Balance, with a twist.

April Dudash, reporter with the Fayetteville Observer, interviews a paratrooper on Sicily Drop Zone during Operation Toy Drop, hosted by the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) at Fort Bragg on December 11, 2011. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

Almost, but not quite. I almost called this a great photograph. But it's missing just a couple elements. The sky was slightly overcast, that helped prevent harsh shadows, but a touch of flash or some reflector action would have been great. That's called fill light, adding light to fill in the shadows. It would have lit up our subjects a little more and allowed the sky to pop more, getting a more detail out of those wonderfully wispy clouds in the back. As it stands I fixed it up a little in post [Photoshop] by adding fill light digitally instead of with a flash or a reflector. I have a few friends who are Photoshop masters, but really that just adds more time playing with your photos.

If you want to spend a lot of time on one photograph in Photoshop by all means go ahead; but I like to shot and share more than I like to shot, edit, edit, edit some more, share.

Two subjects, very close to all four points of interest, that's simple balance.

Good. A couple leading lines? Also good. A distracting guy in the background? 

Bad. The reporter is a little dark, flash/reflector light would have been great.

   What else is wrong with this photograph? Well there's a paratrooper on the left hand side and he's chopped in half. I don't know personally if I would have rather had him all the way in or all the way out. I think either/or would have made me feel much better about this shot. But half way, that's just not cutting it for me. I went ahead and removed the distraction in the photo at the end of this post.

   So what went right with this photo? Well you can see I have two subjects in and very close to those 4 points of interest, unlike this photo. The subjects are balanced.

This is the easiest way to get balance, find two subjects, give them each two points. Done.

 

Same photo, without the dutch angle. You'll notice I lost the paratrooper

in the background as well. Maybe you like this better. Maybe you don't, this

only serves to highlight photography outside of the basic rules is subjective.

   If you've been following along, you'll notice I added a little of that Dutch angle I talked about here in fourth paragraph. The reporter is tiny, obviously since the paratrooper is kneeling and almost eye level with her. Adding the twist allows them to see eye to eye if you will. I wanted their eyes to be level with each other. So I twisted it.

   I also have a leading line from the paratrooper to the reporter, and another leading from the reporter down to her notes and maybe back to the paratrooper's hand, which kind of has lines to the his bag. Which kind of leads up to his leg and up his body back to his eyes.

   Okay, okay, all those lines are a stretch. But we at least have the two that are pointed out in the photo above.

    Below is a cropped photo which removes that guy in the background. For me, it's less distracting. Is this cheating? By my own personal rules, sure. But to me it's such a slight crop that it's okay. Like I said previously, I don't look down on any photographer who wants to edit his photograph until is perfect to him/her, it's just not my style. I like to edit as little as possible to keep things as real as possible. It is our imperfections which make us beautiful.