Exercise - Positioning the horizon

Subject - Cemetery


For this exercise I had to find a 'viewpoint outdoors that gives you a reasonably interesting landscape in which there is an unbroken and clear horizon' - not as easy as it sounds when you live in a city.  I made the obvious choice, and headed for the cemetery.  It was quite late in the afternoon and there was a slight orange-pink tint to the light.  While there was no direct sunlight on the foreground, the sky and clouds were quite bright, making metering tricky.  I tried to keep the range of images as consistent-looking as possible with regards to exposure, without over or under-exposing those at the book-ends of the sequence.

The first and last of the sequence, as I thought at the time, do not work very well.  This is due to a lack of detail in the foreground in one case, and not enough drama in the clouds in the other case.  By the third image in the sequence, the horizon is positioned one third of the way down the image, and I think the composition is a lot more pleasing.

With the horizon at exactly half way, I think the image is surprising balanced.  While it is possibly 'static' I do find it quite harmonious and I believe this is because the equal proportions of sky to land is mimicking the symmetry in the other axis (between the left and right side of the image).  The next image is my favourite, with the horizon a third of the way up.  We can see more of the cloud formation while placing the detail of the gravestones and trees at a nice level in the frame.

These final two photographs, as I explained before, do not work as well because they are beginning to cut out the detail of the gravestones.

As I was leaving the cemetery I thought to myself: will people mind if I take photos here? Is this private property?  I'm not sure what the answers are, obviously I wouldn't take pictures of anybody while they were visiting, but perhaps someone might mind anyway.  If I ever go again I might try and find a gravedigger someone working there to ask permission.

Exercise - Balance

Here I have taken six of my already-taken photographs (I decided to use holiday photographs - some made using a 'toy' digital camera - the Digital Harinezumi), attempted to identify the dominant areas of the image and then to show how they balance each other within the image to create some kind of harmony.  Sometimes the dominant areas may only be small but due to their colour, tone, detail, interest level or placement may still dominate the photograph.

What I have learnt here is that strong colours are dominant or 'heavy' and therefore to achieve balance it helps to position them towards the extremes of the image or to balance them with for instance larger areas of  less intense colour, or an object with interesting detail.  Horizontal symmetry creates a simple balance as shown in two of the images above, and open space can be used to create balance in a frame.  This is shown quite well by the image in the top-left where the two characters in the foreground need the open space and blanket of colour to balance their presence.

It is strange to look at and analyze my images in this way.  I think I will have a look through some more old pictures and continue this further.  It raises a question - was I consciously aware when taking these photographs of creating visual balance in the frame?  Perhaps not - maybe it just happened naturally - certainly some of my images are not balanced properly and would be better if they were, but I will endeavour to be consciously aware in the future and see if that helps.