tangles of undergrowth that could be glimpsed through the trees when you least expected it.

Well this brings me to the end of the first lot of projects and ready to start the first assignment, what have I learnt I have been asking my self?

I have learnt that it not a race that sometimes you need to take a break for a few weeks because of other commitments and that its ok to do that, I have also learnt that I have a lot to learn still but that I am enjoying the learning process, I have started to read about various photographers I have a book on 50 masters of photography and I have been reading through it and marking any in particular that I want to find out more about.

Am i looking forward to my first assignment? the answer is yes although I am a little apprehensive as I am not really sure what to expect from the first one, I have started working on my ideas and look forward to the photography over the next couple of day.

cropping

I decided to do cropping as an exercise and then go back to vertical and horizontal framing as inspiration is not good at the moment, I tend to shoot vetically alot of the time but its funny when you need to really thing of something to purposfully shoot that way its harder.

Still back to the exercise in hand cropping,  Cropping can be a useful tool if used correctly, there are times when it is not possible to get as close to a subject as you would like, so you may need to take the shoot from further away and then crop the extra away at a later stage.

My first two pictures I have uploaded the wrong way, these were an attempt at studio poses, but I realized that there was too much background in the shot so I have cropped it in for a tighter shot.

The next photograph is my youngest kitten, a very tiny kitten with plenty of courage, I took the original shot of him whilst he was having a go at my large german shepherd puppy, when I looked at the photographs later I noticed the look on his face and thought it would be good to crop right in on his face.

The last one was taken at Whitstable during Whitstable oyster festival week, there is this old disued boat just in front of some old huts I have seen this many times but the light seemed to be just right on this particular day, I didn't have a lot of time to take it before a stream of people walked past it, I think when I took the shot I was always disappointed not to have done a close up of the sign on the boat, so I decided to crop it on this shot.

Positioning the Horizon

Image one: Central horizon, the picture looked quite flat but was helped by the detail in the right hand side.
Image two: Low horizon, not much depth to the picture the sky is the most prominent part, there is a small amount of detail to the right side again that helps give slight detail.
Image three: High Horizon, there is much more of a feeling of depth to the picture, its almost as if you could be on the water, again there is some detailing to the side.
Image four: The horizon is about a third of the way up the picture, the jetty that protrudes out almost half way from the right hand side adds plenty of impact and interest to this picture.
Image Five: Horizon just of the centre of the picture, no real impact to this one apart from again the detailing to the side.
Image six: High horizon again, this time there is a small amount of detailing to both sides of the picture but nothing really inspiring.

Image four is my favorite, I liked the added detail of the jetty as I think it makes the picture more 'alive' and dimensional.

I was surprised by how many places you could position the horizon that worked, I realised that it is not necessary to have the horizon either half way in the picture that sometimes an off centre one works better depending on the other factors in the picture for example detailing in the foreground.