Composed Photography

Hi everyone! I do not really have a lot of experience blogging, but I do not believe most of you have a ton of experience either, so maybe I will be okay... Just a little bit about me, my name is Elise Paget. I am fifteen years old. I live with my dad and my step-mom but every week I go to my mom's house and spend time with my step-dad, my mom, and my two half-brothers.

I used to live at my mom's, then I went to Fife. Before I moved to my dad's house, I transfered to Kentridge, so I am still finding my way around a bit. I love to read and write and take pictures! The first picture is a photo of me and everyone at my mom's house, the second is of me and my father.(Yes, I am aware I don't have a picture of my step-mom on here, she isn't the most important thing in this post and she will probably appear later in future postings).

My IR book is on photography because as I have stated, I love it!! I also chose photography because my father majored in photography in college and he has always been good at taking pictures. When I saw him as a little girl, I would always follow him around with a fake camera, copying his movements to try and figure out what he was doing. Here is a picture he took of me when I was really little.

(I believe he took the picture for a class he was taking, but he took the picture and then developed the picture all on his own, so yeah he knows his stuff)

As I got older, and I learned more by trial and error. One of my biggest character flaws is that I don't like asking for help, and this was no exception. My dad never offered to help me get better and in return, I never asked for his help with it, so I started comparing and contrasting pictures and what made them good and/or bad. The reason I chose the two photos above (the ones of my family) is because of their different qualities. As you can probably tell, I didn't take either of the pictures, but I admire both of the photographers who did. As I am reading in my book, I am slowly understanding more about the different ways to use a camera to get the best possible shots.

In chapter 2 of the book "Photography" by Nicole Woods, she talks about how when taking a photo, the photographer must be "composed". She explains, "our eyes tend to reject chaotic things, and we lean toward liking things that look properly organized and well put together" (Woods 21). She continues to talk about the rules on how to make a shot look "composed" and I learned the main rules used in the pictures were, balance, simplification, the rule of space, symmetry, background, and point of view. There are other rules that can be used, but not all the rules apply to every shot. Here are some things I learned about why the pictures above turned out so well:
Balance: "Balance is making sure that chaos and boredom is prevented" (Woods 25). If a picture is too crowded or to empty, it wont look right. Not everything in the picture needs to stand out. Sometimes adding a detail in on the side of the main focus can cause a blur, which can lead to focus on what the main character is. In the photo of my dad and I, the space behind us is blurred which doesn't distract from the fact that we are the main characters of the picture, rather, it enhances our faces (whether that is a good or bad thing, I will let you decide).
Simplification: "The human eyes appreciate less distracting things" (Woods 25). There are two different ways to simplify a picture; filling the frame or cropping unnecessary things. However, it is better to have a composed photo and not have to crop, because cropping can cause a lose of clarity and definition. A good question the author suggested I ask myself is, "Will this particular element contribute to the beauty of my photo?" (Woods 26).
Rule of Space: Also known as the rule of leaving space, says it is better to have something be blank in the back than to have too much going on. My baby picture is a perfect example of knowing how to leave space. If there had been other baby items in the background it could've taken away the simpleness of the portrait.
Fill it Up: "Filling it up means that you have to maximize the space, leaving nothing that is 'senseless'" (Wood 24). This may be one of the hardest rules, in my opinion, because you don't want to "fill the space" so much that it distracts from the subject, but you don't always want the subject to be completely alone either.
Symmetry: "Symmetry happens when the things that can be found on the left side, can also be found on the right' (Woods 28). Remember - symmetry is NOT the same as balance, but can be used to bring balance. In the image of my mom and the rest of my family, there was symmetry through the height difference. Now, in all reality, my mom is actually about 1.5 inches taller than I am BUT I was wearing wedges that day, so I was about a half inch taller than her. Our photographer recognized this and put my step-dad and I on the outside and the short one in the middle. She also had me hold my little brother and placed my other brother next to my dad so that no matter which side you are looking at, you will see a small person in my family.
Background: The background of a photo has always been what fascinates, yet puzzles me the most. This explanation helped tremendously. "The whole point is that the background can often add to the atmosphere and make a photograph look rather special" (Woods 30). The background should change depending on the subject. Woods uses the example that if you were to be taking a picture of a child, you should more likely be using a soft, or less busy background than if you were to be taking group wedding pictures.
Point of View: We started talking a little bit about point of view, when we were annotating the movie, "Ender's Game", but in case you missed that, the simple definition is "the point from which you view the image" (Woods 32). As you can see in the picture of my whole family, our photographer took our picture from above, making our overall picture feel bigger. When my dad took the picture of me as a baby, he got down to my level, in order to see my whole facial expression.

When taking a picture, it should not only look, but feel right. The better the picture feels, the more professional it will look to everyone else. When taking pictures, I use some of the previous rules and it helps them turn out better.

Question (Option 1): Which rule do you think is the most important? Why?
Question (Option 2): What rule do you think could've been followed better out of the three above? Explain your opinion.

--Elise Paget