Composition: Isolating "the Good Stuff"

My uncle Fran Leigh was a commercial photographer in Trenton, New Jersey. His clients were AT&T, Lenox China, and Lawrenceville School, among others. I wish I'd paid more attention to his work as I was growing up, but I just wasn't interested in photography then. When I "discovered" photography in the late 1970s, I remember him saying, "there isn't a photograph that can't be improved by cropping." This was a rather broad statement, and one could argue the point, but it hit home.

I interpret his cropping comment by thinking about what's in the frame. What am I including in the shot, and why? And then, what doesn't need to be there?

Here's an example. I show you my original image of the fluorescent orange fender (bumper) hanging off the side of a complementary blue fishing boat, the fender reflected in the water. I composed the image as a vertical so that I could include the reflection and so the fender would have "drooping room." I purposely didn't include the area above the fender because it was busy and didn't have anything to do with my subject.

However, I think the bottom third of the photo is rather empty (no color, no fender reflection, just ripples) and so maybe if I squarified the image it would be tighter and bolder. I would be filling my frame with just the "good stuff," the side of the boat, the fender, and the immediate reflection. You can see how I've marked up the picture to show you what I think is the "good stuff." And then you see the resulting image.

But what about the dark bit of rust at the far right? What does that have to do with my concept of blue boat, orange fender, and reflection? Nothing! So I cropped even more (still keeping the image a square), and now the photo is more concise and more about what I initially liked about the scene.

What about your own photos? When you take another look at them, ask yourself, "where's the good stuff?" and then see what you can crop out, what you can remove, to focus our attention on exactly what caught your eye to begin with. By analyzing the photos you've already taken, you'll find yourself being more careful about cropping in the viewfinder before you click the shutter, automatically making you a better photographer.

©Carol Leigh, who misses the clever wit and charm, generosity, and photographic skill of her Uncle Fran.

2011 Projects for 2012: Journal

What I Saw/What I Made: Rock Abstract

There are certain beaches here with large bluffs rising above them where, at certain times, under certain light, the rocks glow a beautiful, warm orange color. In these two photos I show you what I saw and then what I made.

The first photo is an overview of the bluff face, rising up from the sand. See the big swath of orange? Moving in closer, I focused on just a little section of that rock face. The bluff is maybe 30 feet high and the orange rock area is around eye level.

My talent — and my downfall — is that I rarely see the "big picture," but I'm good at finding little things to zoom in on. This is an instance where I forced myself to take more of an overview so that you could see what I was seeing. Click the images to see them larger.

©Carol Leigh, who is now trying, for the purpose of this blog and subsequent eBooks, to take overviews

Concrete Texture

I show you here a composition that I don't know if I like or not. I've tried analyzing it this way and that, and I still don't know. Let me talk it out and see what you think.

Chris and I were wandering around a little town in Washington called Concrete. There were some buildings that seemed semi-abandoned, lots of weathering on them, lots of interesting architectural elements. I spotted this door, the downspouts, the remnants of downspouts, and was immediately drawn to it.

What I liked were the colors. There's something about that clear, Santa Fe-ish blue that just sucks me in, as well as the faded, weathered salmon color of the door. I also liked all the abstract lines and angles I was seeing. And then there was the overall texture. So, I knew what I was drawn to, now, how to fill my frame with just that?

Here's where I wish I had an overview of the entire scene to show you, but no, I have just this one composition.

I knew I wanted the downspout on the right. And I knew I wanted to incorporate some of the door. Looking at my resulting photo, I see how I balanced the dark element of the downspout with the dark element on the door. Those two dark "things" echo one another and create eye movement as your attention flickers back and forth between them.

I also liked the repeating forms of the horizontal lines running across the frame, from the horizontal blue element to the blue/salmon lines on the door. Good repetition there. Same with the vertical elements.

In fact, the entire photo is fraught with vertical and horizontal lines, which are broken up by the strong diagonal line of the downspout and the less-strong diagonal line of the door mechanism. Good repetition there.

So, bottom line, what have I created? It's an abstract image of strong, repeating, straight lines. Adding a bit of interest are the two areas of diagonality. I love the lines, I love the colors, I love the movement. I just don't think there's enough content, however, for this love affair to last. Like a few old boyfriends I've had, the attraction is immediate and exciting, but long-term? It's just not a solid, lasting relationship.

©Carol Leigh, wishing you a few fun-but-fleeting connections with your pictures, but even more longer-term, solid relationships

It's a New Day . . .

Summer Light and Shadow

Right now, here in the northern hemisphere it's full-blown summer, which usually means lots of sunshine, lots of light, and lots of shadows. Got shutters? Got mini-blinds? Look at how early morning or late afternoon light pours in through the windows, the blinds/shutters creating dramatic shadows. When you see that light, those shadows, find SOMEthing, ANYthing to put in that light.

Your light may be fleeting, so you'll have to act fast. Here you see two photos I took in my kitchen a couple of years ago. I quickly hung a straw hat on a cabinet knob to create a summer-esque photo. And then opened another cupboard just to see what was there that I could use as a subject in the sunlight. A bag of coffee and a canister in the back was what I could find and shoot before the sun dipped behind the offshore fogbank and was gone.

If I could paint, the subject matter of a straw hat and bright, stripey light/shadow would be a wonderful composition to attempt.

Ordinary subjects in extraordinary light. That's what we're looking for!

©Carol Leigh, always happy to see light here on the Oregon coast

The Right Stuff . . .

What's It Made Of? "Eclipse"

This is a photomontage I created that makes me feel l'm looking at a Pacific Northwest headland that extends out into the ocean with a huge moon or planet or some sort of celestial object in the sky.

Here are the elements I used:

A photo I took of some metal embedded in a sidewalk in La Jolla creates the "headland." Weathered metal on the side of a fishing boat creates the little rolling waves on the "ocean." Up at the fishing boat docks, someone had spraypainted something white. The overspray looked to me like a glow or a halo, creating the "eclipse" look. And then finally, some trees I photographed at sunset in Humboldt County appear to be growing out of the top of the "headland."

My composition was originally a rectangle, but I decided to squarify it because it made the "planet" look bigger and just condensed everything into a tidier package.

I like the "ocean waves" at the bottom, which create an anchor or base for the picture. And I also like how the overspray and the texture of the dock come together to create a Milky Way effect in the "sky."

My purpose in showing you the components is not to teach you how to make a photomontage, but rather to show you my thought process, why I shoot the things I do when I'm out and about, and how I end up putting them together to create something completely new and completely different.

©Carol Leigh, encouraging you to look at your photography a little differently

Composition and Movement

This composition is fairly straightforward. I composed it in conformance with the Rule of Thirds, dividing the frame so that the horizontal element divides the bottom two thirds from the top third. The vertical element divides the left third from the right two thirds.

The bottom two thirds are heavier and weightier (bicycle, building) than the top third (less building, skinny street sign), so the photo feels anchored to the ground, not top-heavy.

Notice how the bicycle is placed more toward the left of the frame and the sign more toward the right. Those two elements balance one another.

Notice the movement, too, as your eye goes from the sign down to the bike and back up again, back and forth, back and forth.

GEOMETRIC ELEMENTS

The elements in my photo are all very straight, linear, square, rectangular. See the two black vertical rectangles toward the upper right and the two white vertical lines lower left? See the rectangular stones on the building and the square pavers on the sidewalk? All that linearity is softened just a bit by the one round bicycle wheel.

FOCAL POINTS

Because the bicycle wheel is round and because the street sign is white, they become focal points. They contrast with the other elements in the scene: The round wheel stands out against all those straight lines, and the white sign stands out against all that monochromatic grey and brown.

MY THOUGHT PROCESS

During my visit in Cambridge, my practice was to get up around 5 a.m. and go for a two-hour walk. The streets weren't crowded, lighting was soft and overcast, and it gave me some solitary time. By the time I got back to the house, my non-photographer compatriots were up and about and making breakfast. Perfect!

My "theme" of sorts for my Cambridge visit was "bicycles." So when I saw this bike against such a weathered and textured building, I stopped to check it out. I liked the bike but I also liked the street sign. How to incorporate them both into one shot?

Choosing a vertical format, I put the bicycle down at the bottom and then walked closer and farther away until I could include the sign as well.

The key thing (for me) is to solidly identify exactly what it is I like about a scene and then figure out how to fill my frame with just that and nothing else. I've been doing this for so long that it's instinctive. I don't stand there thinking, "Okay, I need some weight at the bottom and lighter elements at the top." I'm not that structured. Instead, I think, "Oh, a bike! Great building. Love the sign up top. Okay, let's put this together. Keep out the superfluous elements as much as possible." By identifying precisely what I like, the rest falls into place.

I use the Rule of Thirds all the time, figuring that's where I begin. You can't go wrong, really, using the Rule of Thirds. Then once that's done, begin exploring other possible compositions.

So there you have it. A scene that's nicely lighted, that has movement, that has texture, structure, a monochromatic look, dark elements with one lighter one, and straight lines with one circle.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR WORK?

Take a look at some of the photos you've taken lately. Or your paintings. Or your sketches. Analyze them. Ask yourself where your eye goes in the composition and why. Are there things in the piece that don't add to your composition? That clutter it up? Is the lighting splotchy and distracting? Is your image unbalanced? Top-heavy?

Once you become more aware of what you're doing and why, the better your instincts will be when you're out in the field. It'll all come naturally to you. You'll be more relaxed. A beautiful combination of right-brain/left-brain thinking and acting.

©Carol Leigh, who wages left/right battles on a daily basis

The ability to simplify . . .

View From the Couch

A couple of years ago I was sitting on the couch, getting acquainted with a camera, and I quickly took a few photos. I realized tht for just sitting on the couch, snapping away, the photos aren't bad. They're not great but — and this is important — I made the most of the situation. I looked, composed, and clicked the shutter.

Abby across the room stayed put for a few minutes. A vase of dried poppy pods on the "Holly Cabinet" caught my eye, as did the way the sun shone on a floor lamp, the shadows on a knob, and the simple inlay on a cedar chest.

Could I have taken more? Yes. But photography wasn't my goal right then. Figuring out the functions of the camera was what I was working on.

The point of all this is that SEEING, LOOKING, NOTICING are the quietly important aspects of photography (and this applies to sketch artists and painters). Cameras do so much for us and so easily that we often forget the human behind the viewfinder, our unique vision, the thing that makes our photos ours.

Teaching someone to see is the most challenging part of my job. But sometimes it just requires sitting on a couch, looking around.

©Carol Leigh, who overachieves in couch-sitting . . .