Beach Balance

Pfc. Thomas J. Snyder takes a photo of Pfc. Christerpher F. Coleman on Omaha beach in Normandy France on June 7, 2010. Snyder and Coleman are PSYOP soldiers with the 325th Tactical PSYOP co. in Nashville, TN and are participating in Operation Air Drop Warrior 10 which commemorates the 66th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)
 
   I started this weeks theme yesterday with "Leading to balance" so today's image will continue that trend.

   Quick sidebar: We don't normally associate beaches with soldiers in uniform, but during Operation Overlord (D-Day) the U.S. poured thousands of them onto beaches like this off the coast of Normandy, France. When I was with the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) [we also dropped thousands of paratroopers behind enemy lines, thus why we as an airborne unit came to commemorate this historic series of battles] we took soldiers from across our command to remember and be inspired by the hurdles our predecessors had to overcome.

   When I went through my photography training with the Army, posing was frowned upon. With the exception of award ceremonies. Similar to the cries of, "Photoshopped! I can tell by the pixels," I'd often hear,

"Oh, that's posed." and instantly the photograph wouldn't be considered not worthy because it's essentially been faked.

Balance? Check. Leading Lines? Check. Rule of Thirds? Fail.

   So what does any of that have to do with this shot? Well, I didn't fake it for one. For two [yes grammatically incorrect] because of that my subjects, in my opinion, aren't as clear as I would have liked them to be. Is that an excuse? No, of course not, I still used at two elements of composition, so there.

   All joking aside. You'll notice right that my subjects aren't in any of the points of interest. But they are balanced. The sky, ocean, and beach are ALMOST balanced horizontally as well, but not enough that I would consider that balanced. Those two soldiers however are well balanced. Their heads/eyes also give us leading lines.

   So, back to the "observe and document, don't interfere" philosophy I was taught. I saw these two guys and started taking pictures because I had no idea how long they would be there taking this photo. Since I couldn't recreate the moment I had to get what I could. 

   I can tell you with this photo I was fairly far back. I carry two camera bodies with me when I shot uncontrolled action, a wide and a long lens. Because they were so far away I reached for my 70-200 lens. I zoomed in and took the shot.

   Because of the long focal length I was able to compress the distance, including more of that wavy low tide beach sand. Which was good, and I was able to make my subjects bigger, also good. But not big enough for my taste. So how would have made this shot better?

   Well I would have liked the two of them to have been closer together. I should have said, 

   "You should get closer and zoom out, you'll get just as much beach but have a better focus on your subject than by just stepping back." 

   To which he probably would have accepted my professional opinion and moved closer. Then they would have been closer to each other. At which point I too could have stepped closer and zoomed out to a wide angle. My subjects would have been clear because they'd be in points of interest, they would have been balanced, and they would have had leading lines. 

Just the lines ma'am

Barbed wire along Utah Beach, Normandy, France. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   Today is going to be a short post because there's not a whole lot to say about these two photos. I saw the lines, put them in points of interest, I took the photo. Easy. I will point out, in the above example, the subject is the barbed wire, but specifically the sharp pointy part. [Yes, it's a little bit out of the point of interest for no apparent reason.] 

The line go from left to right and right to left and 

almost covers two points of interest. 

   So here we have two examples of leading lines themselves being subjects. If you've been following our discussions about leading lines here, here & here, you probably know that I like my lines to lead to a subject. If the line itself is the subject? I don't know, maybe? 

But lets not forget ultimately when you look in your viewfinder you should be asking yourself,

Road markings found on Lajes Air Field, Azores.

(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres) 

 "Is my subject clear?" and "Am I using one of the rules of composition?" 

   The answer to both of these questions should be Yes.

Did I get three points of interest? Yes...maybe, almost? Ish. 

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)