Rythm and pattern

Pattern of the clothes pegs on the line.
Pattern in the clothes basket
Patterns in the strawberry netting
Pattern in the tiles, with the addition of the cracked tile and white stain symmetrically placed on either side of the image.
Pattern in the back of the chair.

Project Shapes, p66-74

A long period since my last blog, not altogether quiet on the photography front, but not as much as I'd have liked to have done.

The majority of the shots here were taken digitally in the back garden. I've generally managed to find inspiration wherever I'd shot and I believe the discipline of shooting with fixed geographic boundaries forces me to spend more time concentrating on the shots and less time believing that the grass is always greener around the next corner.

Firstly, triangles, real and implied:-


A triangle formed in the shadow of the stones
Another picture of triangles, all leading to the circle at the 1/3rd.

Another picture of triangles


Next, squares and rectangles:-

A collection of squares formed by the (rotten) bottom of the garage doors.
Rectangle formed by the sunlight portion of the trees, bound by the telegraph pole, cable and horizontal shadow.

Two rectangles, light and shadow.

Next, circles and curves:-

Cut tree branch stump

Multiple circles, could have been a study on colour or perhaps implied triangles.

Beyond this, I tried to combine a number of shapes in a single image. Not sure if this is entirely successful though - fun to do but perhaps it dilutes the impact of the shot:-

Dominant rectangle of the entrance. I like the jaunty angle of the garden chair with its legs crossed - somehow almost looks human. In the shadows, there's the circle formed by the lawnmower
Lots of triangles in the silouette of the greenhouse, or is it a diamond?
Rectangles in the wall, and triangles in the pipework.
Dominant circle of course, but then there's the rectangle of the old sandpit leaning against the wall, the dark entrance again and the circles formed by both the water butt and the old tyre. The three circles form a diagonal bottom left to top right, which perhaps balances against the square top left.
Saw something in this image, though clearly its not strong. There's the implied triangle of the water trough, vertical line formed by the edge of the hedge on the right perhaps balanced by the canes top left, and the brick parts form an inverted triangle.

The exercise has been useful on a number of counts. First, it got me really looking for strong shapes in images to give them impact. It significantly broadened the subject matter I would normally take. Shooting early evening with the rapidly changing, I learned a lot about exposure, shooting manually with spot metering which I think has helped me to shoot images which are stronger in composition and less dull than some of my previous work.

Part two - elements of design

A short posting here. I took some household items and created a couple of still life shots to explore some of the elements of design in the coursework, principally implied lines and triangles.

For the first, I simply took a mug of tea and a torch, using the light from the torch to lead the eye in the direction of the mug. Its basic, and there's no real relationship between the use of a torch and the mug - if they had been related in some way, perhaps to use a spoon for example, there might just be some meaning in this image.

The use of black and white, and the texture of the worksurface adds some tonal interest to what is a strong image, but one lacking in real meaning.

For the next image, I simply took some papers and a pen. The papers and the notepad form a clear triangle formed by the pen and the outline of the notepad, almost mirrored by the triangle formed by the typed letter.

However, its the directionality of the pen, leading the eye to the logo of the European Union which is the main issue. The letter was discussing compensation and what to do to claim it. Thus the pen becomes the instrument of the claim and the European Union is the implied provider. Perhaps the claim was sent on the torn off piece of paper, a scrap indicating the opinion of the writer regarding the EU?

Photographically, the strong lines attract the eye, though the right side of the type letter does weaken the composition by leading the eye away from the EU logo. However, this is partly compensated for by the strong colour of the EU paperwork which attracts the eye.

Bank holiday Sunday was to involve camping, but the weather didn't agree so we took the family to the Oxford Natural History Museum.

The building itself is a fine example of Victorian architecture in the gothic style, and is packed with many items of natural history as well as man made artefacts in the annex. Coming from a rural environment, the opportunity to photograph in this different setting presented a fresh challenge.

Rather than rigidly follow the exercises in the coursenotes, I had in mind the exercises listed in Part 2 and captured images in a more flexible style. I think this helped, both to make me relax as a photographer, as well as looking ahead to some of the assignments where its important to combine the skills learned to produce a body of work.

So here goes....

These first three images are on the subject of curves and circles. Not so imaginative but helped to 'get my eye in' when shooting. I was careful to use diagonals and the rule of thirds to guide the eye.

Here, I split the image vertically such that the left hand side is an exercise in diagonals and leading the eye to a vanishing point at the end of the corridor. Meanwhile the right side of the image is composed of verticals. The display cabinets break the illusion that this is in fact two photographs stitched together.

Hope you see the funny side of this - all these eminent scientists carved as statues, then this guy, carved as a bust only. Perhaps his contribution was somehow less than the others, perhaps a comment on the scientific establishment? Photographically it combines the main subject, highlighted in the foreground, with the others in a receding diagonal further back. I could have cropped the image tighter at the top but felt this extra headroom would better emphasise the shortness of the figure in the foreground.