Composition: Bird Watching in the West

This is a small (4" x 6") collage I made on watercolor paper. It's the size of a postcard. I'm not saying it's a good collage or a bad collage; it's just something I quickly put together one morning without really thinking about it. There are some compositional elements to it, however, that I find interesting.

First of all, I began by gluing down a piece of brown paper that I'd used to clean my paintbrushes on, so the slashes of white in the background are white gesso. I also painted the little white dots in the lower right.

I had an old newspaper on my counter (from 1959, I believe) and I tore out a fashion ad because it was so retro and humorous (to me). And then I had a broken-down book I'd gotten at a library sale called Bird Watching in the West. Remembering that back in the 1960s some Brits referred to girls as "birds," I found that humorous and pasted it down on top of the turban-topped woman.

I had a couple of black and cream-colored circles on my counter and, seeing how the dark black circle echoed the dark black turban, I pasted both circles onto the collage.

The piece of masking tape had fallen off some cardboard, so I glued it on and then, because the tape looked kind of plain, I glued on a torn piece of the newspaper ad, a piece that said "Special Purchase."

Finally, I added a bunch of smaller circles, all cut out of the same newspaper ad.

When I analyze the composition — what I used and where I placed it — I see I've created movement. A lot of movement. But how?

1) Notice how your eye moves from the woman's dark turban down to the dark circle and back again. Voila! Diagonal movement there on the left side of the picture.

2) Your eye makes a connection between the dark/light circles on the left, the circles in the lower left, the painted white dots in the lower right, and again in the upper right. Our eyes recognize patterns and similarities, and whether we realize it or not, they (and our brain) make a connection between all those circular forms. As a result, your eye moves all around the frame, going from circle to circle.

3) And because the small circles, the "bubbles" if you will, run along a diagonal line from the lower left corner to the upper right, your eye automatically follows that subliminal line. Your eye moves diagonally from bottom to top, from top to bottom. In addition, her arm runs along that same diagonal line, which adds to the feeling of movement.

Whether we're designing a collage, a photograph, a quilt, a painting, these elements of pattern recognition and eye movement play an important part. By becoming hyper-conscious of what we're doing and why we're doing it, our compositions will improve, will become intuitive, and will become second-nature, without our even noticing it.

©Carol Leigh, running in circles all the time

Thought Process and Technique: Fishing Boats

Over in my daily blog, I posted two photos on August 1, photos of fishing boats in Newport, Oregon. Linda H. commented, "Have these been "cleaned" or something in Topaz? Or something similar? They look so pristine." Here is the link to that day's post.

My response is that yes, I did tweak them in Photoshop to bring out what attracted me to the scene in the first place. Here's my thought process along with what I did:

I liked the overall quiet and peaceful feeling at the boat docks that morning. The sky was overcast, but there was an interesting texture in the clouds. The water was still and reflected both the boats and the sky beautifully. Because of the overcast lighting, the blue color of the fishing vessel "Caremi" really glowed. From a different vantage point, I liked how the F/V "Finn" stood alone at the dock, reflected nicely in the water.

I was working with a 24mm-85mm lens on a full-frame camera sensor, so I wanted to show some openness, vastness in the scene. I liked being able to fill my frame with the whole string of boats, from the blue "Caremi" all the way back to the white "Finn." 

Notice that now I've identified exactly what I liked about the scene. Clouds. Reflections. String of boats. Solitary "Finn."

I used a polarizing filter to reduce reflections in the water and in the sky so that the texture of the clouds would show through. (A graduated neutral density filter would have been appropriate, but I can't use a tripod on the docks -- they're too narrow and they move.) I also underexposed by a third of a stop.

In the first photo, you see my original image. All I did was adjust Levels, which helped bring out some of the texture in the sky. The clouds didn't look quite as texture-ish as I wanted, so I brought the image into Topaz Adjust 5 and applied a "Photo Pop" setting. (Photo 2) Nice clouds now, nice reflections. And the scene lightened up a bit, as I knew it would.

But the boats still looked rather dull and murky, too clumped together. And the blue of the "Caremi" didn't look as dramatic as I remembered. So I dodged the boats, applying the effect just to the places I wanted to perk up. (Photo 3)

My last step was to then burn the sky just a bit, to give it a little more drama so that the boats would stand out even more, sandwiched as they are between sky and reflections-of-sky. (Photo 4)

I followed the same routine with the photo of F/V "Finn." You see my original version (adjusted Levels), then added Topaz Adjust 5 "Photo Pop" to pump up the clouds a bit. (Photo 2) Then burned the sky a little. (Photo 3) Then dodged the boat to make it pop more. (Photo 4)

There are hundreds of ways of accomplishing the same thing, and maybe you've got a tried and true way of enhancing your work that's better than this. If so, I would love to hear how you would have handled this situation. I'm no Photoshop guru, as you know, but I like sharing how I work and I am open to new tips and tricks. And Linda H.? I hope this answered your question.

©Carol Leigh

Thought process behind "Planetary Shift"

When I begin making a photomontage, I usually have no map, design, or plan in mind. I'll often start laying down various textures or elements in my photo stash to see how they begin working with each other (or, more likely, fighting among themselves). Gradually something comes into view, a little "aha" moment that leads me on to something else.

Invariably I'll make a "mistake" that turns my piece another direction entirely and, for me, that's a huge part of the fun.

In this case, before I put the "planets" on, and the strings, I was thinking about the long, ragged "tear" I've got running the length of the image. I was thinking "fault zone," "rift," and "aerial view."

But the piece looked too empty. It needed some sort of focal point.

The concept of "aerial view" made me think of outer space and so I thought maybe I'd put a planet or a moon down toward the lower right. I used a piece of metal to create the round form. I drew the strings to sort of rein it in, to anchor it.

But where does the eye go from there? If there's nothing else in the piece (especially in a piece this tall), the planet is kind of lonely by itself and our eye tends to glance upward, see nothing, and then move back down to the moon/planet.

So I put two more round things in the upper left corner. I also drew some strings to hold them in place.

The strings make me think of orbits, maps, and movement. The smaller "moon" in the upper left makes me think of it orbiting the larger "planet" right next to it. Thus the name of the piece, which I call "Planetary Shift."

So what do I have now? I have a number of vertical background elements that encourage our eye to move up and down. I have the three moons/planets that catch our eye and that become focal points. Their shapes are the same but their sizes are different. Their patterns are similar, but different. Our eye recognizes patterns and shapes, so our eye now flickers diagonally from lower right to upper left.

By using strong vertical elements, I've created movement. By using strings, I've created movement. By using similar shapes in two different parts of the piece, I've created movement. My viewer's eye has places to go and things to see, and now you know why.

©Carol Leigh

P.S. If you'd like to see this image much larger, and if you'd like to see parts of it at 100% resolution, you can do so here at my art website: http://carol-leigh.artistwebsites.com/featured/planetary-shift-1-carol-leigh.html