Holiday Perspective

Soldiers from the 341st PSYOP Co. from San Antonio, Texas visit the Fischer House at Lackland Air Force base to delivery toys and talk with children  about their jobs during Operation Toy Drop. This is the first year Operation Toy Drop will help children throughout the nation. To learn more visit www.optoydrop.net. (U.S. army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   If you haven't noticed it's December and that can only mean one thing! No, not Christmas. Toy Drop.

"Huh? What's Toy Drop?"

   Only the coolest thing the Army does all year; thousands of paratroopers donate thousands of toys for deserving kids. I'll refrain from comparing it to other toy collection drives; but needless to say this is pretty awesome.

"So, how do they drop the toys? And uh, why are we talking about this? This is a photography blog?"

   Well they don't drop the toys, they drop themselves, paratroopers with parachutes jump out of C-130's after donating toys. And we're talking about this because today's picture is about Toy Drop. [Assuming you read the caption...I'll wait...still waiting...oh hey there, welcome back]

   Now that I've gotten that plug out of the way, lets talk about this photo and how that has to do with perspective.

   Okay, clear subject(s) The kid and maybe the Soldier. What you probably don't know is the kid is sitting in the turret of a Humvee; the soldier down below is helping out. You don't get this shot from the ground, you can't. You have to get up high. So yes, I had to climb up on top of this Humvee to shoot the photograph. Yes, everyone thought I was crazy. I like the shot, hopefully you do too. But more to the point, I want you to start experimenting with your own perspective.

   As for the photograph itself; well the turret partially frames our subject(s) who are in points of interest. You could argue the eyes have leading lines. But really that's about it regarding this shot.

So, here's a bonus shot! Hey guess what, I had to climb up on top of a bench to get this shot. You guessed it, everyone looked at me like I was crazy.
 

One of thousands of toys donated by paratroopers for children during Operation Toy Drop 13 at at Fort Bragg, N.C.on December 9, 2010 (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres

 
   So one more thing to say about Toy drop; just because you don't live by Fort Bragg or jump out of airplanes for a living doesn't mean you can't be a part of toy drop. You can visit your local community, ...well anything really..., churches, shelters, orphanages [yes orphanages still exist] all get requests for toys during the Christmas season, you can help out and give a gift to a random child. I know I will.

   If this post inspires you to do anything, hopefully it's to give a gift to a child you've never met before, just like our Soldiers at Fort Bragg have been doing for the past 16 years.

Partial Framing.

A box of Christmas ornaments is partially framed by the box itself. Photo by Felix R. Fimbres

I know, You've missed your regular dosage of my blabbing on and on about a random photograph. I was a little busy, but I should be back to my regular posting! Well at least until I run out of photographs to talk about anyway. Also, I'm still waiting for a brave soul to submit a photograph...

So, in any instance I can think of off the top of my head a frame is probably going to be completely surrounding your subject(s) like this window frame, or this parachute; but you don't need to have the entire frame in your photograph.

I this example we have some Christmas ornaments framed up by the box where the spend most of year.

In my opinion, the snowman sticks out, followed by the rocking horse. why? well probably because they are in focus and each have a point of interest.

Could this photo have balance? sure, the box covers about half the frame and so do the ornaments.

But again, it's just a box of ornaments. This photo probably isn't going to win an award be displayed in the New York Metropolitan Museum of  Art, but that's okay because it at least I know some thought went into it's composition.

Simple. Framing.

Citizens of St. Mere-Eglise admire the view of hundreds of paratroopers from the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) who have descended up on the small town in Normandy to commemorate the 67th anniversary of Operation Overlord, D-Day, on June 6, 2010. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   Let me just say right off the bat, I do like this picture. I do not like this picture with green eggs or ham. I simply do not like this photo.

   But, it's a good example of framing. So, I'm going with it. I know yesterday we had a parachute, well not everyone has a parachute; but pretty much everyone has a window. Or a door. Maybe a door that acts as window? Who knows; lets get back to the subject.

The ONE person in a point of interest is looking off the frame. Not good. 

One of the shutters is well positioned in two points of interest this is good.

Two people are looking across the frame, this is also good. But overall I feel

this photo is just a miss. I guess it's apropos that this photo is missing a 

certain Je ne sais quio. [Did I just get two french words in one sentence about

 a photo I took in Normandy? Win.]

   I'm hoping after you noticed those big huge window shutters after you saw those three people. Odds are you didn't, those shutters are pretty dominating.

   Regarding those people, two of them are looking across the frame, this is good, one is looking off the frame. That killed me.

The chandelier also distracts me.

   But the frame. My goodness the frame is beautiful.

   Set against a great patterned backdrop, the shutters are huge and well balanced against each other. The frame is just begging to be filled by a subject; or maybe a lot of people trying to poke their heads out and catching a glimpse. But sometimes this is just what we get.

   So what went wrong? I think what went wrong is my lust to to get as many rules as possible in each and every single shot I take. Sometimes it's better to focus on just one.

   But as I look at this shot, it reminds me of the parachute photo from yesterday.

The frame is just so dominating that it's hard to get anything else to compete with it. 

      Sure I could have put those two shutters in those four points of interest, had balance, and framing. The people would have added to it. Because they would have been dead center the leading lines of their eyes would have been okay looking off the frame. Not great, but better then the one lady looking off the frame.

   Lessons learned. Framing, is not my forte. Frames, like leading lines can be found anywhere, but be careful, if you find an amazing frame[or an amazing leading line for that matter], maybe the frame itself [or the line in this case] should be your subject.

Balancing Framing.

Framing is the last major rule I'll be talking about. When you think framing you probably think of an object which surrounds a photo. In photography it's a very similar concept, except the object is surrounding the subject.

Yes, the parachute can be a subject, and yes the lines of the parachute can

lead out towards the outer ring of the parachute. Does one of the lines lead

to a paratrooper? Sure, but I argue in this photo he's not the center of

interest, the parachute is, and the frame is the sky.

In the photo above an object [the parachute] is surrounding a subject [the paratrooper], this is essentially framing.

   But what if I told you our subject was the parachute and the frame was the sky?

 [Insert the Keanu Reeves "Whoa" here]

Here I've cropped and rotated our original photo to have the soldier in a

center of interest.

   I personally like that idea better. The paratrooper is now an after thought. The real question here is, which of the following did you think first? "Wow nice parachute, oh and look at the soldier!" or "Look at that soldier, wow he's surrounded by a parachute!"

   Is he still framed? Sure, but in my opinion if you accept the sky is the frame and the parachute is the subject, this photo works at lot better in my opinion as an example of framing. Also, as is customary, it ties in with last weeks rule of balance

You can see the Subject is clearly in at least one point of interest. We also

have leading lines. But for me, this not only cheating, but it's also just not

as good as the original. Let me emphasize, "for me," because it's all subjective.

   But what if we wanted the paratrooper as our subject? How could we make that our primary focus?

   Well, lets try it out, on our left is a crop. To me, this is a bad crop. Why? Because I've completely changed my center of interest. Practice how you play. If you stop worrying about what you're seeing the view finder because,

"Oh, I'll just crop it later,"

you're already on the bad habit path. Having bad habits very rarely leads to having good results.

   Back to the photo. Our subject is, in my opinion, clearly the paratrooper. But he's a little dark. And as we've already discussed, light is what draws our eyes.


   So lets look at the basics. Is our subject in a point of interest? Yes. Is he/she in Two points? No, but at least we got one. Rule of Thirds, Check. Do we have framing? Sure, the parachute frames our paratrooper well. Do we leading lines to our subject? Sure.

Ultimate question, is this CROP better than our PHOTO? I don't know. It's all subjective after all. If you where to ask me, no simply because I know it's a crop. But I honestly really like the balance of the original. Also, in the crop I really dislike that our soldier still isn't really that clear.