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.

This is award winning?

A paratrooper removes his reserve parachute after a successful jump on to Sicily drop zone during Operation Toy Drop XII on December 7, 2009. Each year since 1998 the Fort Bragg Soldiers and Community have collected and given toys to deserving children.  (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   I've been looking back through a lot of my photos and sometimes I look at something and say to myself, "Really dude? You shot this? Why didn't you use flash? Why didn't you change your angle just a bit?" in this case I say,

"Wait...I won an award for this?"

   There are a few things that could have gone very wrong with this shot. He could have been looking up and I could have gotten a great view of his nostrils. He could have been angled slightly more towards me and I could have gotten a crotch shot. Thankfully, neither of those happened. And if they did they've long been deleted.

   Okay, so lets look at this photo technically.  The subject is the paratrooper. Is he in a point of interest? Yes, but it's his leg. What else is in a point of interest? Well his parachute covers two. Is that good? Sure, why not, it's not exactly pulling away from the subject because it's not entirely in focus, and it kind of pulls your eyes towards him. If only because it's attached to him and there are some very subtle lines you can see if you look close enough. And his elbow is in the last one. His eyes provide a leading line to his action [He's removing a safety pin which will allow him to remove his parachute harness]

What else? Oh, there's a dutch angle.

   "What's a dutch angle?"

   Basically you tilt the camera. I still suggest putting your subject in two diagonal points of interest when you do this.

   The Germans and the artists say it depicts madness, unrest, exoticism, and disorientation. I'm sure someone could argue a number of points as to why this does/doesn't work for this photo. But I certainly won't. I'm not one to argue subjectivity because it's...subjective. Rules. I like to talk about rules.

   To me he looks happy.

I know for a fact he's happy because he just earned foreign jump wings and gave a child a toy for Christmas. [www.optoydrop.net]

   What in my opinion would have made this better? Well, his face could have been in the top left point of interest. Of course, how exactly that could have been accomplished is another matter altogether, moving down and to the left would have put his head higher and to the right, but then his leg and reserve parachute would have obstructed his face. [That little green thing is in fact his back up parachute. Yes, you land on your back. A friend of mine had to pull his reserve once. He hurt his back pretty bad. Luckily he's still walking around.] 

"So, could this have been shot any better?"

   I don't know, after writing this whole post about why it works technically I guess it's a pretty good shot. Maybe if you added a sunset and a whole division of paratroopers in the skies behind him with anti-aircraft going off I would have been wow'd. I guess you can't always have everything you want. Sometimes you just have to take the shot you're given.