composition in photography – framing the shot
In composing a photograph, what you exclude from the frame, is as important as what you include. With this portrait of Anelisa, I noticed that at this angle, the light reflecting off the black-painted wall created a warm glow of light behind her. With the receding lines of the bricks, I immediately composed the photo to exclude everything but our model and the specific background. A very specific background. Looking at the edges of the camera’s viewfinder, I eliminated everything that could distract or didn’t add to the image, such as the shop fronts in the background. (This image could perhaps still be tightened up with a minor crop in the edit. But this is the full frame as I had it in the camera, so I had to go with the usual 2:3 ratio.)
The lighting?
Just the sunlight reflecting off the sidewalk that flooded the area with warm soft light.
Wow, I really like this shot– it’s mesmerizing. Love the pose and the concept. I notice the big shift in color temp across the model, but it doesn’t bother me.
Great shot, while on this subject, may I ask when you are framing a shot, do you always keep in mind the cropping issue the sensor ratio creates? Let me explain… If I take a shot, say the one above for instance, if I wanted to print that as a 8×10 I would have to crop the photo, shortening the longest edge, therefor losing the original composition I had in camera. Does that make sense? So when composing your shots do you keep in mind the cropping that occurs when printing and allow a little breathing space? I use a D300s that has a DX sensor, maybe your D3’s sensor are a different ratio? Hope that makes sense!
Best regards
Matt
Sorry Neil – I meant to warn you about the (incorrect) copyright when I sent the file – I’m not sure how to edit that. Great shot and its nice to know what my camera is capable of in the right hands – now I have no more excuses.
There are several EXIF programs that can strip or alter the copyright data from the image. I use ExifTool (command line tool) on my Mac , but Neil’s workflow may already have a way to do this.
Hi Neil, did you see my question above? Its still something I find difficult, the problem of not being able to print the composition you create in camera, am I missing something here? just wondered how you deal with this?
Many thanks
Matt