Balancing Act: Light v. Dark

There I was walking on a side walk and I saw this shadow. Instead of just taking any old photo I too the time to compose it. Is this going to win me an award? No. But it's certainly better than had I not taken any time to compose it. 

   It's Sunday, that means this weeks theme, balance is officially over. We talked about asymmetrical balance, finding balance, twisting balance, and almost balance.

   I found the photo above while walking along a sidewalk. I pulled out my cell phone and took the shot. It's not super fancy, it is after all just grass. But I took my time and composed it. It is, in my opinion, and pretty good photo considering it's not a particularly amazing subject. You can't always shoot pictures of things most people will never see at unique perspectives.

   I'm sure you've found yourself walking around and your eye caught something really amazing. So you pulled out your phone and pressed the button. Later you looked at it, found it unimpressive and thought, "Ugh, I'm not a good photographer," or "If only I had a really good camera."

Shadows of the grass are in my points of interest. check. This is about 50%

light 50% shade, so that's pretty well balanced. It's full of lines, I don't know

if I would consider them leading lines per say.

   Maybe the problem was that you just didn't think about what exactly you wanted to take a photo of.  Your subject, after all, is the most important consideration. With your subject in mind pick a rule and compose your photo.

Asymmetrical balance is still in fact balance, but I feel we lost our true

subject, the blades of grass, not just the shadow itself.

   So, lets take a look at this shot. what's my subject?

It's not just the shadow, it's the single blades of grass.

   It was important for me to make sure I didn't have just a big blob of shadow filling up my frame, I needed those single blades to stand out. You'll notice in the shot on the right, which was a quick crop, that my shot just isn't the same. I have shadow in my points of interest, but it's not as balanced. And in my opinion my true subject, the blades of grass, are lost.

Yes, this is just a shadow, but regardless of what you're taking a photo of, it's not excuse to not use composition.

On the subject of Subjects.

I'm actually not sure what kind of plant this is, but it's part of a field. Yes, the specific stalk in question is dead center. No, don't shoot dead center. Ever. It's bad. Well, okay fine, some photos you can get away with dead center, if you frame it, or the subject fills the frame such that it's not really dead center. This photo illustrates a point, so I went for it. One could argue this counts as "Framing" because the rest of the plants create a frame around the stalk in question.  

   Probably the most important aspect of a photograph is having a clearly defined subject. All too often when I see a photo that's not as good as it could be I ask the photographer,

   "What is this a picture of?"

   "Um, well, it's...," and the person stumbles for a minute, "You know... I just I just wanted to get the whole scene, that's Pvt. Snuffy..."

   That really tiny spec?" I'll point out

   "Yeah! And that's a hanger and the sky was beautiful and..."

   You get the idea.

   Now, I'm not saying all those elements aren't important or can't make for a good photograph but it's important to understand that when you click the shutter, you should have a clear idea of what exactly it is you're taking a picture of.  Because if you don't know what you're looking at how is the person looking at it supposed to know?

You shouldn't have to explain a photograph. The photo should speak it's thousand words all by itself. 

   In the picture above, I think it's fairly clear the plant(s) is (are) the subject. I would be willing to bet, when most people come upon a big open field they probably notice something other then the actual stalks of wheat/barley/etc.  This was my attempt and not only picking an usual subject, but also isolating it as much of my subject as possible.

   Mind you, I don't think is a great photograph, but it illustrates that you need to have a very clear idea of what you're taking a picture of.

   Maybe there's a beautiful plant in your front yard that you tried to take a picture of. So you went outside looked at it and said, "Wow, this is going to be a great picture!" then you took the photo from say 5 feet back while standing up and looked at it and said,
 
   "Huh, it looks so fantastic, why does it look so blah in this photo?"

   So what's happening? Your eye naturally gravitated toward a specific element, probably the flowering portion, and within that probably the stigma inside the flower. What you didn't notice was that your eye was filtering out everything else. Kind of like when you're looking for your keys that are sitting on top of your desk, but you just can't see them because your eye is looking at the clutter, maybe an overdue bill or a photograph of your kids.

   Unfortunately your lens doesn't do the same thing. There's even a good chance with your eye firmly planted in the viewfinder, you where still looking at just the inside of the flower, and not paying attention to the entire frame.  All you where thinking was "wow, what a beautiful flower, I can't wait to show mom," without taking the time to think what made the flower beautiful to you in the first place. You probably even got distracted by those pesky settings, adjusting your exposure and getting your focus just right. But you forgot about your subject.

   Then when you showed your mom she said, "oh, that's nice dear." because that's what she's supposed to do. Then maybe you looked at the picture and said to yourself, "It looks much better in person, I guess I'm just not a good picture taker."

   Odds are there where other elements like the rest of the plant, the dirt underneath, the steps, the hose, the porch if you stood really far back, that where included in your photo. All those other elements took away from the subject you had seen so beautifully, that Stigma back dropped by the colorful petals.

   Auto Focus, Shutter and Aperture priority are friendly little tools that help you focus in on your subject. The camera can figure out what your settings should be (most of the time) but it can't figure out how to compose a photo.

   Composition is where you come in. I'll discuss more about composition in future posts. But for now when you go out and take a picture, I want you to ask yourself, "What exactly am I seeing? What exactly am I taking a picture of?" [Hint: it should be a single noun. i.e. "the clock" not "the clock tower and the city"]

   As your eye gets better at figuring out what exactly makes something pop, you'll be incorporate other elements into your photo without taking away what made something awesome to begin with.

Take your time, ask yourself "what is my subject" and focus in on that like a laser. A clear subject is essential for a good photograph. (Photo by Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

Reflectors and You

So, if you've ever bought a fancy new camera you probably got about a half dozen inserts for accessories. And to be honest, they're usually pretty solid. I'm always drooling over new glass and fancy new flashes that recharge faster and network better.

But what if you're on a budget? Well, this is the post for you.

Okay, so this isn't the most amazing photo ever, but it illustrates a point. You'll notice [or maybe you won't so you'll have to take my word for it] the sun is setting behind the tree.

I would also like to point out that the [Ivy?] little leaves that are in focus are lit up pretty nicely. If you look slightly above said leaves you'll notice it get darker and darker.

I didn't use a flash, I used a reflector. A reflector is what it sounds like it, it reflects light.

In this case I have a decently sized 3 foot reflector hanging out on my knee bouncing light onto those leaves. Ideally, you'd have an assistant lighting this up, but a knee works just fine for still life. You could probably make do with a backpack if it's not too windy.

Not only am I getting golden light where I want it, but I'm also able to expose for the leaves AND the sky behind it. That helps gives us a blue sky, instead of a white one.

"Why would it be white? The sky is blue, duh"

Well, if I didn't brighten up those little leaves my camera would have had to open up the aperture or increase the shutter speed to expose them correctly. That would have meant that area behind the tree would have been really bright, really bright.

That's because if you let enough light collect on the sensor or the film it eventually turns white. Imagine adding a drop of dye to water. The more dye, the dark it gets. will it get black? not unless you're using black dye. But light on a sensor turns white, regardless if it's from a blue sky or a yellow sun. It's science.

So, to review. Light reflectors are good. If this was a face you could have a beautiful sunset behind your subject AND beautiful golden light on his/her face. All of less than 40 bucks. A good deal if you ask me.