IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi, my name is Ben Long.
| | 00:06 | Welcome to Foundations of
Photography: Composition.
| | 00:10 | How many times have you come back from
shooting and looked at our images and thought wow,
| | 00:14 | this one really works and ooh,
this one really doesn't.
| | 00:18 | Sometimes an image doesn't work
because of a technical problem--
| | 00:21 | it's blurry or your hands are
in front of a lens or something--
| | 00:24 | but more often an image works
because of how it's composed.
| | 00:28 | Much more than technical understanding
or ability, composition is what separates
| | 00:32 | the good photographers from the not-so-
good photographers and in this class we
| | 00:36 | are going to cover, in depth, all the
fundamental building blocks of composition.
| | 00:41 | You are going to examine lots of
compositional concepts that you can use, no
| | 00:45 | matter what kind subject
matter you are shooting.
| | 00:47 | We are going to explore the process of
seeing, and look at some techniques to get
| | 00:51 | your visual sense working in a new way.
| | 00:54 | Light is the beginning of all photos.
| | 00:56 | Without good light, it's hard to get
good results. But light can also be a
| | 01:00 | subject onto itself and an essential
tool for achieving good compositions, so we
| | 01:04 | will be exploring light in detail.
| | 01:06 | Improving your composition skills is not
just a process of learning how to compose;
| | 01:11 | you also need a vocabulary for
discussing composition and an understanding of
| | 01:15 | how to look at your own
images with a critical eye.
| | 01:17 | So to that end, we will be performing
lots of compositional analysis of my
| | 01:22 | images, as well as the work of three
other photographers and an entire class
| | 01:26 | full of students. And finally we're going to
spend time talking about shooting practices,
| | 01:31 | what you need to do in the field to
get access to the subject matter you want
| | 01:35 | and how to improve your chances
of coming back with a good shot.
| | 01:38 | We have a got a lot of material to
cover and a lot of ideas to explore,
| | 01:42 | so come with me now as we dive
into the fundamentals of composition.
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| Using this course| 00:03 | We're going to cover a lot of ground in
this course, and we are going to explore
| | 00:07 | a lot of compositional ideas and
practices, but there's no way that this can be
| | 00:11 | a complete course in composition
because composition is something that you will
| | 00:15 | continue to study and explore
throughout your photographic life.
| | 00:19 | Composition is a discipline, and you
need a method for exploring that discipline
| | 00:24 | as you grow as a photographer and
as your compositional tastes change.
| | 00:28 | In preparing for this course, I looked
at lot of composition books and found
| | 00:33 | that they all mostly take the same approach.
| | 00:35 | Images are analyzed and discussed
and from that analysis, one tries to
| | 00:39 | understand why particular
images work, compositionally.
| | 00:43 | This is a very important practice
because there's a lot to be learned from
| | 00:47 | good images, and it's important to develop a
vocabulary for discussing and analyzing images.
| | 00:53 | Even if you don't discuss images with
someone else, being able to think about
| | 00:56 | your own work in consistent, concrete
terms is very valuable, and we will be
| | 01:00 | performing a lot of that
kind of analysis in this course.
| | 01:04 | However, the thought process that
you go through when you analyze an
| | 01:07 | existing image is not necessarily
the same thought process that you go
| | 01:11 | through when you're shooting.
| | 01:13 | Very often shooting is simply about feel as
much as it is about any theoretical ideas.
| | 01:18 | The trick then is to develop
a feel for good composition.
| | 01:22 | The way you develop feel though is to practice.
| | 01:25 | Improvisational musicians practice
scales and intervals and they practice how to
| | 01:29 | transpose those into different keys.
| | 01:31 | They develop riffs that have personal
appeal for them and they practice those.
| | 01:36 | When it comes time for them to play a solo,
these riffs and scales become their vocabulary.
| | 01:41 | They string these bits together in
different ways and because they have been
| | 01:44 | practicing all of these components so
thoroughly, they can arrange those bits of
| | 01:48 | vocabulary into larger
musical ideals on the fly.
| | 01:52 | This is the approach that we're
going to take with composition.
| | 01:55 | We are going to look at lots of
fundamental compositional ideas, building blocks.
| | 01:59 | I am going to give you assignments
and ask you to practice each of these
| | 02:03 | fundamental compositional ideas.
| | 02:05 | So you will, for example, spend time simply
practicing composing with repeating lines.
| | 02:09 | Then we move on another compositional
component and you will practice working with that.
| | 02:14 | If you do this enough, you will
develop a compositional vocabulary.
| | 02:18 | This will do two things.
| | 02:19 | It will help you to recognize more
potential subject matter because you'll be
| | 02:23 | more familiar with how different shapes
and different forms and different plays
| | 02:27 | of light and shadow can be used to
create compelling images, but also when you
| | 02:31 | see something that you want to turn
into a picture, you will possibly already
| | 02:34 | have practice at working with
its particular shape or qualities.
| | 02:38 | If you've practiced enough, then you'll
simply have a feel for how that thing can
| | 02:41 | be arranged into an image.
| | 02:43 | A lot of times you'll see people
offering rules for composition, the rule
| | 02:48 | of thirds, or always photograph
children at eye level or focus on the
| | 02:52 | center of interest.
| | 02:54 | Very often these rules are
absolutely right for a scene.
| | 02:56 | But for every example of a good rule, you
will find plenty of images that break that rule.
| | 03:02 | Because of this, I want to dissuade you
from looking for a recipe for composition.
| | 03:06 | This is why I think it's better to have
a compositional vocabulary rather than a
| | 03:09 | set of compositional formulas or rules.
| | 03:12 | With a good vocabulary you'll be able
to work well with more kinds of scenes,
| | 03:16 | you'll know how to find your own ways out
of tricky compositional problems, and you
| | 03:20 | might eventually develop your own style.
| | 03:23 | Rules and formulas can also lead you
into an unsatisfying rut because you'll
| | 03:28 | continue to shoot images in the same way.
Or they can lead you to shoot cliche images.
| | 03:32 | Of course there will be times when you
simply don't have a feel for the right
| | 03:37 | composition, and in those instances
you will want to fall back to a more
| | 03:40 | theoretical approach, and that's where
the image analysis that we will do will
| | 03:44 | come in really handy.
| | 03:46 | To get the most out of this course then,
when I give you an assignment, you will
| | 03:49 | be best served by taking the time to go into it.
| | 03:52 | What's more, by the end of the few
hours that we will spend together, you will
| | 03:56 | hardly have a finished vocabulary.
| | 03:58 | You will need to continue to work the
exercises that I'm going to give you and
| | 04:01 | you'll need to continue to practice.
| | 04:03 | In fact, this practice and these
specific exercises might be something that you
| | 04:07 | will want to turn to from time to
time throughout your photographic life.
| | 04:11 | You can't start composing a shot
until you've seen something that you want
| | 04:14 | to take a picture of.
| | 04:15 | Learning how to find and recognize good
subject matter and how to pull a picture
| | 04:19 | out of it are skills in themselves, and
we will also be covering those in detail
| | 04:23 | in this course as well.
| | 04:24 | The study of composition is usually a
very interactive process, with lots of
| | 04:29 | dialogue between teacher and student
and lots of discussion within the class
| | 04:33 | itself, as everyone sees the different results
that each student pulls out of the same location.
| | 04:39 | Because of that, we have chosen a
specific location--more of a region, actually.
| | 04:44 | All of the field lessons that we're
going to show you in this course will be
| | 04:48 | shot in that location, and all the example
images that you will see will be from here as well.
| | 04:53 | This will give you more of the type
of experience that you will get in a
| | 04:57 | live composition class.
| | 04:58 | But more importantly, I want you to
see just how much material can be pulled
| | 05:03 | from what appears to be, at first
glance, a somewhat common location.
| | 05:08 | I'm currently standing in the
performing arts center at Quartz Mountain
| | 05:11 | State Park in southwestern Oklahoma.
| | 05:14 | If you're ever in this area, this is a
great place to stay, with a wonderful
| | 05:17 | lodge and beautiful surroundings and
incredibly welcoming people and ready
| | 05:21 | access to a lot of interesting small
towns and a very nice wildlife preserve.
| | 05:26 | All of our lessons and examples will
be from this park and the surrounding
| | 05:30 | areas, things that we find on
country roads and locations that we've
| | 05:34 | discovered in nearby towns.
| | 05:36 | I chose this location partly just
because I like it, but also because no matter
| | 05:40 | where you live, there are
probably small towns nearby.
| | 05:43 | There are probably country roads.
| | 05:45 | In other words, there are probably
locations that, like these, appear to be
| | 05:50 | fairly common and not necessarily the
type of grand photo destination that you
| | 05:55 | think you might need to get good pictures.
| | 05:57 | Now, the details might be different
where you are, but you should be able
| | 06:00 | to find locations local to you that are
similar in feel to what we'll be using here.
| | 06:05 | If you don't have the time or
access to such locations, don't worry.
| | 06:08 | The concepts that we'll be discussing
will apply to any type of situation, so
| | 06:12 | it doesn't matter where you live.
| | 06:13 | Again, one of the things I hope you'll
come away from this course with is an
| | 06:17 | understanding that good photos are
usually the result of the photographer, not
| | 06:21 | the location or the subject matter.
| | 06:24 | Quartz Mountain is also the home of the
Oklahoma Arts Institute, an incredible
| | 06:28 | one-of-a-kind program that offers
arts education to teenagers and adults.
| | 06:33 | I've had the great good fortune to teach
here for years and I was a student here
| | 06:37 | when I was but a teen.
| | 06:39 | And I'm about to start
co-teaching a workshop here right now.
| | 06:42 | Throughout this course, you're
going to see coverage of that workshop,
| | 06:46 | which will give you a chance to see
how group discussions and analysis of
| | 06:50 | images typically goes.
| | 06:51 | Now, as I mentioned, having a
vocabulary for evaluating images is critical to
| | 06:56 | improving, even if you're just
having that dialogue with yourself.
| | 06:59 | By getting to see what happens in
this workshop, I'm hoping you'll get some
| | 07:03 | useful exposure to that kind of dialogue.
| | 07:06 | If you've been doing your exercises in
a similar rural environment then you may
| | 07:10 | find that the discussions that come
up in the workshop are relevant to your
| | 07:14 | images, and those might give you new ideas.
| | 07:16 | So, through analysis and discussion of
images, and very directed practice, you
| | 07:21 | will be set on a path through this
course that will dramatically improve your
| | 07:24 | skills at composition.
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| What you need to know| 00:01 | I divide the teaching of photography
into two large domains: craft and artistry.
| | 00:07 | Craft is the technical skill
required to effectively take pictures.
| | 00:10 | This is basically all of the button pushing.
| | 00:13 | Craft skills include your knowledge of
exposure, your understanding of focal
| | 00:18 | length and camera position, and
your skill at post-production.
| | 00:22 | Artistry meanwhile is that less
concrete domain, which includes seeing,
| | 00:27 | recognizing potential images,
and of course composition.
| | 00:31 | You could also argue that there's a
third kind of meta-domain which is the
| | 00:35 | combination of craft and artistry,
knowing how to use your craft skills to
| | 00:40 | capture the image dictated
by your artistic impulses.
| | 00:43 | There is nothing magical
about craft or artistry.
| | 00:46 | They are simply skill sets that you
can learn through study and practice.
| | 00:50 | Some people might already have more
of an innate understanding of certain
| | 00:53 | artistic concepts and so seem to be naturals,
| | 00:56 | but you can actually learn the
same skill set that they have.
| | 00:59 | This course assumes that you already
have a pretty sturdy understanding of craft.
| | 01:04 | This means that you should know what
I'm talking about when I mention over- and
| | 01:08 | underexposure, depth of field,
motion stopping, exposure compensation,
| | 01:12 | reciprocity, dynamic range, and so on.
| | 01:15 | Similarly, you should also already know
what I mean when I refer to the speed of
| | 01:19 | a lens, and you should understand how
camera position and focal length affect the
| | 01:24 | sense of space in a scene.
| | 01:26 | If you are not clear on any of these
subjects then you will want to check
| | 01:29 | out my Foundations of Photography:
Exposure course and lenses course.
| | 01:34 | Also, for the bulk of this course, we're
going to be working in black and white.
| | 01:38 | By removing color from the
compositional equation, we will be able to
| | 01:42 | concentrate simply on geometry and tone,
and explore their interrelationships.
| | 01:47 | You can learn about black and white in
Foundations of Photography: Black and White.
| | 01:52 | Camera-wise it doesn't really matter what
you use for this course, as long as you're
| | 01:56 | comfortable operating it.
| | 01:57 | SLR, point-and-shoot, cameraphone, or
even a film camera, they're all fine.
| | 02:03 | Now I am going to be lynched by
legions of film shooters who are going to be
| | 02:06 | mad at me that I put that after cameraphone,
but I am going to just leave it that way anyway.
| | 02:10 | When we get to some post-production
questions, you might find that we discuss
| | 02:15 | some camera features that you don't have
on your camera, but for the composition
| | 02:18 | lessons themselves, you will be
fine with just about anything.
| | 02:21 | If in the compositional lessons you
find your camera is not able to do some of
| | 02:26 | what we're managing to pull off, super
shallow depth of field, for example, and
| | 02:31 | these are things that you really want
in your creative palette, then you might
| | 02:34 | want to consider a camera or lens upgrade.
| | 02:36 | But for now I recommend sticking
with what you have if you're already
| | 02:40 | comfortable with a specific piece of gear.
| | 02:42 | You don't have to be an
absolute master of any these concepts;
| | 02:45 | you just need to know what they
mean and how to control the appropriate
| | 02:48 | settings on your camera.
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1. Understanding CompositionWhat is composition?| 00:01 | We shoot photos for different reasons,
| | 00:03 | but in most cases it's because we've
seen something in the world that we want to
| | 00:06 | communicate to someone else.
| | 00:08 | One of the great frustrations of
photography though is the fact that just
| | 00:12 | because something looks cool in real
life, you can't necessarily just point a
| | 00:16 | camera at it and get a good picture.
| | 00:19 | Unlike your normal visual experience of
the world, a photograph is bounded by a
| | 00:23 | frame and when looking at a photo, the
viewer reads the contents within that
| | 00:27 | frame to try to recognize and
understand what it is you are showing them.
| | 00:31 | Their success at doing that is based
largely on how you choose to compose the image.
| | 00:36 | At the simplest level, you can define
composition as the way you frame your scene.
| | 00:41 | But good composition involves much
more than simply choosing how to crop the
| | 00:46 | world into the rectangle inside your viewfinder.
| | 00:49 | Good composition is the process of
arranging forms and tones in a way that is
| | 00:54 | pleasing and that guides the viewer's
eye to bring attention to your subject.
| | 00:58 | In a good composition, you will know
precisely what the subject of the image is.
| | 01:04 | And in a bad composition
your eye will wander and search.
| | 01:07 | A hallmark of bad composition as if you
find yourself thinking, I'm not sure what
| | 01:12 | the point of that photo is,
what am I supposed to look at?
| | 01:15 | Good composition can also reveal things
in the scene that the viewer might not
| | 01:19 | notice on their own:
| | 01:20 | patterns, repetition, a play of light
and shadow, or in a really effective photo,
| | 01:26 | a feeling about the particular
moment that was photographed.
| | 01:29 | Sometimes the right composition is obvious.
| | 01:32 | At other times though, you might find
that the only reason that a particular
| | 01:36 | thing is interesting is because the
photographer composed it in a way to bring
| | 01:40 | your attention to it.
| | 01:42 | As your composition skills improve,
not only will your everyday shots look
| | 01:45 | better, but you will find that the
world is rife with far more subject matter.
| | 01:50 | Objects that had seemed mundane will
become interesting because of how you
| | 01:55 | arrange and order them within the frame.
| | 01:57 | That is the power of composition.
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| All form, all the time| 00:01 | We are going to be talking about a
lot of images throughout this course, and
| | 00:04 | discussions of composition are
sometimes a little different than how you might
| | 00:07 | be used to discussing images.
| | 00:10 | In a lot of cases we are going to be
looking at images purely in terms of the
| | 00:13 | shapes and forms within the image.
| | 00:16 | If you are new to discussions of
composition, this can be a little strange,
| | 00:19 | because very often our discussions will
completely ignore subject matter. And one
| | 00:25 | to likes to think that one's intent
and the emotional power of the subject is
| | 00:29 | all that matters in an image,
but unfortunately that's not true.
| | 00:32 | A poorly composed image of a really
dramatic subject will still be a poorly
| | 00:36 | composed, less-effective image.
| | 00:39 | So if some of our image discussions seem
a little clinical, understand that when
| | 00:43 | discussing composition, that's often how it goes.
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2. SeeingHow your camera is not like your eye| 00:00 | If you're watching a composition
course I assume it's because you've already
| | 00:04 | recognized that seeing how to arrange the
real world into a good photo is not easy.
| | 00:10 | In fact, seeing is not easy.
| | 00:13 | Now that may sound strange, given that
you walk around the world using your eyes
| | 00:17 | all day long, but as we'll discuss
throughout the rest of this chapter, learning
| | 00:20 | to really see the world around you can
be difficult, and one of the reasons that
| | 00:25 | it's difficult is because of the
way your visual system is constructed.
| | 00:29 | Now it's easy to think of the
camera as like a mechanical eye, but that
| | 00:33 | comparison really doesn't
hold up under closer examination.
| | 00:37 | Yes, like your eye, your camera has a lens
and an aperture and a light-gathering medium.
| | 00:42 | It has a particular
dynamic range, a field of view,
| | 00:45 | it's subject to the laws of optics, and so on.
| | 00:49 | But your eye differs from your camera
in one extremely significant way, and
| | 00:53 | that's that it has a human brain attached to it.
| | 00:56 | Now it's tempting to think of the brain
as simply the equivalent of the computer
| | 01:00 | or film that's inside your camera, and
it's true that like the computer in your
| | 01:05 | camera, your brain serves an image-
processing function, but it's a much more
| | 01:09 | dramatic level of processing.
| | 01:11 | The computer in your camera handles
the interpretation of color and perhaps
| | 01:16 | contrast and sharpening of your image, but
it has no impact on the content of your image.
| | 01:22 | Now by comparison, fully 80% of what
you perceive with your visual sense comes
| | 01:28 | from your brain, not your eyes.
| | 01:30 | Most of what you see around
you is made up by your brain.
| | 01:35 | Optical illusions are the best
example of this. Consider this.
| | 01:38 | If you were to point your camera at
this, it would record precisely what it is,
| | 01:42 | a set of lines on a flat screen.
But when you point your eyes at this,
| | 01:47 | something else happens.
| | 01:49 | Because of your brain's involvement in
your visual sense, you are incapable of
| | 01:53 | perceiving this as what it really is,
| | 01:55 | a flat, two-dimensional collection of
lines. Instead, your brain recognizes a
| | 02:01 | configuration of lines that are very
like those of a three-dimensional object,
| | 02:05 | and so rather than showing you flat
lines, it's trying to perceive this scene as
| | 02:10 | an object with depth. But it's not an
object with depth and so your brain can't
| | 02:15 | quite pull it off, which is why the
cube appears to flip back and forth.
| | 02:19 | Optical illusions are simply the result
of your brain's expectation of a scene
| | 02:24 | colliding with the visual reality.
Confusion ensues and your brain interprets
| | 02:28 | the scene incorrectly.
| | 02:30 | To sum it up, your camera is objective;
| | 02:33 | it captures an image of what's there.
| | 02:35 | But your brain is subjective;
| | 02:36 | it interprets the scene before you--
and this often gets in the way--of you
| | 02:41 | actually being able to see the scene accurately.
| | 02:44 | However, as we'll discuss next, your
brain's interference in your visual sense
| | 02:48 | goes far beyond your
perception of simple lines and shapes.
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| Looking vs. seeing| 00:00 | Earlier I mentioned that seeing
is not an easy thing to learn.
| | 00:04 | Now that can be a somewhat confusing
statement, since, thanks to your eyes,
| | 00:08 | you spend all day long not bumping
into things and not getting run over by
| | 00:12 | cars and recognizing people you know
and so on. But I would argue with that
| | 00:16 | what you do most of the time during
the day, as you move about your life, is
| | 00:20 | looking, not seeing.
| | 00:22 | See if this sounds familiar.
| | 00:24 | You cannot find your house keys.
| | 00:26 | You look on the kitchen table, you
rifle the pockets of everything you've worn
| | 00:30 | lately, you go outside and search the
car, and you retrace your footsteps as best
| | 00:35 | you can remember about your house,
and after long minutes of frantic
| | 00:39 | searching, you return to the kitchen
table where you started, only to find that
| | 00:43 | the keys have been sitting there all along.
| | 00:46 | Since you had already looked at the
table, why didn't you find them right away?
| | 00:50 | Because you merely looked at the
table; you didn't see the table.
| | 00:54 | We've discussed how 80% of your visual
sense is made up by your brain, and what
| | 00:59 | it makes up is based on
memory and previous experience.
| | 01:02 | This is why children often
notice things that adults don't.
| | 01:05 | They simply don't have enough
experience for their brain to make stuff up.
| | 01:09 | They have to actually see everything in
front of them and work out exactly what
| | 01:13 | it is they are experiencing.
| | 01:15 | We're very fortunate that our brains
work this way. Getting through the day would
| | 01:19 | be much more difficult if we had to
actually see every detail of a car to
| | 01:23 | recognize it as a car, rather than
simply being able to glance in the direction
| | 01:27 | of the car and note its presence.
| | 01:29 | The problem is, while this is happening,
it's very difficult to know that you're
| | 01:34 | not actually seeing the things before you.
| | 01:37 | After all, when you don't see the keys
on the kitchen table, it's not like you
| | 01:40 | see a conspicuous
key-shaped hole in their place.
| | 01:44 | No, instead you perceive what you
think the table should look like, not what
| | 01:48 | it really looks like, and so you have no
indication that you're not seeing properly.
| | 01:53 | This inability to perceive things as they
really are is not a great trade for a photographer.
| | 01:57 | It makes it harder for you to
recognize good subject matter, especially if
| | 02:01 | you're in a place that you're already
very familiar with, and it makes it harder
| | 02:04 | to see how to compose an
interesting subject once you've spotted it.
| | 02:09 | In the rest of this chapter we're going
to explore a few particulars of seeing
| | 02:13 | and look at some exercises to help
you improve your ability to actually see
| | 02:17 | the world around you.
| | 02:18 | First though, we're going to look at
one of the most important limitations
| | 02:22 | of your camera.
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| Vision and attention| 00:01 | There is something else to consider about
how your brain impacts your visual sense.
| | 00:05 | Right now you are looking at a
window on your computer screen and you're
| | 00:09 | possibly paying attention to the
image of me that's there, rambling on and
| | 00:14 | on. Try this though.
| | 00:16 | Don't take your eyes off me. I love this movie.
| | 00:20 | Now try to tune into everything else
that you can see within your field of view.
| | 00:25 | Note that you can see lots of other
things on the monitor itself. Beyond the
| | 00:29 | edges of the screen you can see
what's--I feel like a stewardess.
| | 00:33 | Beyond the edges of the screen, you
can see what's next to and beside the
| | 00:36 | monitor, and as you keep tuning into all
of that that's there in your periphery,
| | 00:40 | you realize that you have
almost a 180-degree field of view.
| | 00:44 | Now all of that has been there the
whole time that you've been watching me and
| | 00:48 | yet you were probably unaware of most of it.
| | 00:50 | This is another way that your
brain differs from your camera.
| | 00:54 | While your eyes are picking up this
very wide visual panorama, your brain is
| | 00:58 | focusing your attention
on one single part of it.
| | 01:01 | This is great for basic survival.
| | 01:03 | You have a wide field of view, with the
ability to not be distracted by all of
| | 01:08 | that that's coming in.
| | 01:09 | The problem is that none of this
stops happening when you hold a camera in
| | 01:13 | front of your face.
| | 01:14 | If you were to point your camera at
your computer screen right now and watch
| | 01:18 | this video through your camera's
viewfinder, your brain would still very likely
| | 01:22 | focus your attention on me and exclude
all of that extra stuff that's visible in
| | 01:27 | the camera's viewfinder.
| | 01:28 | Your camera though will
capture the entire scene.
| | 01:31 | How many times have you
seen a snapshot like this?
| | 01:34 | Now plainly whoever took this was
aiming for a picture of that person, and their
| | 01:38 | brain was focusing all of their
attention on the person while they framed the
| | 01:42 | shot, but the camera captured a much
wider field of view than what they were
| | 01:46 | paying attention to,
resulting in this weak composition.
| | 01:49 | You're going to see some explicit
practices for avoiding this, but for now it
| | 01:53 | could be an interesting exercise to
occasionally tune in to how much more field
| | 01:57 | of view you may have beyond
what you're paying attention to.
| | 02:01 | If you start recognizing this
difference, it will be easier for you to recognize
| | 02:05 | the difference between the full scene
that your camera is collecting and how
| | 02:09 | your eye is focusing your
attention within that scene.
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| Dynamic range| 00:00 | In photography dynamic range is the
measure of the darkest thing to lightest
| | 00:05 | thing that you can represent.
| | 00:07 | A camera has a particular
dynamic range, and so does a printer.
| | 00:10 | Even different printer papers
have different dynamic ranges.
| | 00:14 | Your eyes also have a dynamic range, and
their dynamic range is larger than what
| | 00:18 | any current photographic technology can offer.
| | 00:21 | This means that very often your camera
will capture very different detail in the
| | 00:26 | light and dark parts of your scene than
what you actually saw with your eye while
| | 00:30 | you were there shooting.
| | 00:31 | Take a look at this.
| | 00:33 | This is pretty close to what I could
see, in terms of dynamic range, while I was
| | 00:37 | standing at this scene.
| | 00:38 | I could see detail in the very bright
parts of the scene and detail in the
| | 00:41 | shadowy parts of the scene.
| | 00:44 | If I point a camera at that same
scene though, I most likely will get
| | 00:47 | something like this.
| | 00:49 | Here I can see detail in the
highlights but not in the shadows.
| | 00:52 | I could choose to dial in some
overexposure and then I get a shot like this.
| | 00:57 | Now I've got detail in the shadows,
but I've lost all of the highlights.
| | 01:01 | Because my eye has almost twice the
dynamic range of my camera, it can see
| | 01:04 | detail throughout, but I have to
choose which part of that range I want to
| | 01:08 | capture with my camera.
| | 01:10 | Now all of this is covered in more
detail in my Foundations of Photography:
| | 01:14 | Exposure course. Note, too, that there
are ways that I can shoot multiple images
| | 01:18 | and combine them into a
shot with broad dynamic range.
| | 01:21 | What I'm talking about here is
the dynamic range of a single shot.
| | 01:25 | Understanding how your eye sees brightness
differently from your camera is very important.
| | 01:30 | It can be a big disappointment to see a
scene one way but come home with a very
| | 01:34 | different photo of it.
| | 01:36 | If you understand the difference
between your camera and eye, you can recognize
| | 01:40 | when you need to start
thinking about exposure adjustments.
| | 01:43 | But also, light and shadow are
fundamental compositional tools. If you
| | 01:48 | recognize that your camera might see
a solid shadow where your eyes can see
| | 01:53 | detail then you might find that you
can use that solid shadow as a shape or
| | 01:57 | element in your compositions.
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| Seeing exercises| 00:00 | One of the trickiest things about
exercising and developing your sense of seeing
| | 00:05 | is that you actually use your
eyes all day long for other things.
| | 00:08 | You spend your days looking,
| | 00:10 | so trying to get to that next step of
seeing can be complicated because there is
| | 00:14 | not really a physically
different thing that you can do.
| | 00:17 | I think the best way to learn to see
better is experience, and obviously that
| | 00:21 | means practice, but it also means knowing
what it feels like when you're really seeing.
| | 00:26 | If you can force yourself into a
position of seeing and pay attention to what
| | 00:30 | that feels like then you'll likely
have an easier time getting back into that
| | 00:34 | space, or at least recognizing
when you're in it or out of it.
| | 00:39 | Now there are a couple of curious
exercises that you can do that, in my
| | 00:43 | experience, will put you into a place
of seeing. They will deactivate your
| | 00:47 | brain's assumptions about what's before you
and allow you to actually see what's before you.
| | 00:53 | First one is pretty simple.
| | 00:54 | Sometime when you're out walking
down the street fix your eyes forward in
| | 00:58 | the distance and don't move them.
Choose something off to the side and try
| | 01:02 | to discern as much detail on that
thing as you can without actually turning
| | 01:07 | your eyes to look at it.
| | 01:08 | In other words, use only your peripheral vision.
| | 01:11 | Now as you continue to walk forward
towards the subject, it will move further
| | 01:15 | into your periphery, but keep trying
to see as much detail on it as you can.
| | 01:18 | When you finally get up to that thing,
take a look at it for real. Look at it
| | 01:23 | directly and feel free to move
your eyes about it and study it.
| | 01:26 | You'll probably find that details on it
really pop and appear distinct, that you
| | 01:31 | really notice things, that maybe when
you get up there you'll think, wow, I
| | 01:34 | hadn't noticed before that it's got
this texture on it or these screws in it or
| | 01:37 | whatnot. At that point you're really
seeing. You have gotten your brain to get
| | 01:41 | out of the way and let
you see what's really there.
| | 01:43 | Now this next one is a little weirder,
and it can be embarrassing. You probably
| | 01:46 | want to do this one by yourself.
| | 01:48 | Sometime just in your house, in your
room, wherever, walk around the room, spend
| | 01:52 | about five minutes doing this. Point at
things and name them the wrong thing,
| | 01:56 | and I mean speak the name out loud, so
you might point at something and say,
| | 01:59 | hammer, point at another thing and say
blender, and it's not a hammerer or a blender.
| | 02:04 | Don't worry about what names you're saying.
| | 02:07 | You're going to go through categories of objects.
| | 02:08 | You'll get stuck in kitchen appliances
and farm animals and things like that.
| | 02:12 | Don't worry about that.
| | 02:13 | Do that for about five minutes,
stop, and then look around the room.
| | 02:16 | You will probably have a very
different visual experience of the room.
| | 02:19 | Some people think that
they see depth more clearly.
| | 02:22 | Personally, I feel like I see
outlines around everything.
| | 02:25 | I don't know why that happens.
| | 02:27 | I think that what's going on is your
brain is making an assumption about
| | 02:31 | something. When you name it the wrong thing,
| | 02:32 | it's kind of having to go back and
look at it again, and then you're into a
| | 02:35 | really strong seeing space.
| | 02:37 | Another very simple exercise you can
do is simply sit down and draw something
| | 02:41 | that's in front of you.
| | 02:42 | Drawing puts you into a very intense
visual space, and very often if you just
| | 02:46 | spend five or ten minutes doing that
before you go out shooting, you're going to
| | 02:49 | find that you're really more cognizant
of depth and line and many of the other
| | 02:53 | compositional techniques
that we'll be looking at.
| | 02:56 | Seeing is something you're going to
practice for the rest of your life, and again
| | 02:59 | if you can get into a space of
knowing what it feels like, it's going to be
| | 03:02 | easier to find your way back there later.
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|
|
3. Composition FundamentalsWhat all good compositions have| 00:00 | As we discussed earlier, this
course is built around you going out and
| | 00:05 | practicing very specific things
that will over time give you a robust
| | 00:10 | compositional vocabulary, and that
process is going to begin in this chapter.
| | 00:14 | The last movie in this chapter will be a
specific assignment wherein I will task
| | 00:18 | you with shooting a
specific kind of subject matter.
| | 00:21 | However, you haven't had any composition
instruction yet, so we need a little bit
| | 00:25 | of that before you head out shooting.
| | 00:28 | There are lots of compositional ideas
and concepts, and we're going to go over
| | 00:31 | scores of them in this course, with the
aim of getting them into your body so
| | 00:35 | that eventually you can work with them by feel.
| | 00:38 | Not every image will have every
compositional idea that we're going to discuss
| | 00:41 | in this course, but all images will
have four things: a clearly defined subject
| | 00:47 | and background, a sense of balance, a
point of view, and a degree of simplicity.
| | 00:53 | These are compositional
concepts that you cannot avoid.
| | 00:56 | So in the rest of this chapter, we're
going to discuss exactly what these things
| | 01:00 | are, so that you can head out on your
first shooting assignment and practice
| | 01:04 | these fundamental essential compositional ideas.
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| Subject and background| 00:00 | I've got a question for you.
| | 00:02 | What is the subject of this image
that you're looking at right now?
| | 00:05 | This is not a trick question.
| | 00:06 | I really want you to think about this.
| | 00:08 | You may immediately think well,
obviously you're the subject of that image. But
| | 00:12 | am I really the subject of this image?
| | 00:14 | If I'm the subject then what's the lodge
there for? What are the mountains there for?
| | 00:20 | Take a look at this image instead.
| | 00:21 | If I'm the subject, this is
a much better composition.
| | 00:24 | Now I am plainly the subject and the
lodge is in the background, compared to here
| | 00:29 | where I'm competing with the lodge,
or the lodge is competing with me.
| | 00:34 | If you want a picture of the lodge then
you don't really need me standing here.
| | 00:37 | This just looks kind of weird.
In fact, you start getting a strange sense
| | 00:42 | about this image that maybe I'm
trying to imply that this is my lodge or
| | 00:45 | something like that.
| | 00:46 | If you want a picture of me then you
don't really need the lodge there, because
| | 00:49 | I'm smaller in the frame and the bulk
of the frame is taken up by the lodge.
| | 00:53 | Maybe you might be saying, well, what I
want is a picture of you in front of the
| | 00:56 | lodge, so I need everything.
No, that's not necessarily true.
| | 00:59 | In this shot you've got a nice portrait
of me and you can still see the lodge in
| | 01:02 | the background. Yes, you don't see the
whole thing, but you can trust the viewer
| | 01:06 | to understand that when they're seeing
a piece of something they can interpret
| | 01:10 | what it is. They can figure out that
this is some kind of a hotel-like thing.
| | 01:13 | They can see that there's rocks in the
background that constitute some kind
| | 01:16 | of natural feature.
| | 01:18 | It may be that you need to take multiple shots.
| | 01:20 | You take the portrait of me and then
you get a picture of the lodge separately.
| | 01:23 | The important thing to understand
here is that in this image the subject is
| | 01:28 | not so clearly defined,
| | 01:29 | it's up for grabs, whereas in this
image the subject is very clearly defined.
| | 01:35 | Every decision that you make as a
photographer, from composition, to exposure, to
| | 01:40 | the way you post-process your image, to
your decision to shoot black and white or
| | 01:43 | color, all of those contribute to knowing
what the subject is in the image. All of
| | 01:51 | those help define the subject, and
every photo needs a very clearly defined
| | 01:56 | subject and background.
| | 01:58 | For the rest of this course, most of
what we're going to be doing is looking at
| | 02:02 | ways of helping to organize a scene so
that the subject is clearly defined and
| | 02:09 | the background is clearly defined.
| | 02:11 | All of these composition tips and
suggestions that we're going to be making are
| | 02:15 | largely about getting the viewer's eye
to know what the subject of an image is.
| | 02:21 | When you shoot a shot like this, the
viewer's eye is left to wander around
| | 02:25 | between all these potential subjects.
| | 02:27 | Now one of the potential pitfalls here is
that you have your own focused attention,
| | 02:33 | so you may look at the scene and go,
well no, it's plainly about you,
| | 02:36 | that's what I'm seeing.
| | 02:36 | Right, that's what you're seeing, but
you've got to pay attention to the entire frame.
| | 02:40 | Again, this gets back to the
fact that your camera's objective.
| | 02:43 | It's capturing this whole scene.
Your sense of vision, your attention is subjected.
| | 02:48 | It focuses just on what you want.
| | 02:50 | Take this same image and show it to
someone else and they might get lost.
| | 02:54 | So good composition is all about
clearly defined subject and clearly defined
| | 03:00 | background, and we're going to be
hammering this a lot throughout the rest
| | 03:04 | of this course.
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| Balance| 00:01 | Well now, this is real pretty, isn't it?
| | 00:03 | We've got the mountain. We've got the sky.
| | 00:05 | We've got the beautiful green meadow.
| | 00:06 | At the same time there is just
something not quite right about this image.
| | 00:10 | It's just out of whack somehow.
| | 00:11 | It feels just a little off.
| | 00:13 | I mean like a simple suggestion here.
If we just put me right here, ah!
| | 00:18 | The image is better now.
| | 00:19 | It's not better because it's me; it's
better because now the image is balanced.
| | 00:23 | Elements in your frame
have compositional weight.
| | 00:26 | I don't mean literal physical weight,
although sometimes that does correspond,
| | 00:30 | but they have graphical weight.
| | 00:32 | If you think of your images having
kind of a fulcrum, then in this case the
| | 00:35 | mountain on one side tilts the balance off.
| | 00:38 | When you put another strong graphical
element here, in this case me, the element,
| | 00:43 | or the image, comes back into
balance. They are equally weighted.
| | 00:46 | Balance is a somewhat ephemeral
slippery compositional idea, but it's the
| | 00:50 | one that you will be--one of the
things you'll be worrying about in every
| | 00:53 | image that you shoot.
| | 00:55 | There are lots of balancing
mechanisms and components.
| | 00:58 | Let's take a look at some
examples of some others.
| | 01:00 | Here is an example that's very
similar to the one that we just saw.
| | 01:04 | I have a buffalo here.
| | 01:06 | It's not roaming, but it is
balanced by this mountain over here.
| | 01:10 | Now, how is that possible?
| | 01:11 | How is the mountain able to balance the
buffalo or vice versa, when the buffalo
| | 01:16 | is very small and the mountain is much larger?
| | 01:19 | It has to do with tone.
The buffalo is a deep black color;
| | 01:22 | the mountain is a much lighter color.
| | 01:24 | In the case of this image black
turns out to have a lot of weight,
| | 01:28 | so a little bit of it can
balance the much larger area of gray.
| | 01:33 | Now, why is it that I say in this image?
Doesn't black always have more weight?
| | 01:38 | Not necessarily. In this case it does
because of the tones around it. The black
| | 01:42 | is in sharp contrast to the gray
tones that are surrounding the buffalo and
| | 01:48 | really rest of the image is gray.
| | 01:49 | So, the black really stands out
and therefore has more weight.
| | 01:53 | In another image, white might be very
heavy, depending on what was around it.
| | 01:57 | Take a look at this.
| | 01:58 | If through a little bit of
retouching I remove the buffalo,
| | 02:01 | we have this, and now the
image has fallen out of balance.
| | 02:05 | First of all, it's lost its subject,
so it's just a somewhat nebulous low-
| | 02:08 | contrast image of some mountains.
| | 02:10 | But also if you look at it purely in
terms of balance, it's just a little too
| | 02:13 | heavy on the left side.
| | 02:15 | It needs something over here, and
that's what the buffalo is good for.
| | 02:20 | Another fairly straight-ahead example
of balance: in this case the moon is
| | 02:24 | balancing the building over here.
| | 02:27 | So this is another case of, all right,
these are very different shapes and for
| | 02:30 | the most part they are the same tone,
so how is it that the moon, this tiny,
| | 02:34 | light-gray graphical element is
balancing this entire similarly toned building?
| | 02:40 | In this case it's a matter
of context. It's the moon.
| | 02:43 | It's a planetary body.
| | 02:45 | It has weight simply because of what it
is, because of the import and the drama
| | 02:48 | that we project into it ourselves.
| | 02:52 | It is peaking out from behind its shadow.
| | 02:53 | It's out in the daytime. It's a very
dramatic subject, and so it has a lot of
| | 02:57 | compositional weight, and can
easily balance the building over here.
| | 03:01 | It would not balance it as well
if it was positioned down here, say.
| | 03:05 | So it's been positioned very
carefully to create a balanced image.
| | 03:10 | Here is a case of an image that could possibly
have been balanced in a couple of different ways.
| | 03:14 | If this rock wasn't here, the image
would still have pretty good balance, him on
| | 03:19 | this side, this strong pole over here,
or whatever that is, big piece of wood
| | 03:23 | over here with a chain on it.
| | 03:24 | But I think what makes this
balance work is actually a tonal thing.
| | 03:27 | His face is very bright and the
rock is very bright and they're placed
| | 03:32 | symmetrically across this axis, this
diagonal axis, and I think that's what's
| | 03:37 | really helping to make the image more balanced.
| | 03:39 | So in this case, it's more about tone
than shape, and also about the position,
| | 03:45 | the symmetrical position, diagonally of
these two bright objects in the frame.
| | 03:49 | Here's an example of balancing with empty space.
| | 03:52 | In this case I'm not using a graphical element
to balance. I am balancing using nothing.
| | 03:57 | I have this big shape here, which is
the stand of trees, and they're being
| | 04:00 | balanced by this empty space over here.
| | 04:02 | This is a tricky thing to pull off
because a lot of times empty space looks like
| | 04:07 | an unbalanced part of the image.
| | 04:09 | I'm not using a lot of empty space, just a
little bit, to balance this element over here.
| | 04:15 | This is something that you've got to just
practice and get a feel for, and you'll learn to
| | 04:18 | recognize the difference of when empty
space is an unbalanced image and when
| | 04:23 | empty space is serving to
balance something else in the frame.
| | 04:25 | We're talking about a lot of
compositional ideas and a lot of things you can
| | 04:30 | work with, and so it's very tempting
when you get out to get really fancy with
| | 04:33 | your compositions and try to set up
things in very clever ways, and very often
| | 04:37 | the best composition is just simple,
| | 04:40 | put your subject in the middle of the frame.
| | 04:42 | Now in this case it's not in
the dead center of the frame.
| | 04:44 | It is in the middle horizontally;
dead center of course would be up here.
| | 04:47 | I decided I wanted the sky more
prevalent in the scene than the ground,
| | 04:52 | so I placed the horizon kind of low and
just put the house in the dead center.
| | 04:56 | It's balanced because if I imagine again a
pole right here in the middle of the image,
| | 05:01 | this is just balanced right on top of it.
| | 05:04 | There's nothing too heavy over here.
| | 05:05 | There's nothing too heavy over here.
| | 05:07 | It almost goes out of the balance
because these geese here are an element over
| | 05:12 | here, but I think it stays just
sitting there in the center of the image.
| | 05:15 | Here is another example of center balancing.
| | 05:18 | Again, don't over-think this stuff;
| | 05:20 | just try lots of different things.
| | 05:22 | Sometimes just the subject in the
center is going to be the best choice.
| | 05:27 | This one's a little trickier.
Sometimes balance is not as easy to identify.
| | 05:32 | I think in this case this image feels
balanced because of this tree and this
| | 05:37 | post, which have very similar tone, and
though they're at different depths--the
| | 05:43 | post is much closer to me than the tree is--
| | 05:46 | in the frame, they are positioned
fairly symmetrically, and they're just holding
| | 05:50 | the balance of the image.
| | 05:52 | Something else that's
working is the barbed wire here.
| | 05:56 | The tree is much bigger than the post,
but the barbed wire running through it
| | 06:00 | is leading my eye over here, and then it
kind of gets lost over here and disappears.
| | 06:04 | So it's just something about the
lines in this post are working to balance
| | 06:09 | things against this tree.
| | 06:11 | And neither of these are the subject of
the image. My eye still works its way in
| | 06:15 | here into the middle and kind of picks
up this whole different textural thing
| | 06:20 | that's going on here between the light
grass up here and the darker things down
| | 06:23 | here, but these two elements are
holding down the balance of the image.
| | 06:27 | This image is balanced horizontally
because the moon and the stand of trees here
| | 06:32 | in the center of the frame.
| | 06:33 | I put it in here to point out that sometimes
you balance things across this axis of the image.
| | 06:40 | I'm not worrying as much about
balancing left and right in this image,
| | 06:43 | although I do need that.
| | 06:44 | This is about balancing the top half
of the image with the bottom half of the
| | 06:47 | image, so you can balance
across lots of different axes.
| | 06:51 | Balance is something you've just got to practice.
| | 06:53 | You are going to get it into your body.
| | 06:55 | You are going to learn to feel it.
| | 06:56 | It's a lot like pitch in music;
| | 06:58 | it's just something that you will know is right.
| | 07:01 | And if you can't find it in your image,
you want to think through very specific
| | 07:06 | steps, placing tones in particular places,
placing shapes in particular places.
| | 07:11 | And we've got a few more movies in this
course where we are going to talk more
| | 07:14 | about balance and different ways of
achieving balance using different types of
| | 07:18 | elements in your scene.
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| Point of view | 00:00 | So you're out shooting.
| | 00:02 | It's going well. Your eyes are
really seeing things, and lot of things are
| | 00:06 | capturing your attention, and
maybe it goes something like this.
| | 00:08 | You think wow! Look at the thing over there.
| | 00:10 | And you turn, you point your
camera and you take a picture.
| | 00:13 | And you do that for the rest of the day.
| | 00:14 | And when you come home, all of the
images you will have shot will have been
| | 00:18 | taken from about this level, and usually
looking either down or maybe a little up.
| | 00:23 | In other words, they'll all have
exactly the same point of view.
| | 00:26 | Now if you think about it, the odds
that when you see something interesting
| | 00:31 | and that you are absolutely at the
perfect height to shoot that particular
| | 00:34 | thing from that location,
| | 00:36 | the odds are that are pretty slim.
| | 00:38 | Point of view is a critical
compositional decision that you really need to be
| | 00:42 | actively thinking about when you're shooting.
| | 00:44 | If you walk through the world just
shooting like this all the time, you are
| | 00:47 | going to have fairly
uniform somewhat-boring shots.
| | 00:50 | But point of view does more than
just allow you to create something that
| | 00:54 | looks like it was shot by a shorter
person or a taller person; point of view
| | 00:57 | will often allow you to find subject matter
that would otherwise be boring or mundane.
| | 01:02 | Consider this weed here.
| | 01:04 | It would have been very easy to just
walk past and then not notice it, but by
| | 01:07 | changing my point of view and going
for a more dramatic point of view, or more
| | 01:12 | extreme point of view, I was able to
turn this into an interesting composition.
| | 01:16 | Point of view is how you can take
otherwise mundane subject matter and make
| | 01:20 | it more interesting.
| | 01:21 | It's how you can take even dramatic
subject matter and cast it in a light that
| | 01:26 | has a little more emotional impact.
| | 01:28 | The emotional content of your point of
view is something that you really need
| | 01:32 | to pay attention to.
| | 01:33 | Consider this: by choosing a point of view
below my location, I become higher status.
| | 01:40 | I become more menacing,
especially if I am making faces like this.
| | 01:43 | This is an emotional choice that
you make in setting your camera in a
| | 01:48 | location like this.
| | 01:49 | Let's look at the opposite choice.
| | 01:52 | Conversely, if we put the camera
up high and look down, we get this.
| | 01:55 | I'm smaller here and lower status.
| | 01:58 | It's a very different
emotional content to the image.
| | 02:01 | Note that there's nothing
wrong with the composition.
| | 02:04 | We have a nice and balanced composition here.
| | 02:06 | It's just a choice was made to take
this particular point of view, and that's
| | 02:11 | imparting a very different feel to the image.
| | 02:14 | Now, this is not a rule here.
| | 02:16 | I am not saying never take your
camera up high and shoot down on someone; in
| | 02:19 | fact, later in the course you are
going to see us playing with vertical camera
| | 02:22 | position as we build up compositions
for a lot of these shots. That's fine.
| | 02:26 | The important thing is just to
remember that there is a different feeling,
| | 02:30 | depending on your point of
view, in a situation like this.
| | 02:34 | One of the interesting ways to work
with point of view is to simply give up on
| | 02:38 | looking through the viewfinder. If you
are say in a crowd wanting to shoot over
| | 02:41 | people's heads, don't worry about not
being tall enough; just hold your camera up
| | 02:44 | and do the Hail-Mary shot over everybody's head.
| | 02:47 | Sometimes it can be interesting to get
your camera down on the ground and just
| | 02:50 | shoot without looking through the viewfinder.
| | 02:52 | You've got to think maybe about how you are
framing, where the camera is aimed, but
| | 02:55 | you can rely on your camera's autofocus
and other auto features to take care of
| | 02:58 | the lot of the hard work for you.
| | 03:00 | Since it's digital, it is not going to
cost you anything, so this is an easy way,
| | 03:03 | in a lot of different circumstances,
to experiment with point of view. And you
| | 03:07 | are going to see a lot of images that
I've taken around here during this course
| | 03:10 | where I wasn't looking to the viewfinder;
| | 03:12 | I was just getting into interesting angles.
| | 03:14 | So, don't forget point of view.
| | 03:16 | When you're shooting, don't just
shoot everything at eye level; think about
| | 03:19 | where the more interesting perspective might be.
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| Simplicity| 00:00 | Check out this cool car here.
| | 00:02 | It's got grass growing around it.
| | 00:03 | The light is fading on it.
It's very atmospheric.
| | 00:06 | I want to take a picture. Here we go.
| | 00:09 | That's not much of a picture is it. Why?
| | 00:11 | Well, because that's not just a
picture of the car. What's the sky for?
| | 00:14 | What's the road in here for?
| | 00:15 | What's the fence in here for?
| | 00:17 | I've got all this extra stuff.
| | 00:18 | I need to simplify. Simplicity is
one of the hallmarks of a good image.
| | 00:24 | I'm going to go in closer here, and bang, I get this.
| | 00:29 | Okay this is a simpler image,
but I've got all those trees behind.
| | 00:32 | The trees don't serve any function,
so I am going to move over here.
| | 00:35 | Again, I am working very quickly because
the sun is going down very fast, and it's
| | 00:42 | not going to long much longer. Okay,
here is this one and this one, I'm too far
| | 00:49 | away again, and now I've got that
telephone pole back there. That's no good.
| | 00:53 | So I am going to come in closer, real
close, and I want to try and hide that
| | 00:58 | telephone pole behind the car.
| | 01:00 | I really like this brick right in
front, and the light's gotten really nice.
| | 01:04 | I am going to move around a few times
here and get a couple of different shots,
| | 01:09 | and this is what I've got.
| | 01:10 | One of these is definitely the keeper image.
| | 01:14 | Simplicity is essential to a good image
because it makes it more obvious to the
| | 01:20 | viewer exactly where their eyes should go.
| | 01:23 | Painters have it easy.
| | 01:24 | They, they've got to know how to
draw a straight line and all that, but
| | 01:27 | they start with a blank canvas and they add
only the things that they want to the image.
| | 01:32 | As photographers, we have
it a little more complicated.
| | 01:34 | We start with the entire world, and we
have to subtract from that scene the
| | 01:40 | things that we don't want,
| | 01:41 | in this case, the trees in the background,
telephone poles, and so on and so forth.
| | 01:45 | Now the difficulty about simplicity is,
as we have discussed, very often your
| | 01:51 | brain is able to focus your attention
into the scene, so while I am framing this
| | 01:54 | shot real wide, the camera may be
capturing a wide image with all this extra
| | 01:58 | stuff, but my brain is focusing
attention on the car, so I don't see that I have
| | 02:03 | actually got all this extra stuff around.
| | 02:05 | One of the easiest ways to get a
simpler image is frame your shot and then
| | 02:09 | trace your eye around the edge of the frame.
| | 02:11 | This will immediately cue you into oh
my gosh, I've got this sky in here,
| | 02:14 | I have got this telephone pole that I
didn't know was there, and so on and so forth.
| | 02:17 | I am sure you notice that one of the
first things I did after my initial shot
| | 02:21 | was I went in closer.
| | 02:22 | Closer is almost always a way to get
your image more simple because it will crop
| | 02:27 | a lot of things out of your scene.
| | 02:29 | Simplicity is going to be one of the
things that you kind of maybe not struggle
| | 02:32 | with the most, but most often find
yourself in post-production saying,
| | 02:36 | well, if I have got a little simpler on
this image, it would have worked better.
| | 02:39 | There are lots of ways that as
photographers we simplify images.
| | 02:42 | We can crop them differently.
| | 02:44 | We can use depth of field
effects to blur out the background.
| | 02:46 | We can use tonal effects to
highlight some things and not others.
| | 02:49 | However you choose to do it, it's
important to begin to practice and understand
| | 02:53 | how to get your image more simple so
that your subject is more pronounced.
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| Finding and capturing a good photo| 00:00 | How do you know what to shoot?
| | 00:02 | Where do you find subjects?
| | 00:03 | I live somewhat boring. What should I do?
| | 00:06 | I hear a lot of questions like
these from beginning students, and while
| | 00:09 | these questions aren't directly
related to composition, they do fall well
| | 00:12 | into the artistry domain.
| | 00:14 | Now the fact of the matter is,
good photos can happen anywhere.
| | 00:19 | Finding good photos is more often about
you, the photographer, than it is about
| | 00:23 | the location that you are in.
| | 00:25 | As I said earlier, you don't have to go
to an exotic locale or find some kind of
| | 00:29 | landmark spot or attend
a big event of some kind.
| | 00:33 | Last summer, during the Oklahoma
Summer Arts Institute, we had a high school
| | 00:37 | student in Ashley Hale.
| | 00:39 | We had been out shooting and Ashley was
back here in the lab working on her images.
| | 00:43 | I happened walking across the room
when I saw her get kind of bored with what
| | 00:46 | she was doing and she stopped and she grabbed a
plastic water bottle and took a drink out of it.
| | 00:51 | And as she was taking the bottle away,
from her mouth, she looked at it again and
| | 00:55 | then she drained the bottle and grabbed
her camera. And as I watched, I saw her
| | 00:59 | hold the bottle up in front of the
computer monitor and start shooting.
| | 01:04 | She put it all down, took her card out,
stuck it in the computer, processed it, and
| | 01:08 | immediately had this image.
| | 01:10 | I really like this picture.
| | 01:11 | It's very abstract, but I
really like the light in it.
| | 01:13 | But what I think I like the most about
it is the more you look at it the more
| | 01:16 | you realize well, I recognize that shape.
After all, how often have we all take a
| | 01:20 | drink from a plastic water bottle and
looked down the length and seen those
| | 01:24 | concentric circles that she captured.
| | 01:26 | She found a great shot
without even leaving her chair.
| | 01:31 | If you worked through the previous
chapter then you already explored some of
| | 01:35 | the fundamentals of seeing.
| | 01:37 | In other movies throughout this course,
we're going to talk about how you go
| | 01:40 | from an initial impulse about a
scene to working it into a final shot.
| | 01:45 | We are also going to talk about how
you can give yourself assignments and
| | 01:50 | practice very specific things which
will help you find subject matter.
| | 01:54 | Now while there are tricks that can
make it easier to find subject matter, to
| | 01:58 | really have success as a photographer,
you simply need to have your eyes open.
| | 02:03 | You need to know that subject matter
can be found anywhere, even when you're
| | 02:07 | doing something as simple
as taking a drink of water.
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| Working the shot: Why one is never enough| 00:00 | We live in a world that's pretty
saturated with images, with really beautiful
| | 00:04 | images a lot of times, and it can be
a little difficult for the learning
| | 00:09 | photographer to realize just how much
work goes into a lot of those beautiful
| | 00:13 | finished images they see in news magazines
or National Geographic, things like that.
| | 00:18 | No National Geographic goes on
assignment to shoot the Great Pyramid or
| | 00:22 | whatever, gets off the plane in Egypt,
walks out, sees the pyramid, thinks
| | 00:25 | about it, sets up their camera and goes,
click, "Okay, I've got the shot, I'm going home."
| | 00:29 | It doesn't work that way. They shoot
lots of lots of pictures. They shoot dozens
| | 00:33 | of pictures, hundreds of pictures,
hoping to get down to those twelve to thirteen that might
| | 00:38 | go in a magazine article.
| | 00:39 | This is a process called working the
shot, and it's something that you have
| | 00:43 | to start doing if you want to get good
composition, if you want to get good exposure.
| | 00:47 | Working the shot is critical to finding
the image that's really there after you
| | 00:52 | had an impulse that there is
a photo there of some kind.
| | 00:54 | A lot of people kind of naturally
resist shooting a lot, because when you get
| | 00:59 | home, you've got all of these images
and most of them are bad, and so you feel
| | 01:02 | like oh, wow, I shot fifty images today,
and there're only two that I like.
| | 01:06 | Now, two out of fifty is a good ratio.
| | 01:08 | If you think about it, you would never
walk into a painter's studio and see a lot
| | 01:12 | of sketches on the floor, and one finish
painting and go, I don't know, you only
| | 01:15 | got one out of these dozens
of sketches that are here.
| | 01:18 | Those sketches lead up to the finished
painting; that's what working the shot is.
| | 01:23 | It's the way you discover the image,
it's the way you sketch the image, it's the
| | 01:27 | way refine the image.
| | 01:28 | So, I want to show you an
example of that right now.
| | 01:30 | I'm out here outside of a lodge and
it's late in the day, so I'm going to move
| | 01:35 | pretty quickly here to get through this.
| | 01:36 | And there is this wonderful cement path
going off this way and there's a shadow
| | 01:40 | being cast by the bridge over here alongside it.
| | 01:43 | I really like the relationship of
these two things. They are kind of
| | 01:45 | similar shape. They're going off in
this V sort of thing. One is really
| | 01:49 | dark, one is really light.
| | 01:51 | I'm shooting black and white, so I'm
thinking I can exaggerate that darkness and
| | 01:54 | lightness even more, so I just
need to find the right framing.
| | 01:56 | Now, I'm standing right
here at the apex of them,
| | 01:59 | so this seems like this
might be pretty dramatic.
| | 02:01 | I've got one going off this
way, one going off this way.
| | 02:03 | I'm shooting at a pretty wide angle to
exaggerate that some, and I'm going to take my shot.
| | 02:08 | Yeah, and that's kind of boring.
| | 02:11 | I can't really see it there. I'm seeing
it kind of going off this way and kind
| | 02:16 | of going off that way. It's not
as dramatic as I thought it was.
| | 02:18 | So, I might consider zooming in a
little bit tighter, maybe moving back and
| | 02:24 | zooming in a little bit tighter again.
| | 02:26 | These are mostly the same, as you
can see. There's nothing real dramatic.
| | 02:31 | The key to working the shot
is to feel your feet moving.
| | 02:34 | If your feet are not moving,
you're not working the shot.
| | 02:37 | So, I'm going to get mine moving by going
this way, and come out here and see what I see.
| | 02:42 | So, now I'm seeing the road. I'm not
seeing the path as much, because it's
| | 02:46 | leading directly away from me, and it's
starting off down this hill, so that's
| | 02:50 | hiding it and there's a
big tree in the middle of it--
| | 02:52 | that's not helping. That's blocking my view.
| | 02:54 | So, this doesn't work. I'm going to
go this way and see what I can find.
| | 02:57 | Again, I'm moving kind of fast
because the sun is sinking pretty quickly.
| | 03:03 | This is a little bit interesting,
except now, now I'm down too low.
| | 03:08 | I'm looking along the path.
| | 03:09 | I can't see it as well, and
this shadow is really dominating.
| | 03:12 | I would like to be taller
and I'm very fortunate in that
| | 03:17 | I'm standing just below a balcony
that's overlooking this whole thing.
| | 03:21 | So, and it's pointed in the right direction.
| | 03:23 | I've got a little sunlight left. I'm going
to head up there and see what I can find.
| | 03:27 | Okay, so, we're up quite a bit higher now.
| | 03:29 | I'm hoping this is going to make a difference.
| | 03:30 | If I sound frantic, that's because
the sun's going over the mountains.
| | 03:34 | Here's a quick little tip for
knowing how much time you have.
| | 03:38 | Hold your hand at arm's length. The
number of fingers between the bottom of the
| | 03:43 | sun and the horizon,
| | 03:44 | it's about seven minutes per fingers.
| | 03:45 | So, I got about twenty minutes
here. I'm doing pretty good.
| | 03:48 | So, if I come over here to the edge and
take a look at where I'm at, right away
| | 03:52 | I can tell we're really getting somewhere now.
| | 03:55 | I can get a clear view of both the road
and the shadow and even the bridge, if I
| | 04:00 | want to play with that,
| | 04:01 | so I've got three elements
that I can work with here.
| | 04:03 | But something really interesting is
happening, and this is why we work the shot.
| | 04:06 | A new element has presented itself
that I never saw in the first place, and
| | 04:10 | that's a street sign that's down there
that's kind of sitting right at the
| | 04:12 | apex of the two lines.
| | 04:15 | So that might be something interesting.
| | 04:17 | So, I'm going to shoot.
| | 04:17 | I'm going to shoot in both orientations,
because I'm not sure what might be better.
| | 04:23 | I'm also bracketing my depth of field.
| | 04:25 | I'm shooting at F/11;
I want all of this in focus.
| | 04:28 | So I'm putting my focus point either
closer out or further in to move my depth
| | 04:32 | of field around to ensure that things
up close they're going to be in focus.
| | 04:35 | Still the shots are--I don't know,
they're okay, but they're kind of--
| | 04:39 | they're kind of not okay.
| | 04:41 | So, I'm going to keep working it.
| | 04:43 | If I come over here, I'm thinking
maybe I take the bridge out completely.
| | 04:46 | Simplify is of course our mantra,
so maybe I get rid of the bridge and
| | 04:51 | work with just the lines.
| | 04:52 | That's not bad, except the
bridge shadow is kind of big.
| | 04:57 | I'm getting some extra shadow.
| | 04:58 | So, I'm going to try going this way.
| | 05:00 | And again, my feet are moving.
| | 05:02 | That's the clue that I'm working the
shot, and this is what you should be doing
| | 05:05 | no matter what you're shooting.
| | 05:08 | You want to have your feet moving.
You want to be looking to find the shot.
| | 05:11 | Again, think of it as sketching.
| | 05:13 | As I'm sketching, I've added this new element.
| | 05:16 | I'm playing with the lines in different
ways, working up to my final shot, and I
| | 05:22 | think that this is it.
| | 05:24 | Let's do a black-and-white conversion on
this, and we end with this, our final image.
| | 05:27 | You can see I played with the tones
some to play up that relationship that I
| | 05:31 | had originally seen, but this is a
composition that's very different than what I
| | 05:35 | had originally envisioned when I
was standing down there. I worked it.
| | 05:38 | I worked my way through
and discovered this shot.
| | 05:41 | I've got a whole bunch of other
pictures that are technically not any good, but
| | 05:45 | they served the purpose;
they got me through to this.
| | 05:48 | I could not envision this in my head
initially. And you may think, well, if
| | 05:51 | you're a good photographer, you would
have been able to see that in your head.
| | 05:54 | That's just not how it works.
| | 05:55 | Sometimes you get that, sometimes you
have the moment, the inspiration where you
| | 05:59 | do see it in your head perfectly
realized, and you take it. Most of the time
| | 06:02 | though, we work the shot.
| | 06:04 | You're going to see me doing this
throughout the rest of the course.
| | 06:06 | You're going to hear me nagging you about it.
| | 06:08 | I promise you, until you really have
experienced it some, you're just not going
| | 06:12 | to be shooting enough.
| | 06:13 | You've got to always work it
more, work a little deeper.
| | 06:17 | One of the easiest ways to work the
shot that's kind of most immediately
| | 06:21 | effective is to try moving
closer to your subject right away.
| | 06:24 | Very often you'll see a scene--maybe not
a big landscape like this--you'll take a
| | 06:28 | shot, and the solution to the shot is to get
them a little bit closer. It inherently simplifies the image;
| | 06:33 | it's a very good initial working.
| | 06:35 | So practice that with all of the
exercises that we're going to be sending you
| | 06:38 | out on during this course.
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| Practicing | 00:00 | I have had the great good fortune to
work with a number of people at the top of
| | 00:03 | their fields, and whether they were
writers or musicians or photographers, they
| | 00:07 | all have one thing in common--
a profound ability to focus.
| | 00:11 | There's no way around it: if you want to get
really good at something, you have to practice a lot.
| | 00:14 | And you've got to practice in a very focused way.
| | 00:17 | And the easiest way to lose focus is
to start thinking about yourself rather
| | 00:22 | than the task at hand.
| | 00:23 | Let me tell you what I mean.
| | 00:24 | I am sure you've experienced
this, because I know I have.
| | 00:27 | You are out shooting and
maybe it's not going so great.
| | 00:30 | You're not like anything that you're shooting.
| | 00:32 | You don't feel like you're seeing
anything, or you feel like you're only shooting
| | 00:35 | the same things you already shot before,
and so you started thinking, maybe I
| | 00:39 | am not really a good photographer.
| | 00:41 | Maybe I just got lucky before. Maybe
it's all been the auto mode on my camera
| | 00:45 | or just events were
inspiring to make me look good.
| | 00:49 | At that point, you've lost focus.
| | 00:51 | You are really not thinking
about photography at that point.
| | 00:53 | You're thinking about yourself.
| | 00:55 | When you feel yourself doing that, try
to recommit to the task at hand, try to
| | 01:00 | recommit to that whole photography thing.
| | 01:02 | Being able to recognize that you're
doing that is possibly a way out of all that
| | 01:07 | narcissistic thinking and getting
back into photographic thinking.
| | 01:11 | And sometimes the best way to do that
is to stop and go, all right, I am not
| | 01:14 | focusing. I'm going to go back to basics.
| | 01:16 | Don't try to feel your way through
things anymore; start thinking again about
| | 01:19 | these compositional building
blocks we have been talking about.
| | 01:21 | Start thinking of light as subjects,
start thing about looking for lines, all of
| | 01:25 | these things that we've been talking
about. That can get you out of your head and
| | 01:28 | out of that self-critical
non-focused place and back into photography.
| | 01:33 | They say practice makes perfect, and
actually I don't buy that. Only perfect
| | 01:36 | practice makes perfect.
| | 01:37 | If you don't feel like
practicing, you shouldn't be,
| | 01:40 | because by then, at that time you're
probably just going by rote, just going
| | 01:44 | through the motions and you're not
really getting anything out of it.
| | 01:47 | One possible suggestion for
practicing is to decide how much you want to
| | 01:51 | practice every day or every other day or
how often you feel like you want to practice.
| | 01:54 | Maybe you say I want to practice for
an hour, three times a week. Great!
| | 01:58 | Get a timer of some kind and start
keeping track of how much you are practicing.
| | 02:01 | Go out shooting and if you start
feeling like you're not getting anything, if
| | 02:05 | you start feeling like you've lost it, like
you're not able to maintain focus, then stop.
| | 02:09 | There is no need to keep pounding your
head against the wall, but take note of
| | 02:11 | how long you were doing it.
| | 02:13 | Maybe you managed to get
fifteen minutes of good time.
| | 02:15 | Take a break from it then.
| | 02:17 | Go back and practice more later until
you have gotten that hour in. It doesn't
| | 02:21 | do you any good to be practicing
in a continually unfocused manner.
| | 02:25 | I would also like to offer a
suggestion that there are ways to learn besides
| | 02:29 | just taking pictures.
| | 02:31 | Looking at the work of other
photographers is very, very important.
| | 02:34 | Find photographers you like. Get their work.
| | 02:36 | With the Internet it's great.
| | 02:37 | You get a free access to so much stuff.
| | 02:40 | Check out books out of the library.
| | 02:42 | Once you have found some photographers
you like, start taking apart their styles.
| | 02:45 | Start trying to figure out how their
images work and go try to shoot that way.
| | 02:49 | Very often you will find yourself
realizing, oh, they have made this decision
| | 02:53 | this way and that decision that way,
and you'll start to feel an understanding
| | 02:57 | of oh, these decisions in this way
add up to this style that they have.
| | 03:02 | Knowing what it feels like to have a
decision-making process that leads to a
| | 03:05 | style might then make you think, oh,
well, if I start making these decisions
| | 03:09 | that I already make and maybe I add
one or two others, I might be on to
| | 03:12 | something that I can follow and work.
| | 03:15 | Practicing is very important, but you
need to be a little bit thoughtful and a
| | 03:18 | little bit self-aware of the way that
you are practicing and make sure that
| | 03:21 | it's something that really is productive.
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| Why black and white?| 00:00 | As I mentioned earlier, for most of the
exercises in this course I want you to
| | 00:04 | be shooting in black and white.
| | 00:07 | Now if you've never worked in black
and white before, that may sound like
| | 00:09 | a rather odd choice.
| | 00:11 | But when you're shooting black and white,
you reduce the world to tone and line
| | 00:15 | and form, and that can
make composition much easier.
| | 00:19 | To be honest, color can be hard, as it
adds an entire extra layer of information
| | 00:24 | to your image, both in terms
of composition and overall feel.
| | 00:28 | By removing color from the equation,
we strip composition down to its most
| | 00:32 | fundamental, most essential components.
| | 00:35 | You can learn everything you need to
know about shooting and processing black and
| | 00:39 | white images in my course
Foundations of Photography: Black & White.
| | 00:43 | Whether you have seen that course or not,
let me reiterate a couple of essential
| | 00:47 | black-and-white concepts.
| | 00:49 | First, there is no objective
relationship between any particular color and any
| | 00:54 | particular shade of gray.
| | 00:56 | In other words, a blue sky can be
represented with any shade of gray, from dark to light.
| | 01:02 | This is a big part of the
creative power of black-and-white shooting.
| | 01:05 | Because you can determine which shade
of gray a particular color is, you can
| | 01:09 | play different tonal values against
each other in a way that you can't do when
| | 01:14 | you're shooting color.
| | 01:15 | This opens up a whole new set of
additional compositional options.
| | 01:19 | You don't have to be able to imagine the
world in black and white or see the scene
| | 01:24 | you are shooting in your
mind's eye in perfect grayscale.
| | 01:26 | You simply need to learn how to
recognize tonal relationships that will make
| | 01:30 | good black-and-white images.
| | 01:32 | When you start taking note of these
things, you'll probably start seeing new
| | 01:36 | types of compositional potential, as
you recognize the ability to play one
| | 01:40 | tone off of another.
| | 01:42 | Finally, if your camera has a special
black-and-white mode or a black-and-white
| | 01:47 | picture style or a black-and-white
picture control, do not use it.
| | 01:51 | The ability to control the conversion
from color to grayscale is one of the most
| | 01:55 | important aspects of black-and-white shooting.
| | 01:58 | If you hand that control over to the
camera, you're giving up one of your most
| | 02:02 | important creative powers.
| | 02:03 | So instead of using those features,
shoot in color and do the conversion
| | 02:07 | yourself in your image editor.
| | 02:09 | There's nothing tricky about working in
black and white; in fact, once you start
| | 02:13 | seeing the composition potential and
freedom of working in black and white, you
| | 02:17 | might find that you want to start
working that way far more often.
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| Exercise: Practicing the fundamentals with points| 00:01 | Subject and background, balance,
point of view, and simplicity.
| | 00:04 | It's time to take these four
fundamental compositional ideas out for a spin.
| | 00:09 | You'll continue to explore these ideas,
practice these ideas, and learn new
| | 00:14 | things about these four ideas for as
long as you continue to take pictures,
| | 00:18 | but in order to work quickly and
efficiently, and to be able to capture moments
| | 00:22 | in a rapidly changing environment, you
need to have a deep enough a feel for
| | 00:25 | these concepts that you don't have
to think about them too much, if at all,
| | 00:29 | and that comes through repetition and practice.
| | 00:32 | You can of course simply
go out and take pictures,
| | 00:34 | but very often it's nice to give
yourself an assignment. Having the entire
| | 00:38 | world open to you, it can be overwhelming.
Where do you start, how do you even see anything?
| | 00:44 | Giving yourself an assignment can
hone your attention and make it easier to
| | 00:48 | see potential shots.
| | 00:50 | You can easily create
assignments for yourself at anytime.
| | 00:52 | "Today I'm going to photograph bicycles,"
and then you can set off to try to find
| | 00:56 | interesting pictures that involve
bicycles. Or even give yourself a more
| | 01:00 | abstract assignment.
| | 01:01 | "Today I am going to shoot trouble," and
you can choose to define that in any way
| | 01:06 | that you like or in any way that strikes you.
| | 01:09 | I keep three assignments going for
myself that I return to anytime I want to
| | 01:12 | go shooting but feel stuck or
unsure what I want to do: my city, my
| | 01:17 | neighborhood, and my street.
| | 01:19 | My city is the easiest, my neighborhood
is harder, and my street is the hardest,
| | 01:23 | because as I further constrain my
geography, I have to dig deeper to try to
| | 01:27 | concoct an interesting image.
| | 01:29 | When the bulk of your day-to-day
shooting options are at home, in your
| | 01:32 | neighborhood, around your town,
places that you see every day, whether you're
| | 01:36 | shooting or not, it's easy to go numb,
to lose your ability to see because
| | 01:40 | things are too familiar, to simply get bored.
| | 01:44 | The scene discussions and exercises
that we looked at earlier can help with
| | 01:47 | that, but so can giving yourself an assignment.
| | 01:49 | It's a great thing to do if you feel stuck.
| | 01:52 | Note too that you can return to
an assignment anytime you want.
| | 01:54 | You could keep returning to your
trouble assignment for years and slowly build
| | 01:59 | up a body of work around that idea.
| | 02:01 | You can travel with your assignment and
maybe spend a day of vacation working on it.
| | 02:05 | You might find that this gives you
a very different view of a place.
| | 02:10 | Right now, I'm going to give you an
assignment directly related to composition.
| | 02:14 | What you choose to shoot is often
driven by emotion; you have a feeling about
| | 02:17 | something or an interest in something, and
you want to express that through an image.
| | 02:21 | Composition though, is almost
entirely based upon geometry.
| | 02:24 | I'll say almost because as we'll see
there are some places where compositional
| | 02:28 | choices are based on image content.
| | 02:30 | Mostly though, it's just geometry, just form.
| | 02:33 | Geometry starts with the point.
| | 02:36 | The point is the simplest form of
geometry and to a degree you can choose to
| | 02:40 | interpret that word however you like.
| | 02:42 | As you can see in these images though,
I'm picking up point as a discrete object
| | 02:46 | or geometric form that is fairly small
in the frame and has compositional weight
| | 02:51 | of some kind. That could be a shape or
tonal difference that sets off the point
| | 02:56 | from the background.
| | 02:58 | The point object doesn't
have to be interesting itself;
| | 03:00 | rather, it can serve as an anchor in
your image, from a place from which the
| | 03:04 | viewer's eye can then explore other
more interesting objects in your scene.
| | 03:08 | Look for point subjects and try
to compose some shots around them.
| | 03:12 | In the process, remember those four essentials.
| | 03:15 | You need a clearly
defined subject and background.
| | 03:18 | Whether the subject is
the point or something else
| | 03:20 | doesn't matter as long as the
subject is obvious to the viewer.
| | 03:24 | Your composition is to be balanced.
| | 03:26 | Points are great for balancing another
object in a wide-open space where you
| | 03:30 | otherwise might have a weighty subject
that's throwing off the balance of the image.
| | 03:35 | Consider the point of view in your image.
| | 03:37 | The point exercise is a great chance
for you to explore smaller, more mundane
| | 03:41 | subjects that you might
not normally photographic.
| | 03:43 | You can find compositional points in
lots of places if you start changing
| | 03:48 | your point of view.
| | 03:49 | Finally, remember to find ways to cut
out all extraneous visual information and
| | 03:54 | aim for a simple image.
| | 03:56 | Points are fairly simple geometric forms,
so this is a good chance to work with
| | 03:59 | simple pared-down compositions.
| | 04:02 | Remember to work your shots a lot.
Move around. Try putting the points in
| | 04:07 | different places in the frame.
| | 04:08 | Try different focal lengths to alter
the spatial relationship between the
| | 04:12 | foreground and background.
| | 04:13 | Come back with lots of pictures.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Geometry: Lines and ShapesLines| 00:01 | We have already worked with points.
| | 00:02 | In this chapter, we are going to be
exploring lots of other kinds of geometry,
| | 00:06 | starting with lines.
| | 00:08 | Lines are probably the most prevalent
geometric form that you will encounter,
| | 00:12 | and they are one of the most interesting to
work with, because they can be very dynamic.
| | 00:16 | Here you can see on the bridge we have
got lots of strong diagonal lines. We
| | 00:19 | have got lines cutting across the frame.
| | 00:21 | Some of these lines are being created
by the structure of the bridge itself.
| | 00:25 | Other lines are being created by
the shadows cast by that structure.
| | 00:29 | Again, when we were thinking about
composition, we are not always concerned
| | 00:33 | about what a particular thing is,
but simply the geometry itself.
| | 00:36 | So the structural lines are no more
important or less important than the shadow lines.
| | 00:42 | Lines can be very useful because they
can provide a very strong way of leading
| | 00:46 | the viewer's eye into and out of the
picture. And, as we are seeing here, when I
| | 00:51 | get repeating lines, I start
getting a nice rhythm through my image.
| | 00:55 | These are very strong structural man-made lines.
| | 00:59 | You will also maybe find softer, more
natural lines, particularly if you are
| | 01:03 | shooting landscapes.
| | 01:04 | Sometimes, as we'll see later, lines
are inferred by other repeating elements.
| | 01:10 | Lines of course come in lots of
shapes and sizes and tones and colors, and
| | 01:16 | here's an instance where I've got two lines
that are contrasting both in their shapes--
| | 01:20 | they are creating these mirror image shapes--
| | 01:22 | but they are also a little bit
contrasting in terms of their tone.
| | 01:25 | This is predominantly a black line.
This is predominately a white line.
| | 01:29 | There are two ways that you can use
these building-block ideas that we are
| | 01:34 | covering. Things like points and lines
and shapes and the other things that we
| | 01:38 | are going over in this course can
be employed in two different ways.
| | 01:42 | First, when you see something that
you want to photograph, when you see an
| | 01:46 | interesting subject and you think, wow,
look at that thing, I really want to
| | 01:50 | shoot it, I don't have the
foggiest idea where to begin,
| | 01:51 | you can fall back on this theory.
| | 01:53 | You can say, are there any interesting
lines in the image that I can work with,
| | 01:56 | are there interesting shapes?
| | 01:58 | And from there, you can begin to hone in
on a good framing for your shot. Or you
| | 02:03 | can do what has happened here.
| | 02:05 | I am walking through this burned-out forest.
| | 02:07 | I didn't actually see anything that
was a particularly compelling subject.
| | 02:10 | I didn't know how to shoot a burned-out forest,
| | 02:14 | so I went into a purely theoretical
mode and said, what's conspicuous here are
| | 02:18 | all of these black trees.
Are there interesting lines anywhere?
| | 02:21 | And I found these two.
| | 02:23 | So this is a case of I've stopped
seeing the actual subject matter and I am
| | 02:27 | looking purely at a compositional
idea, which is the idea of a line.
| | 02:31 | So this is the second way that I can use
these building blocks to improve my composition.
| | 02:37 | So in this case, I am now no
longer seeing a burned-out forest;
| | 02:40 | I am just seeing these two lines.
| | 02:43 | The viewer can then anchor themselves
in this compositional idea. They can
| | 02:47 | go, oh, wow, you know, look at this
interesting shape here or these interesting tones.
| | 02:51 | Later, from there, they can move on to,
this is a burned-out floor, this is a
| | 02:55 | burned-out forest. So it's still a
picture of this thing, but the entry point
| | 02:59 | for the viewer is
simply a compositional idea.
| | 03:02 | We've got the same thing going on
here. Walking down the street there's
| | 03:04 | nothing necessarily that interesting
about where I was, but I was really taken
| | 03:09 | by the repetition and graphical
strength of these lines, and so I framed to
| | 03:13 | the shot and took it.
| | 03:15 | This is a case where pure
compositional idea is giving me subject matter.
| | 03:21 | A street that would otherwise be
interesting if I was simply looking for what's
| | 03:25 | a good thing to shoot,
| | 03:26 | suddenly that street has
something in it to shoot.
| | 03:29 | It's got this compositional idea of line.
| | 03:32 | Same thing here. This is the side of a
grain silo. Not that interesting on its
| | 03:37 | own, but shooting up the ladder like
this with all these lines, it becomes much
| | 03:42 | more compelling, simply driven
by the compositional play of line.
| | 03:47 | Lines can be implied.
| | 03:49 | Here's a case where I have true lines
that are very strong, these diagonal lines,
| | 03:53 | but the focus of the image, the anchor
of the image is this implied line created
| | 03:58 | by these nails that are
coming out of the boards.
| | 04:01 | Here's a case where I was struck
first by the moon being up and wanted to
| | 04:06 | compose around it, and I liked the
tree here, out on its own, just next to this
| | 04:11 | building and this strange light pole
just here in the middle of nowhere.
| | 04:15 | I am showing this to you in color
because we are going to go through kind of
| | 04:18 | the process that I was working through, and of
course, I am seeing the image in color as I go.
| | 04:23 | So I thought I like this strong line here.
| | 04:26 | I can use it maybe to kind of anchor
or frame some of these other elements.
| | 04:30 | So I tried a couple of different ideas
and finally came back to this one. As I
| | 04:36 | had moved over from this position, if I
take a few steps to the left, I get to
| | 04:42 | here, and I have lost the moon.
| | 04:44 | And that's okay. My original--or is that it
right there--there we go.
| | 04:47 | I have zoomed out so far I can barely see the moon.
| | 04:50 | So I've given up on my original idea
because it's been supplanted by the idea
| | 04:55 | that this pole and its wire can be
turned into a single individual line.
| | 05:02 | Now I have tilted the frame this way
because I'm no longer thinking about the
| | 05:05 | reality of the situation;
| | 05:06 | I am thinking only about this line, and I
wanted it to be parallel to the edge of
| | 05:10 | the frame to really play up
its strength as a graphic element.
| | 05:14 | And once I convert to black and white,
it becomes even more pronounced.
| | 05:18 | And I knew that while I was shooting,
that I was going to be able to put this
| | 05:20 | black line against a white sky and
create a strong graphic element, which
| | 05:25 | further takes the moon
completely out of the picture.
| | 05:27 | So sometimes your initial impulse is not
the one that you end up with, and that's fine.
| | 05:31 | Here is a nice curly line, made of
purely of a shadow as this stream
| | 05:39 | winds through this field.
| | 05:42 | It's a fairly simple composition.
| | 05:44 | The line which is truly the subject
of the image is just placed bang in the
| | 05:47 | center of the frame.
| | 05:48 | Remember, don't get fancy if you don't
have to; sometimes the subject matter
| | 05:53 | can stand on its own.
| | 05:55 | Here are a whole lot of lines, all
leading in kind of the same direction.
| | 05:58 | What I was building on here was first,
as the sun was setting, I was just seeing
| | 06:02 | all these wonderful lines being thrown around.
| | 06:04 | I looked for something that I could
play off of the lines and decided, well,
| | 06:09 | these little two trees could
actually serve as a subject of the image.
| | 06:12 | And that's what they are.
| | 06:13 | The trees are the subject
of this image, not the lines.
| | 06:16 | But the lines are serving a critical
compositional function, which is that all
| | 06:21 | of these lines are
leading my eye right into here.
| | 06:23 | I've got the curve of these ruts
from some tires, and I have got these
| | 06:29 | shadows coming along here.
| | 06:30 | So I've actually got two different
kinds of lines all serving to lead the
| | 06:34 | eye to those trees.
| | 06:36 | So sometimes the lines are actually
the subject of your image; sometimes you
| | 06:40 | compose them around to
buttress other compositional ideas.
| | 06:46 | As I said, lines, shapes, points, all these
ideas can be used in a couple of different ways.
| | 06:51 | You can use them to try to figure out
how to make an interesting shot out of a
| | 06:55 | particular thing, or, once you're seeing
line, you may find that lines themselves
| | 07:01 | are interesting and that you're seeing
subject matter in a milieu that otherwise
| | 07:06 | would have been empty.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Analyzing lines| 00:01 | Lines are great compositional elements,
and there are lots of ways that you can
| | 00:04 | use them to drive focus and
attention and balance your frame.
| | 00:09 | You had to be very careful though,
because a very subtle difference in
| | 00:12 | positioning of a line from one place to
another can make a huge impact on your photo.
| | 00:16 | You want to be careful about how lines
intersect, how they blend together, and
| | 00:20 | even a slight camera motion can change that.
| | 00:22 | Let's look at some examples.
| | 00:24 | Our first example here is a
composition that's not really built around any
| | 00:29 | idea of line, but rather about shapes,
the shapes of these three refrigerators.
| | 00:34 | What struck me about this scene is that
when I walked into the room they looked
| | 00:37 | like big giant beings of some kind,
big robots or something, that the
| | 00:42 | refrigerators were secretly
gathering here for some sinister meeting or
| | 00:46 | something like that.
| | 00:47 | So I wanted to get a sense of them as
these big things kind of hanging out.
| | 00:51 | They have some personality to them.
| | 00:52 | So I decided to go to a wide-angle
lens, a very short focal length, and get
| | 00:56 | really close. That
exaggerates the lines in the image.
| | 00:59 | I get these nice receding lines that
makes the refrigerators tower over me a
| | 01:03 | little bit. I like that.
| | 01:05 | This image has a problem though, and
that is that this line right here on this
| | 01:09 | refrigerator is intersecting perfectly with
this line in the window and I don't like that.
| | 01:14 | I don't like that because as I'm
shooting this, ultimately I have already
| | 01:17 | decided that this is going
to be a black-and-white image.
| | 01:20 | And when it goes to black and white, I'm
going to have more trouble separating the
| | 01:24 | foreground from the background.
| | 01:25 | Right now we know that this wall is
not part of this refrigerator because
| | 01:29 | it's a different color.
| | 01:30 | When I go to black and white, that's
going to be harder to see. Now you may
| | 01:34 | say, oh, come on. Anyone who looks at this knows
that that's a refrigerator and that's a wall.
| | 01:37 | Yes, that's true, but still, the more you
can do to give the viewer an immediate
| | 01:43 | understanding of shape and relationship
of shapes and forms in the scene to each
| | 01:47 | other, the better off you are going to be.
| | 01:49 | That when this go black and white, this
one continuous line is possibly going to
| | 01:53 | confuse, just for a moment, what the
relationship is of different objects within the scene.
| | 01:59 | It's a very easy thing to fix.
| | 02:00 | I just shift a little bit to the right
and that line is broken, and now there's a
| | 02:03 | slightly better sense of separation
between the wall and refrigerator, and that
| | 02:07 | gives me a little bit more of an
understanding of depth in the scene.
| | 02:10 | Again, that's with the lines
intersecting and that's shifted a little bit.
| | 02:14 | Then I decided to try this.
| | 02:16 | I stood up higher, or actually I stood up.
I was crouched down before. I stood up,
| | 02:20 | and what I was liking about this
was I get some additional shape.
| | 02:23 | I get these planes on the top of the
refrigerators, and I get, because of my
| | 02:27 | wide-angle lens, all of
these nice receding lines.
| | 02:30 | And it changes them.
| | 02:31 | They are now not so menacing; now
they're just kind of these things that met
| | 02:34 | here for maybe a meeting
that's not quite so sinister.
| | 02:37 | But I didn't like this being cropped off,
so I shifted little bit to frame that
| | 02:42 | up there, and this is looking better.
| | 02:44 | I don't really have any intersections
that I need to worry about. That one right
| | 02:48 | there doesn't really bother me so much.
| | 02:50 | This is going to be tonally
much darker than the refrigerator.
| | 02:54 | I have got too much space over here, so
center up the image a little bit. That
| | 02:57 | kills some of the bright
space that was over here.
| | 03:00 | This is pretty white.
That's often an eye magnet.
| | 03:02 | I am really facing a
high-dynamic range situation here.
| | 03:05 | The line outside these windows is
very bright, so cropping that out helps.
| | 03:10 | Continuing to work with the shot though,
I think well, what about these doors?
| | 03:13 | They open, so I opened the
door and got back down low.
| | 03:17 | This didn't really work for me
because before I had it just about the
| | 03:20 | refrigerators, and now it's like
there's this other thing in the scene, which
| | 03:23 | is this big door, that because of my wide-
angle lens, is really overpowering the scene.
| | 03:29 | I like the exaggerated lines here,
the stretching of the door, but I've
| | 03:33 | lost focus in the image.
| | 03:35 | My eye doesn't really know where to go,
so I closed that door and opened the
| | 03:39 | middle one, and that's
maybe a little more interesting.
| | 03:42 | I don't know. But I'm back to an
intersection problem: this line is
| | 03:46 | now interfering again.
| | 03:48 | So I'm going to shift a little bit to
break that up, and that's looking better.
| | 03:53 | And yes, I am thinking
about this while I'm shooting.
| | 03:56 | What you're hearing now is my thought
process as I'm going through. And I'm
| | 04:00 | not shooting quickly; I'm having to stop and
really look at all of these lines in the scene.
| | 04:05 | Now this intersection here is not so
bad because of the brightness. I'm maybe a
| | 04:10 | little worried about that
intersection there, but overall, I think that
| | 04:13 | works. Tilt up a little bit to get
myself a little more space there and
| | 04:18 | break things up a little bit.
| | 04:19 | So I'm shooting fairly slowly.
| | 04:21 | I've got all the time in the world,
because these refrigerators aren't going
| | 04:24 | anywhere obviously; they
have been here for quite a while.
| | 04:26 | I have got all the time in the world
to really stop and look at all of these
| | 04:30 | different lines and make very tiny
shifts in either just the way that I'm
| | 04:35 | holding the camera--sometimes the
shifts are so small, that all I have to do
| | 04:37 | is move my head a little bit to the left.
Sometimes I actually got to move my feet around.
| | 04:42 | It's very, very important to pay
attention to intersection and relationship of
| | 04:46 | lines in your image.
| | 04:48 | So let's look at another example. Again,
| | 04:49 | this is not built necessarily around
lines, although there are strong lines in
| | 04:53 | the image, these big lines
in the trees and the mailbox.
| | 04:57 | This was my initial hit on the scene, but I
didn't like all of this bright space over here.
| | 05:02 | I was afraid it was an eye magnet. I was
afraid if it was a little distracting.
| | 05:06 | So I cropped over here, which gets rid
of that distracting white bit that was
| | 05:11 | over here and gets my focus more
over here, but I just don't like the
| | 05:16 | intersection of the edge of the
tree with the edge of the frame.
| | 05:19 | I have cropped too far.
| | 05:21 | Another line, though, is starting to
present itself that I am liking, which is
| | 05:24 | this big circle here, or an arc here,
and this is kind of with this line in here,
| | 05:31 | serving to create an overall thing in
here that's kind of working for me.
| | 05:36 | Another camera shift. This is
better, but I am still working my shot.
| | 05:41 | This space is back, it's bright, but
it is not too bright and distracting.
| | 05:44 | Now this one just didn't work
because there was a lens flare.
| | 05:47 | Very important to pay attention to
that when you're shooting into the sun.
| | 05:50 | At this point, I needed to either move
or shield the lens with my hand, so I
| | 05:55 | come to here, and I am liking this pretty well.
| | 05:58 | I've tilted down a little bit to
break up some of this bright stuff.
| | 06:02 | The tree is not interfering
with the edge of the frame.
| | 06:04 | I have still got these
lines all nicely arranged.
| | 06:07 | And when I go to black and white, I get this.
| | 06:10 | So again, I'm not--this, what we are
talking about here is not analysis that I
| | 06:15 | do after the fact. I'm not looking at this going,
oh look, these lines happen to work together.
| | 06:19 | I'm actually thinking about that stuff
while I'm shooting, and I'm adjusting my
| | 06:24 | shot, my camera position, on the fly, to
really make sure that the relationships
| | 06:29 | of my lines are what they need to
be to serve my compositional goals.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring a town| 00:01 | Behind me and all around me
is the town of Mangum, Oklahoma.
| | 00:05 | It's a little town about ten miles
from the Quartz Mountain State Park Lodge
| | 00:08 | where we have been staying.
| | 00:10 | It's a little farming town that, to be
honest, has seen better economic times.
| | 00:14 | There used to be two railroads running
through town so they could ship out lots
| | 00:17 | of cotton and cattle and things, but
that industry moved away, leaving a lot of
| | 00:21 | abandoned buildings and kind of run-
down spaces and crunchy textures and just
| | 00:25 | generally great photographic opportunities.
| | 00:28 | It's also a town of some of the nicest
people you'll ever meet, and you're going
| | 00:32 | to see us shooting a lot in this town
and around the region. And you're going to
| | 00:37 | see us having access to a lot of spaces.
| | 00:39 | There are two ways you can shoot a town
like this. You can just come in and get
| | 00:42 | out your car and start shooting, or you can
do what the professional photographer does.
| | 00:47 | When you see pictures in National
Geographic or a News magazine or on the
| | 00:50 | front page in The New York Times of
some amazing space and some town or
| | 00:54 | some faraway place,
| | 00:56 | very often the photographer has gotten
that picture not just because of their
| | 01:00 | photographic skill, but because they've
gone into that area and spent a lot of
| | 01:03 | time--days, possibly even weeks--
getting to know the people, establishing
| | 01:08 | rapport, building trust.
That's what we've done here.
| | 01:11 | Now we haven't had to spend that much
time because the people in Mangum are so
| | 01:15 | friendly and because I had been
spending a lot of time bringing students here
| | 01:17 | over the year, but still we have a
level of access that you wouldn't get if you
| | 01:22 | necessarily just stepped out your car.
| | 01:25 | So if you do want to shoot in a place
like this, you don't want to come into
| | 01:27 | town and just grab your camera and
immediately start shooting. You'll get some
| | 01:30 | stuff. But if you really want to go deep,
you want to leave your camera in your
| | 01:33 | car or in your bag or in your hotel room
and spend some time just walking around,
| | 01:37 | getting to know people, trying to get a
feel for the town, starting to talk to
| | 01:40 | people. You can look for certain resources.
| | 01:43 | For example, a town like this may have
a small newspaper, like Mangum does. Go
| | 01:47 | talk to the guy of the newspaper
office. He can probably tell you who the
| | 01:50 | really interesting people are in town.
Or go to the local diner or the local
| | 01:54 | restaurant, things like that.
| | 01:55 | Right here on the town square
there's something called the Mangum Welcome
| | 01:58 | Center. They're very welcoming and
they'll tell you all sorts of things.
| | 02:02 | By working with these people, we've
gotten to hear about interesting places, we
| | 02:05 | have had the opportunity to be put in
contact with the people who can get us
| | 02:08 | into those places, and it's gotten
us a much deeper level of access.
| | 02:12 | None of that had anything to do
with our camera. That had to do with
| | 02:14 | telling people what we're up to, letting them
know that we were interested in their story.
| | 02:19 | Now the fact that we've gotten access
to this place isn't just because small
| | 02:23 | towns in America are often very friendly.
| | 02:25 | I have found in shooting in South
Africa, Central America, Turkey, Russia, all
| | 02:30 | over the place, that when you come into
small towns like this and you express
| | 02:33 | interest, genuine interest in the
people, they'll open up to you. It's nice to
| | 02:37 | have attention paid to you that way, and
they like that feeling. They'll let you
| | 02:41 | into their houses, they'll tell you
their stories, and eventually they'll let
| | 02:44 | you take your camera out
and start taking pictures.
| | 02:47 | When that happens, it's often nice to
be able to give something back to them,
| | 02:50 | so I would offer two
pieces of advice in that regard.
| | 02:53 | If you ask someone if you can take
their picture or come into their house or
| | 02:56 | come into their building to take a
picture, don't go, ooh, I'm really imposing,
| | 03:00 | okay, I am just going to--I am going
to work quickly and take the best, you
| | 03:02 | know, take the best picture I can and get out.
| | 03:04 | No, take your time. Take the best picture
that you can. They're giving you their time;
| | 03:08 | make the best use of it that
you can with your skill level.
| | 03:11 | Also, try to give them something back.
Tell them--ask them if they have an
| | 03:15 | email address or a mailing address.
| | 03:17 | If you post your images to a Flickr
page or to a blog, give them that address
| | 03:20 | and tell them, hey, these pictures
might end up on this web page, go look for
| | 03:25 | them. Or send them prints later, email
them photos, try to give them something back.
| | 03:29 | You may find that you will then
establish a relationship with them over the long
| | 03:33 | term and get to know them even better,
and that you can come back to that place
| | 03:37 | and get even deeper access.
| | 03:39 | So you're going to see us shooting
inside an old abandoned hotel, an old power
| | 03:44 | station, a lot of places around the region.
| | 03:46 | The way we've gotten those pictures is
by establishing rapport and trust and
| | 03:50 | getting access to those places.
| | 03:52 | If you're shy, that can be a difficult
thing to do, but I'm afraid you've simply got
| | 03:55 | to do it anyway. You've got to get over
that and trust that people will talk to
| | 04:00 | you and that you can get back kind of access.
| | 04:02 | That's what you're going to be
seeing through the rest of this course, and
| | 04:05 | that's how we've done it.
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| The Franklin Hotel| 00:01 | This is the Franklin Hotel.
| | 00:02 | It's just off of the main square in Mangum.
| | 00:05 | It's a beautiful five-story
building built in 1929 for the than
| | 00:09 | astronomical cost of $230,000.
| | 00:13 | From what we understand, when it opened,
it was a very regal place. This was
| | 00:17 | meant to be the jewel hotel
in this part of the state.
| | 00:21 | Unfortunately, it opened just four to
six weeks before the crash in 1929, and so
| | 00:25 | sadly, it just never stood a chance.
| | 00:27 | There was the crash and then the
Depression of the Dust Bowl and then World War II.
| | 00:31 | It's now abandoned, very, very abandoned,
and we've been talking to some of the
| | 00:36 | locals. We talked to a local high
school student who said that it's haunted and
| | 00:42 | that this whole in the awning is
because some woman jumped out of the
| | 00:45 | fifth-story window and went through
the awning and so she still prowls the
| | 00:48 | place and all that kind of stuff.
| | 00:49 | The people of Mangum are being very
responsible with the building. It's really
| | 00:53 | sturdy. It's very well built. That's how
it's been able to stand the test of time,
| | 00:56 | and they're working hard to get it redeveloped.
| | 00:57 | It's on the National Register of
Historic Places. They have some very
| | 01:00 | interesting redevelopment plans for it,
as they have for their town square and
| | 01:04 | some other things that they've been doing.
| | 01:05 | Fighting really tough economic times
in a fairly depressed region, and they're
| | 01:09 | working hard to keep it
going, and it's nice to see.
| | 01:12 | One of the nicest things about the Franklin
Hotel though is right now we have the key.
| | 01:16 | This is what establishing trust and
rapport can get you in a small town like
| | 01:20 | this, the key to a major city building.
| | 01:22 | So they given us key. We've got
the chance to go in and shoot.
| | 01:25 | We've done an initial
walkthrough and we found wonderful stuff.
| | 01:28 | There was peeling paint, there was
ripped-up floors, there was a beautiful old
| | 01:33 | elevator, there were lots of old
furniture in it, old light fixtures.
| | 01:36 | We can see how the building has been
remodeled from time to time here and there.
| | 01:40 | There is an old original registration desk
| | 01:42 | that still has the original
registration cards in it.
| | 01:45 | You can see people's names signing in at
the astronomical price of $2.50 a night.
| | 01:51 | We can see, we can get all the way to
the roof, we can go all the way to the
| | 01:53 | basement. There's an old bar there.
| | 01:55 | So we're going to work the entire
building, from the ground floor to the fifth
| | 01:58 | floor and then up onto the
roof, shooting anything we can.
| | 02:00 | There is texture, there's form,
there's light, there's shadow.
| | 02:03 | The building has it all, and
we're going to see what we can find.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shapes| 00:01 | So we've come inside the Hotel and as
we walk into the kind of main entrance,
| | 00:04 | the first thing we come across is this big old sign.
| | 00:10 | And it's kind of hard to miss.
| | 00:12 | And it's also really striking.
| | 00:14 | It's got this big arrow on top.
It's got these old lights.
| | 00:16 | It's got these wonderful repeating lines.
And so immediately I think, I want to
| | 00:20 | see if I can find a picture here.
| | 00:22 | That arrow is pointing this way,
and an arrow was just such a strong
| | 00:26 | compositional thing, and it implies
movement and motion. And so my first thought
| | 00:31 | is, I am going to come around here,
because if I shoot down the length of the
| | 00:35 | arrow, I am going to have--if I shoot
with a wide angle down the length of the
| | 00:39 | arrow, I am going to have some nice
perspective that's maybe going to give it a
| | 00:42 | little more dynamism and really
reinforce the idea of motion in this arrow.
| | 00:47 | And still I have got the repeating
textures and all of that kind of thing.
| | 00:51 | So I am trying some of that. And as you
can see, I am doing what I have said
| | 00:58 | you've got to do: I am working the shot.
| | 00:59 | I am trying lots of different things.
| | 01:01 | I'm trying different distances at
different focal lengths and as I change
| | 01:05 | focal lengths, that's changing the amount of
stretching that I'm getting off of the arrow.
| | 01:10 | And I am just trying to find
an interesting framing here.
| | 01:14 | I am playing a little bit with depth of field.
| | 01:16 | How much of this do I want in focus?
| | 01:18 | I kind of like the idea of letting it
blur out, because that's going to really,
| | 01:21 | again, reinforce that dynamic arrow
thing. And maybe some of that is kind of
| | 01:26 | happening and maybe it's not.
| | 01:28 | As I'm shooting though, I am mostly
finding that the frame is just really cluttered.
| | 01:33 | There is a trash bag full of garbage
back there. There is the stuff around the
| | 01:37 | wall. There is all those garbage over here.
| | 01:39 | It's a beat-up, run-down,
abandoned hotel. It's full of junk.
| | 01:42 | I could go move that kind of stuff around,
but I just don't think there is a shot there.
| | 01:49 | It's kind of too literal. Just
shooting this as a big sign in an empty room
| | 01:54 | may be a nice document;
| | 01:55 | it's not a particularly interesting photo.
| | 01:58 | So, I am going to come around
here and look at it some more.
| | 02:02 | And the first thing that strikes me,
as I do, is this big triangle here.
| | 02:07 | So you have heard me go through some of the
other compositional ideas that you can use.
| | 02:12 | I have had some repeating lines.
| | 02:13 | I have had some other stuff.
| | 02:14 | Because I didn't have an initial
feel for how this works, I'm thinking
| | 02:18 | through these ideas.
| | 02:19 | Oh, lines, repetition, perspective, all
these stuff, all these things that we are
| | 02:23 | going to talk about.
| | 02:24 | And now I come to shape.
| | 02:26 | We have talked about points. We have
talked about lines. Lines--points and lines
| | 02:30 | ultimately form shapes, and shapes can
be really useful things to compose with.
| | 02:34 | I have got this good strong triangle.
| | 02:36 | And as I hold the camera up and frame
it, the first thing I realize is, behind
| | 02:41 | the triangle, I've got a big square.
| | 02:43 | So maybe I can find a place where the
triangle and the square work well together
| | 02:51 | and give me something.
| | 02:52 | And I think what I'm seeing here is I
can kind of bisect the square with the
| | 02:58 | triangle and create a more complex shape.
| | 03:01 | Now I'm thinking, as I'm looking
through the viewfinder, that this should
| | 03:04 | probably be a square image.
| | 03:06 | Because if I take the triangle, which is
already in a way a part of a square, and
| | 03:11 | I have got this big rectangle behind it--
or a square shape behind it--I can put
| | 03:15 | all that in a square frame and not have
to worry about some of this extra
| | 03:22 | junk that's in the edge of the frame.
| | 03:23 | So I am going to need to crop
this later to get what I want.
| | 03:26 | I can't frame it in viewfinder,
because in my viewfinder, because I have a
| | 03:29 | rectangular viewfinder.
| | 03:30 | And this particular camera doesn't have
a square mode, so that I am thinking in
| | 03:34 | squares, and I need to think about
squares compose a little bit differently,
| | 03:38 | and we are going to talk about that later.
| | 03:40 | So I am just working my shot here,
trying a few different things.
| | 03:43 | I know now that I want deep depth of
field because I want the background in focus.
| | 03:50 | And I am lining that up, and I am going
to just see what I get and shoot a bunch
| | 03:54 | until I find an image that
I think is going to work.
| | 03:57 | So, shapes are just another
idea that I can fall back on.
| | 04:02 | One thing that's happened, as I've
taken it down to just this triangle and this
| | 04:06 | square, is I have
inherently simplified my image.
| | 04:09 | So again, I am working through all of
these things that we keep talking about.
| | 04:13 | I have a point of view.
| | 04:15 | I have a subject, which is the triangle.
| | 04:17 | I have really simplified my scene.
| | 04:19 | I'm working with these different
geometric ideas to try and build up an image.
| | 04:24 | Sometimes when you're working with
shapes you will work with very literal
| | 04:27 | shapes in your image.
| | 04:28 | Here I'm working with two shapes and
combining them into kind of an entirely new shape.
| | 04:33 | There might be other times where
you're working with shapes that are
| | 04:36 | not discrete objects.
| | 04:37 | For example, here is a stand of trees.
| | 04:41 | This is a case where I'm seeing
the--I am not seeing the tress for the
| | 04:45 | forest if you will.
| | 04:46 | I am looking at this stand of trees as
an independent discrete shape, not as a
| | 04:52 | bunch of individual shapes.
| | 04:53 | That's what caught my eye was that I
liked this big blob of forest up against
| | 04:56 | this empty space here.
| | 04:58 | Let's take a look at the use of
shape in a couple of other images.
| | 05:01 | Let's kick things off with a simple shape.
| | 05:04 | We have here a nice big square.
| | 05:05 | This image also serves as
an example of point of view.
| | 05:08 | This is pointing the camera
straight up at the ceiling.
| | 05:12 | So I have got this nice square here,
and I have got even some repetition going
| | 05:15 | on, because nested inside
it is this other square.
| | 05:18 | Now there are some other very
interesting shapes in this image, the receding
| | 05:22 | lines of the ladder going up,
this texture on the wall.
| | 05:25 | I like this light bulb here anchoring
this corner of the square, but really,
| | 05:30 | it's built around the strong
graphical element of the square here.
| | 05:35 | Continuing to stare up,
here's another ceiling shot.
| | 05:39 | This time what caught my eye
was again this square here.
| | 05:42 | This is an air-conditioning vent of
some kind that is still hanging, even though
| | 05:46 | the rest of the ceiling has been torn away.
| | 05:49 | And I started working with this and
ended up finding the only way I could
| | 05:52 | balance it was to compose
it with this duct right here.
| | 05:56 | So while this might be the dominant
shape in the scene, the composition was
| | 06:00 | still started and built
around this square shape here.
| | 06:04 | Moving on to circles now. Obviously we
have got two repeating circles here that
| | 06:08 | form a nice symmetrical pattern
around an imaginary line right here.
| | 06:13 | I am hesitating here because as I
look at this image now, I think that it
| | 06:16 | doesn't really work.
| | 06:17 | And the reason it doesn't work is
because of this bright bit over here.
| | 06:21 | My eye just wants to go right up into here.
| | 06:24 | I wish I had taken a step or two to
the left and it may be that I did.
| | 06:29 | And it might be that if I was
standing to the left, I couldn't get this
| | 06:33 | symmetrical thing going here.
| | 06:34 | So this is a case we are coming back to
this image, seeing it with fresh eyes,
| | 06:38 | I see that maybe it doesn't work or maybe
that there are some things I need to change.
| | 06:42 | It's not unusual to return to an
image later and see it very differently.
| | 06:47 | And that's a really valuable thing to do if
you've been looking at an image for a long time.
| | 06:51 | Sometimes you've just got to step away from it.
| | 06:52 | If you get to a problem you can't solve,
walk away and come back to it later.
| | 06:56 | I am a little weird in this regard.
| | 06:58 | I actually very often go out and
shoot for a couple of days and come back,
| | 07:02 | copy the images onto my computer, and I don't
look at them at all for a couple of months.
| | 07:06 | That's very often the only way that I
can see them with fresh eyes and be really
| | 07:10 | fair. That gets the image in my head out
and let's me see the image as it really
| | 07:15 | is when I take a long pause
like that before reviewing them.
| | 07:19 | Here is a case where what I was struck
by was this sense of this cloud was kind
| | 07:23 | of spitting out this airplane.
| | 07:25 | But in terms of composition, it's
really just straight geometry building around
| | 07:29 | to this big shape of this cloud.
| | 07:32 | Geometric shapes do not have to be perfect.
| | 07:34 | You don't have to find a perfect
geometric solid or shape. This doesn't have to
| | 07:39 | be a perfectly round circle to work,
and as you can see here, I am playing with
| | 07:43 | circle off of this other shape out here.
| | 07:46 | And again, coming back with fresh eyes,
looking at this you know, I think I
| | 07:48 | might crop a little bit of this down here.
| | 07:51 | Here is a case where you might look
at this and go, isn't this really a
| | 07:55 | picture about line,
| | 07:56 | because of all of these lines of these
stocks of sunflowers? And yes, you could
| | 08:02 | look at it that way,
| | 08:02 | but I think the way that you approach
this compositionally is thinking about
| | 08:06 | this whole mess of lines as an
individual shape, putting them in front of the
| | 08:12 | sun like that, getting the nice silhouette,
and creating a sense of a single shape
| | 08:16 | here that's balanced by
all the empty space up here.
| | 08:19 | We have got a similar thing happening here.
| | 08:23 | This sign is a weird shape, but what
the whole shape is that I'm composing
| | 08:28 | around really is the sign in
combination with this dip in the road.
| | 08:33 | This whole thing in here makes kind of
a big implied circular shape, almost a
| | 08:38 | spherical shape really because it's
got depth, because the front part of the
| | 08:42 | sphere is here and the back part is
here, and that's what I'm composing around.
| | 08:46 | I am been very careful when I am
doing this not to have these lines
| | 08:49 | intersect, and this part of the frame
is balanced by this shadow and these
| | 08:55 | other shapes over here.
| | 08:56 | So this is a case where the shape
I'm working with is almost imaginary,
| | 09:00 | but I still work with it
graphically in that way.
| | 09:03 | I measure the weight of this part of the
frame by considering all of this area right here.
| | 09:09 | Here is a case again where I am working
with a shape that isn't really an object.
| | 09:14 | The shape of this light pattern here
in combination with the hole in the wall
| | 09:20 | that's casting it is
what I am composing around.
| | 09:23 | People make great subject matter of
course, but when it comes time to actually
| | 09:26 | take the shot, you've got to have one
eye focused clearly on simple geometry
| | 09:31 | and geometric form.
| | 09:33 | So we've got the head here that is
balancing the building over here, and these
| | 09:37 | two shapes are bisected by
the nice line of the golf club.
| | 09:40 | I also like this line up here, which is
forming kind of the nice counterpoint to
| | 09:45 | this line over here.
| | 09:46 | And to pull all this off means you've
really got to have your head in two spaces.
| | 09:51 | You've got to be paying
attention to the humanity of the moment,
| | 09:53 | paying attention to what is the
compelling-looking person, what is the right
| | 09:57 | facial expression, trying to make them
look good, and at the same time working
| | 10:01 | all of your basic geometry in trying
to build up a scene. And to do that, you
| | 10:06 | want to just think of them as a shape,
and work with them just like any other
| | 10:10 | shapes that we've seen here.
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| Repetition: Arranging the elements | 00:00 | This one should be pretty
obvious to you, the name of this movie is
| | 00:03 | Repetition, and right away you can see I've
got all of these wonderful repeating shapes.
| | 00:08 | I've got these big patches here that
are one repeating element, and then I've
| | 00:12 | got all of these bolts that are repeating.
| | 00:15 | I've got the repeating vertical lines.
| | 00:16 | I've got the repeating handles, just
one after another all the way down.
| | 00:21 | Repetition is simply satisfying in an image.
| | 00:24 | It gives an image a rhythm.
It gives it a pulse.
| | 00:28 | It gives it an order, if composition is about
ascribing order, repetition is a way that
| | 00:33 | you can make sense of a whole lot of objects.
| | 00:36 | You will use repetition in two
ways like you do with a lot of these
| | 00:38 | compositional ideas.
| | 00:39 | Either you will be drawn to it because
you see the repeating pattern, or you
| | 00:44 | might be able to find that by
changing your camera position,
| | 00:47 | you can create a repeating rhythm in the
way that you organize things into your scene.
| | 00:53 | Something else that's making this
composition work is we have all of these
| | 00:56 | leading lines, all of these
lines that are pouring right into me.
| | 00:59 | The lines created by the handle,
the lines created by these bolts, and I
| | 01:03 | would like you to notice that these
are serving as lines even though they
| | 01:07 | are not contiguous lines.
These are implied lines.
| | 01:10 | These are lines that are being created
by the closely spaced bolts and handles.
| | 01:14 | And that's an element that you
should look for and try to work with.
| | 01:19 | Sometimes you can drive attention by
creating lines or inferring lines out of
| | 01:24 | setting up your shot, so that you get
repeating patterns of things that create
| | 01:29 | an overall sense of line.
| | 01:31 | Repetition is pretty easy to work with
and not too hard to find, so it's a good
| | 01:35 | thing to start practicing with.
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| Rule of threes| 00:01 | Have you ever noticed that it's
always a priest, a rabbi and a nun that are
| | 00:04 | walking into a bar together in a joke?
Or a doctor, a lawyer and a penguin that
| | 00:09 | are fighting over the last
parachute on an airplane?
| | 00:11 | It's never just a mountain lion and a
rabbit that are going fishing together.
| | 00:16 | It's always three things and that's
because three is a kind of important number.
| | 00:21 | One of something is just its own thing,
two of something is maybe a coincidence,
| | 00:26 | three is an actual pattern.
| | 00:27 | Once you hit three, we begin to see
some significance, we begin to apply some
| | 00:33 | meaning to something. Not necessarily
deep spiritual meaning, but simply, oh,
| | 00:37 | there is a system here.
| | 00:39 | I got three big refrigerators here.
Three often works very well in composition.
| | 00:44 | If I only had two refrigerators, believe
it or not, this wouldn't be as interesting.
| | 00:48 | So a lot of times when you're working
with repetition, when you're working with
| | 00:51 | patterns, you want to be
thinking at least in threes.
| | 00:55 | A great thing about three is
it's not too many of something.
| | 00:58 | Sometimes five of a thing is not simple.
| | 01:01 | Of course, we are always
looking for simplicity in our images.
| | 01:04 | So when you're trying to build up
patterns, when you're trying to work for
| | 01:07 | some repetition, play with three and see if
that's a better way to go than a larger number.
| | 01:12 | And you certainly don't want to do
just one or two because that wouldn't be
| | 01:15 | repetition or a pattern.
| | 01:16 | When you see three things together,
we walked into this room and saw these
| | 01:19 | three refrigerators,
| | 01:20 | we immediately knew, oh, this
might be a good composition.
| | 01:25 | There might be some interesting
repetition or rhythm to this scene.
| | 01:30 | Three is a very powerful number
when it comes to your photography.
| | 01:33 | So do some experimenting with it.
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| Perspective| 00:00 | Perspective can be
interesting to work with because it's an
| | 00:03 | immediately balancing thing.
| | 00:05 | It's hard to really get an
unbalanced image with perspective.
| | 00:09 | However, when you're working with
perspective there's something you need to bear
| | 00:12 | in mind, and that is focal length. Now
we've talked about this at a couple of
| | 00:15 | other points in this course.
| | 00:16 | As you go to a longer focal length, as
you zoom in, the sense of depth in your
| | 00:20 | scene will be compressed.
| | 00:22 | As I stand here right now, looking
down this row of trees, my eyes with their
| | 00:25 | focal length, see a certain amount of
distance between the trees and they see
| | 00:30 | lines that are receding at a
particular angle, but I can change that
| | 00:33 | depending on my focal length.
| | 00:35 | Watch what happens if I go to my
shortest, that is my widest angle focal length,
| | 00:40 | and take a shot, I get this.
| | 00:43 | Trees are spaced really far apart now.
| | 00:46 | The lines are at a fairly steep extreme
angle and the trees look pretty small.
| | 00:51 | Nothing wrong with this image, but watch
what happens now, if I go to my longest
| | 00:56 | focal length and take a shot.
| | 00:57 | I have not moved, my
camera position is the same.
| | 01:01 | I am simply choosing a longer focal
length and now I get this, again, longer
| | 01:04 | focal length means more depth
compression or apparent depth compression.
| | 01:08 | So the trees seem like they're closer together.
| | 01:10 | The perspective lines are not
as steep. The trees look larger.
| | 01:15 | Neither of these images is
necessarily right or wrong,
| | 01:17 | they're just simply different
and they have a very different feel.
| | 01:20 | The longer focal length with the depth
compression makes for a cozier feeling.
| | 01:24 | The wider angle makes for more
exaggerated extreme lines, but smaller trees feeling.
| | 01:31 | Whichever one is best or right simply
depends on what you are trying to achieve
| | 01:35 | for the atmosphere or mood that you want.
| | 01:37 | So when you're working with perspective,
it's critical that you remember that
| | 01:41 | where you stand and the corresponding
focal length that you use is going to give
| | 01:44 | you a very different effect.
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| Symmetry| 00:01 | One of the easiest ways to achieve a
balanced image is to look for symmetry
| | 00:05 | in your composition.
| | 00:07 | A perfectly symmetrical image is
really sturdy in terms of balance.
| | 00:11 | It's just a rock-solid balance that
can be very pleasing. It's very ordered.
| | 00:15 | Your eye knows immediately where to go.
| | 00:18 | Watch what happens if we break the
symmetry, if we throw things off just a
| | 00:21 | little bit by panning the camera.
| | 00:23 | It just doesn't work anymore.
| | 00:26 | The image is out of balance.
| | 00:27 | It's far less comfortable to look at,
our eye gets a little more lost.
| | 00:32 | But now look what happened,
| | 00:33 | if we keep going in that direction,
until I am positioned right on one of the
| | 00:38 | third lines. When we do that, the
image comes back into balance.
| | 00:43 | Now it's not the same balance
as a perfectly symmetrical image.
| | 00:45 | This one's got maybe a little
more tension in it, because it's not so
| | 00:48 | perfectly symmetrical, but it is balanced again.
| | 00:51 | So, when working with symmetrical
content, you can combine that with what you
| | 00:55 | know about working with thirds to
create an image that still is balanced, has
| | 01:00 | some nice symmetry to it, but maybe
also has a little tension. Or you can come
| | 01:04 | back to here and easily find a way
of getting a perfectly balanced image.
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| Focal length, camera position, and depth| 00:01 | We've talked a lot about line and
shape in composition and the importance of
| | 00:04 | line and shape in composition.
| | 00:06 | What we haven't talked about is how much
you can control shape with your camera.
| | 00:11 | So I am walking around
and I've seen this building.
| | 00:13 | A couple of things;
| | 00:14 | it's just a nice old red brick building.
I like the tree behind it.
| | 00:18 | I like that from this angle one side is
lit up with some nice tree shadow on it
| | 00:22 | and this side is dark.
| | 00:24 | What I like about the light dark
thing is I think I am going to be able to
| | 00:26 | tone it, to exaggerate that a little
bit, and really give a sense of depth
| | 00:31 | of this being a 3D object.
| | 00:33 | I also like these great lines.
| | 00:35 | However, I am standing right here when
I see the building. To take that shot
| | 00:40 | I've got to go pretty wide.
| | 00:41 | So I'm going to zoom out, frame the
shot that I like, take my picture and
| | 00:47 | this is what I get.
| | 00:48 | Now there is nothing necessarily
wrong with this picture, but let's take a
| | 00:51 | look at what I've got.
| | 00:52 | When I am standing here with my naked
eye, it's more of a square building.
| | 00:56 | I mean it's a rectangle, but the
lines are more straight up and down.
| | 00:59 | With the shot that I took, I'm seeing
a whole lot of exaggerated perspective.
| | 01:05 | Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but
it's very different from what I was seeing.
| | 01:08 | So, I think I want to try another shot.
| | 01:10 | I have moved backwards, so
that I have to zoom in more.
| | 01:13 | Remember, as you zoom in, the
sense of depth in a scene compresses.
| | 01:17 | That really changes the perspective.
| | 01:19 | It changes the shape of
lines and how they recede.
| | 01:22 | I think I need to go a little
bit over here to stay lined up.
| | 01:25 | So now I am going to zoom
to roughly the same framing.
| | 01:29 | It's not going to be exactly the same.
| | 01:30 | My main thing is I want the building with
this corner here and I want the tree behind it.
| | 01:34 | So I am going to frame that
shot and take it, and I get this.
| | 01:40 | This is a very different looking building.
| | 01:41 | Here was the first one.
| | 01:43 | Here is the second one.
As you can see, this one looks more square.
| | 01:46 | What I like about it is I am seeing
more of the tree in the background.
| | 01:50 | I am going to have to work with these
and tone them up and see which one I like
| | 01:53 | more than the other.
| | 01:54 | I think I'm probably though favoring
this one right now, the second one, I like
| | 01:58 | it a little more square.
| | 02:00 | The important thing to take away
from this is that I can dramatically
| | 02:03 | control the shape of an object sometimes,
depending on my camera position and focal length.
| | 02:08 | Your zoom lens is a great convenience,
because it means if you go look at thing
| | 02:12 | over there, you don't necessarily
have to walk all the way over there.
| | 02:14 | However, it's important to understand
that you're really changing shape of things.
| | 02:18 | You don't just use your
zoom lens for convenience,
| | 02:20 | you use it for the control of line and
shape, and that can be critical to get the
| | 02:24 | composition that you want.
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| Intersections| 00:01 | Just down the road from lodge,
we found this cool old amusement park.
| | 00:04 | There's lots of nice texturey shapes
here and a lot of really interesting
| | 00:09 | geometry, a lot of strong colors.
| | 00:11 | It's a place that's you definitely
want to start shooting when you drive
| | 00:13 | by, kind of needs a subject so it's a kind of
place that you might want to do portraiture.
| | 00:18 | It's got these really strong lines,
and so we've run into a problem here.
| | 00:23 | I've got this thing sticking out of my head.
| | 00:25 | This is a case of bad
intersections in a composition.
| | 00:28 | It would be very easy to frame this
shot this way because you're so focused on
| | 00:32 | me, on the subject, that you just don't
notice that in the background, things in
| | 00:37 | the image are intersecting such that
I've got this large piece of metal sticking
| | 00:40 | out of the top of my head.
| | 00:42 | This is a very easy problem to fix.
| | 00:43 | I just move to the right, or you shift
your camera, ah, that feels much better.
| | 00:48 | Now I am no longer
intersecting with a carnival ride.
| | 00:51 | There's a very easy way that you can
keep track of these kinds of things, and to
| | 00:55 | generally make sure that you're
understanding what's in your composition
| | 00:59 | and that is, before you take the shot,
after you've lined everything up, trace your
| | 01:03 | eye around the edges of the frame.
| | 01:05 | That will help you spot any intersections.
| | 01:07 | It will help you identify maybe that
you have too much headroom in the shot.
| | 01:10 | It will make you look at what
all is actually in the frame.
| | 01:15 | You may not need to do this all of the time.
| | 01:16 | There are going to be times when you
know that you've got it right, but if you
| | 01:18 | are dealing with a difficult setup that
you're trying to arrange, or if you're in
| | 01:22 | a very visually busy background, then
you're probably going to want to do that.
| | 01:27 | So start trying to get into the habit
now of identifying when you maybe need
| | 01:32 | to use this technique, or just start
doing it every time and just get into
| | 01:35 | practice of tracing your eye around the
edge of the frame so that you can really
| | 01:38 | see what's in the frame.
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| Exercise: Practicing fundamentals with geometry| 00:01 | We've looked at a lot of
geometry ideas in this chapter.
| | 00:05 | We've had lines and shapes and
repetition and symmetry and all that stuff.
| | 00:08 | It's time for you to go out and practice.
| | 00:10 | Just as you did with points, I want
you to go out and I want you to look for
| | 00:14 | each of these things that we've found.
| | 00:15 | You don't have to find
one image with all of them,
| | 00:17 | in fact, you might want to focus on
just working lines for a while, then just
| | 00:22 | working shapes for a while.
| | 00:23 | Again, your goal with this course is
to develop a vocabulary and to develop a
| | 00:28 | way of practicing and expanding your vocabulary.
| | 00:30 | So it may not be a bad idea to take each
of these things as discrete practice ideas.
| | 00:36 | So hit your lines, hit your shapes,
continue to work points, practice
| | 00:40 | with repetition, rule of threes,
all of those things shoot them a lot.
| | 00:44 | If you want, you can then spend some
days just going out without a particular
| | 00:47 | idea in mind, and just trying to see if
you've noticed geometry or maybe if you
| | 00:52 | are already used to shooting a
particular thing, continue to shoot that thing,
| | 00:55 | but now do it in terms of these geometric ideas.
| | 00:58 | Finally, I want you to do some
practice with combining these different ideas.
| | 01:03 | That's a somewhat open-ended
assignment, partly because I want this to be
| | 01:07 | something that you can
go back to as you need to.
| | 01:09 | If it's a little too broad, find
a way to refine it for yourself.
| | 01:12 | As we've discussed before, you can
choose a particular subject matter.
| | 01:15 | However, you choose to do it, I want
the focus to be on those geometric ideas.
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|
|
5. Shooting Best PracticesWorking a shot, revisited| 00:03 | I've come across these cool railroad cars.
| | 00:05 | They're all stripped-down
and skeletal for some reason.
| | 00:07 | I have to imagine it had something to
do with carrying grain around, because
| | 00:10 | there's these big grain silos here.
| | 00:12 | I've been trying to shoot them somehow.
| | 00:14 | Now very often the way to work
a shot is keep going in closer.
| | 00:19 | As you go in closer, you simplify.
| | 00:21 | You get down into details that are often
very interesting and I've been trying that.
| | 00:25 | I've been trying to work with the
repeating textures of these shapes.
| | 00:28 | I've been trying to work with the
cool repetition of these cables, with the
| | 00:31 | repetition of these lines, and yes,
there's a lot of basic compositional stuff
| | 00:36 | there that I can work with, but I'm just
finding it kind of boring. It's too abstract.
| | 00:39 | You can't tell what this
is if I get in too close.
| | 00:43 | So then I thought, well, I need
something recognizable to try and make this
| | 00:46 | scene make a little more sense to the viewer.
| | 00:49 | So I started getting down low, changing
my point of view, thinking well, if I am
| | 00:53 | working with the tracks, if I am
working with the wheels, maybe then I can get
| | 00:57 | something that's more interesting,
and I am just not finding anything.
| | 01:00 | Part of the problem is these are
really long rectangular shapes and with the
| | 01:04 | lens that I am working with,
I've got wide-angle lenses here,
| | 01:07 | it's a little harder to
fit everything into frame.
| | 01:09 | If I had a more telephoto lens, I might
be able to stand farther back and zoom
| | 01:13 | in to compress some of the depth, and
then I might be able to bring out more
| | 01:16 | repetition, something like that.
| | 01:18 | Or not, it may be that this is just a
flawed idea, that this is a case where
| | 01:22 | getting in closer is not the right idea.
| | 01:25 | So I decided to give up on these
trains and I started walking away, and when I
| | 01:29 | did, I found this big pile of railroad
ties over here. And I'm not especially
| | 01:35 | interested in railroad ties, but these
caught my eye because the sun was coming
| | 01:39 | off the top of them, and there are
these metal plates over here that were
| | 01:41 | picking up the light.
| | 01:42 | And so I thought, all right, forget the train.
| | 01:44 | I'll see if there's something interesting here.
| | 01:47 | Very often finding a good
shot is just about luck.
| | 01:50 | It's also always about
looking through the frame.
| | 01:54 | I decided to try and frame a shot with
the railroad ties and as soon as I did, I
| | 01:57 | realized, oh, here's a way of capturing
the train and capturing this whole scene
| | 02:01 | and in the process trying to capture
something of the feel of this part of town.
| | 02:05 | I can use these railroad ties as an
anchor for my composition and let the train
| | 02:09 | and the grain silos fall in place behind it.
| | 02:13 | Very often, composition is simply about ordering
the scene before you're ordering the world.
| | 02:19 | I worked with a photographer one time
named Bill Durrence who said, he thinks
| | 02:22 | one of the reasons he likes photography
so much is for that 1/100th of a second
| | 02:26 | the shutter is closed, he is in complete
control of the world. And that's kind of
| | 02:29 | what composition is.
| | 02:30 | It's your chance to put things in
order so that the viewer has an easier time
| | 02:34 | finding the way through the scene.
| | 02:35 | So with these railroad ties as an anchor,
I'm going to put them, and at this point.
| | 02:43 | I'm actually just following the rules.
| | 02:46 | I'm putting them in my leftmost third.
| | 02:49 | I'm making sure my focus and my depth
of field are what I need to get some of
| | 02:53 | what I want here in the background in
focus, and now I am just working the shot
| | 02:57 | and I'm going to keep doing that
until I find something that I think works.
| | 03:01 | So this is a case where getting in
closer wasn't working, so I made a radical
| | 03:05 | change and started getting far away.
| | 03:07 | This is all part of a larger idea of
really working a shot and seeing what you
| | 03:11 | can find, and then applying your basic
compositional rules to order the scene to
| | 03:16 | try to capture this larger image.
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| Understanding the photographic impulse| 00:01 | Earlier I mentioned that the study
of photography can be divided into two
| | 00:04 | domains, artistry and craft.
| | 00:07 | These two skills sets mix and
combine to create photographic ability.
| | 00:12 | All photos though begin with a single
impulse, that moment where you have an idea
| | 00:16 | that there's a photo to be
had in a particular location.
| | 00:20 | Sometimes it's very obvious that
there is a good picture to be had in a
| | 00:23 | particular location, say a lion has
escaped from the zoo and its charging at
| | 00:27 | you down Main Street.
| | 00:28 | Now of course a normal person would
think they need to runaway, but you're a
| | 00:32 | photographer, so at that moment you
feel a strong impulse towards an image.
| | 00:35 | In that case it's pretty easy to
recognize that there's a good picture to be
| | 00:38 | had, but it isn't always so easy.
| | 00:41 | In the last chapter we talked about
seeing and about how much your brain is
| | 00:45 | involved in the visual process.
| | 00:47 | Now I don't have any data to support
this next idea, but in my experience the
| | 00:50 | subconscious part of the brain
is often a decent photographer.
| | 00:54 | Sometimes it will identify a particular
image and send me an impulse that says
| | 00:58 | hey there's a good picture over there.
| | 01:00 | I get this a lot when I'm walking
around in my neighborhood, something in the
| | 01:04 | corner of my eye will attract my attention.
| | 01:06 | Very often if I notice that and turn my
full attention in that direction, I'll look
| | 01:11 | and not see anything and will think
never mind, and I will keep walking.
| | 01:15 | But instead, if I trust that impulse
and raise my camera and look through the
| | 01:19 | viewfinder, very often I will see that
there is an image to be had.
| | 01:23 | I may not know all the details of it.
| | 01:24 | It may need some composition skill applied
to it, but there is usually a picture there.
| | 01:28 | Learning to listen to and trust those
impulses is a critical skill and it's
| | 01:32 | really a skill, you have to practice it.
| | 01:34 | Sometimes the impulses
are very quiet and subtle.
| | 01:36 | It can take time to learn how those
parts of your brain communicate with you.
| | 01:41 | To help yourself pay more
attention to your impulses, I would offer
| | 01:43 | the following advice:
| | 01:45 | When you're practicing, practice
alone. You need your full concentration.
| | 01:49 | You need to not be in a social mode
where you feel responsible for other people.
| | 01:53 | You need to not feel like you need to
talk or answer questions, you need to be
| | 01:56 | very present, listening to your own head.
| | 01:59 | So also don't put on your iPod, again,
you need to be present not listening to music.
| | 02:05 | Music creates its own impulses and can
put you into a different space than the
| | 02:08 | one you're walking around through,
after all, that's part of its appeal.
| | 02:12 | You may find both of these to be dead
wrong for you and that's fine, I would just
| | 02:15 | offer the advice that you should try
it and see if it makes a difference.
| | 02:18 | A lot of times in class we'll
go out on a field trip and I'll see
| | 02:22 | students walking around, and
| | 02:23 | I'll watch some of them for a while, and
they will come back over and they'll say
| | 02:25 | I'm just not seeing any pictures.
| | 02:27 | And at no time will I have seen them actually
raise the camera and look through the viewfinder.
| | 02:31 | It's critical that you do that.
| | 02:33 | You may think, well if there is a good
picture there I should be able to see it,
| | 02:36 | yeah that's true, if it's a lion
charging down the street at you,
| | 02:39 | but at other times you need that crop.
| | 02:40 | You need to see through that rectangle
and then composition will start happening.
| | 02:44 | You'll start seeing things and you
will realize that there is a photo there.
| | 02:47 | So if you have even just the slightest hint
of an impulse, look through your camera at it.
| | 02:51 | Over time you will get better at picking
up on even subtle impulses and that will
| | 02:55 | lead you to see more images.
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| Warming up | 00:01 | Athletes warm up.
Musicians warm up.
| | 00:04 | It's always struck me as a little bit
strange that writers and
| | 00:05 | visual artists don't warm up.
| | 00:08 | You can't sit at work all day and then
suddenly walk out the door and be a photographer.
| | 00:13 | Doing good work with your camera
requires a particular mindset and visual
| | 00:16 | sense, and it's very hard to
simply turn that on and off.
| | 00:19 | Photography is a physical experience.
| | 00:21 | It's mostly centered around
your visual sense obviously.
| | 00:24 | But like any physical activity,
warming up first will make things easier.
| | 00:28 | Now, the good news is that if you
don't warm up you're not likely to injure
| | 00:31 | yourself, but if you do warm up, I
think you might find that you get into a
| | 00:35 | shooting awareness and state of
mind faster than if you don't warm up.
| | 00:40 | So how does one warm up for photography?
| | 00:41 | Well, first of all, look at images that
you like. Look at your own images that
| | 00:46 | have worked for you before, look at
someone else's images that gets you back
| | 00:49 | into the mindset of looking at
images and seeing models of nice images.
| | 00:54 | Personally I find that warming up is
mostly a process of re-acquainting myself
| | 00:58 | with the particulars of shooting.
| | 01:00 | If I've had a busy day working or
playing, or whatever I've been doing, then my
| | 01:04 | mind is probably thinking
about all sorts of things.
| | 01:06 | So to warm up, I need to get focused
on shooting and I need to get my visual
| | 01:10 | sense back to thinking photographically.
| | 01:12 | The easiest way to do this
is simply take a picture.
| | 01:16 | When you walk out the door to
go shooting, take a picture.
| | 01:18 | Doesn't have to be anything important
or grand. Take a picture of your foot,
| | 01:22 | take a picture of the telephone
pole across the street, anything at all.
| | 01:25 | The goal is not to get a good shot but
simply to remind yourself about what you're up to.
| | 01:29 | Feeling the camera, looking through
that frame, seeing your exposure settings,
| | 01:33 | even just doing that once can help
switch you over from what you were doing
| | 01:37 | before to the process of shooting.
| | 01:39 | Of course what's kind of depressing
is when that practice shot is the best
| | 01:42 | shot you get all day, but still it's a good
thing to do right when you step out the door.
| | 01:45 | Now don't just rifle off a shot.
Actually do what you're supposed to do.
| | 01:49 | Frame carefully, focus, take note of
your exposure settings, steady the camera,
| | 01:53 | shoot. Doing that often reminds
yourself of the crop of your frame and gets
| | 01:58 | your mind oriented more towards the
process of shooting and your hands back
| | 02:02 | into the feel of the camera.
| | 02:03 | Some of the seeing exercises that we
looked at earlier can also be good warm up
| | 02:07 | exercises, though they do take longer.
| | 02:09 | At the very least, experiment with this
simple process of taking a practice shot
| | 02:13 | as soon as you head out to shoot.
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| Exercise: Get your feet moving| 00:01 | I've got a zoom
lens on my camera right now.
| | 00:03 | I actually brought a whole bag
full of zoom lenses on this trip.
| | 00:06 | I don't have a single fixed focus or prime lens.
| | 00:08 | Zoom lenses are so great for lightening
your bag, and keeping your shoulder from
| | 00:13 | hurting and these are
really high-quality zoom lenses.
| | 00:15 | I get really nice image quality.
| | 00:17 | That said, I will say that the zoom lens
is probably your biggest impediment to
| | 00:21 | learning composition, for the
simple reason that they make you lazy.
| | 00:25 | I am standing here.
| | 00:26 | I see that thing over there.
| | 00:27 | I go wow look at that thing over there,
and I zoom into it and I take my shot and
| | 00:31 | maybe it's a fine shot.
| | 00:32 | But I haven't moved around.
| | 00:34 | I haven't a really worked it, and yeah
I can step over here and over here, but
| | 00:37 | that's not working the shot.
| | 00:38 | So I would like to put it to
you to try this assignment.
| | 00:41 | Choose a single focal length and spend
the day shooting with it. And I don't
| | 00:45 | mean this casually, I mean either get
a fixed focus lens and put it on your
| | 00:49 | camera, or if you have a zoom lens
choose a focal length, for example, I am 50
| | 00:53 | right now, get some tape and tape your
zoom ring down so that you cannot move
| | 00:57 | your lens and don't cheat, don't take
the tape off while you're our shooting and
| | 01:00 | you may think why would I do that.
| | 01:02 | I've got this nice zoom lens
that gives me all this flexibility.
| | 01:05 | The reason you do that is now you go
out and you see that thing over there and
| | 01:08 | you go wow look at that thing over
there, and you start to frame your shot and
| | 01:10 | you go oh its too far away, then you
have to move closer. You have no choice, you
| | 01:14 | have to get your feet moving, and once
you get over there, you're probably going
| | 01:18 | to see that the relationships
of the objects are different.
| | 01:20 | You've got a very different scene and
maybe it's a better scene, maybe it's a
| | 01:23 | worse. Maybe you need to move
somewhere else, maybe it turns out you need
| | 01:26 | a different focal length, at least you'll know.
| | 01:29 | Now try a few days of doing this, try
and very wide-angle focal length like 24,
| | 01:34 | then go a little tighter to 35, then 50,
then 70, then 100. And spend an entire
| | 01:40 | day shooting only with that focal length.
| | 01:42 | I think you'll find that this
gives you a better understanding of the
| | 01:45 | characteristics of a particular focal length.
| | 01:47 | I think you'll get a better
understanding of what wide angle can be used for,
| | 01:50 | what telephoto can be used for, how
focal length gives you a different approach
| | 01:54 | to different subject matter. And
mostly you'll feel that when you're really
| | 01:57 | working a shot, it means
you're moving around a lot.
| | 01:59 | You are not being lazy, your feet are moving.
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|
|
6. Balance RevisitedThirds: How rectangular frames are weighted| 00:01 | We've already discussed balance
and with the exercises you've done, you
| | 00:04 | should now have some experience with
considering balance during your shooting.
| | 00:08 | This means that you've probably also
discovered that balance is a somewhat
| | 00:12 | ephemeral concept. Lots of different
things in your scene can be used as
| | 00:16 | balancing elements, and that can
make it difficult to determine if your
| | 00:20 | composition is actually balanced.
| | 00:22 | At other times you might not be able
to find balance in a scene, even if you
| | 00:27 | move around and try to simplify the
composition, there might be times where you
| | 00:30 | just can't find the balanced solution.
| | 00:33 | In these instances it can be helpful
to fall back on some straight-ahead
| | 00:37 | theory, and one of the most basic
compositional theories has to do with the
| | 00:41 | rectangular shape of the frame.
| | 00:44 | If you divide a rectangular image into
thirds, you can often achieve balance by
| | 00:49 | weighting these regions against each other.
| | 00:52 | Sometimes you can achieve balance by
placing compositional elements within these
| | 00:57 | regions and sometimes you can achieve
it by placing elements on the boundary
| | 01:01 | between these regions.
| | 01:03 | For example, in the frame that you're
looking at right now, I am sitting on the
| | 01:08 | intersection between two of the thirds.
| | 01:10 | I am adding compositional weight to
this end of the frame, and all of the things
| | 01:15 | over there in the other two thirds
of the frame are balancing me out.
| | 01:20 | Now the actual division of the frame
doesn't have to be extremely accurate.
| | 01:24 | That boundary between where one third ends
and another begins can have some flexibility.
| | 01:29 | What's important about the idea of
thirds is to realize that the fulcrum for the
| | 01:34 | compositional weight in a rectangular
image can sit either in the middle of the
| | 01:39 | frame or on one of these third points.
| | 01:42 | You could also divide the
vertical space of the frame into thirds.
| | 01:45 | You might have heard of the rule of
thirds, which says that if you lay a
| | 01:49 | grid over the frame, a grid that
shows the horizontal and vertical thirds,
| | 01:53 | then placing an object at the intersection of
those gridlines will give you good composition.
| | 01:59 | Sometimes that works and sometimes it
doesn't. Very often working with thirds
| | 02:03 | will lead you to good compositions.
| | 02:05 | But again, there are no
recipes for good composition.
| | 02:08 | What's handy about guidelines like
this is that they can give you a starting
| | 02:13 | point, a structure for those times
where you can't find your way through
| | 02:16 | composition and need to
think it through instead.
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| Tonal balance| 00:00 | Balance is one of the most ephemeral,
kind of slippery compositional ideas
| | 00:05 | that we're going to cover in this course.
| | 00:06 | It's also probably the most important.
| | 00:08 | If you had to pick a single word to define
composition, balance would be in the running.
| | 00:14 | It's a very difficult thing to define,
| | 00:16 | it's also the most critical thing for
you to understand about composition.
| | 00:20 | We've looked a lot at ways of
creating balance through the use of geometry,
| | 00:25 | weighting elements in your
scene against each other.
| | 00:27 | There's another way of balancing an image
though, and that's through tone or lightness.
| | 00:32 | Right now, we've got a whole bunch of
bright on this side of the frame and
| | 00:36 | that's creating a certain amount of
weight, and so we are balancing that with a
| | 00:40 | whole bunch of dark on this side of the frame.
| | 00:42 | Light against dark can
create a sense of balance.
| | 00:46 | You can also go more symmetrical and do
light against light or dark against dark.
| | 00:50 | We've also got a rhythmic
thing going on in this frame.
| | 00:53 | We've got light and then dark,
and then light again and then dark.
| | 00:56 | That's working with the balance.
| | 00:58 | So light of course is the thing you're
always wanting to keep your eyes out for.
| | 01:03 | Don't ignore it when it comes
time to balance your image and find a
| | 01:07 | balanced composition.
| | 01:08 | It can be a very powerful balancing
element and let's look at some other examples.
| | 01:15 | Here's a very straightforward
example of the idea of balancing tone.
| | 01:20 | I have got a lot of really light tone
right here, sitting right next to a bunch
| | 01:23 | of really dark tone, and they are
balancing each other out very nicely.
| | 01:29 | Here's an example of where I've got a few
compositional ideas going on in an image,
| | 01:33 | we are going to talk about
some of them in another movie.
| | 01:35 | Right now, I want you to notice that
kind of the image is split diagonally, and
| | 01:40 | I've got a lot of really light tones
here and some really dark tones here.
| | 01:44 | Again, there are other things going on,
but you've probably noticed by now I am
| | 01:48 | showing some of these same images in
different movies to serve as examples of
| | 01:52 | different things, and that's because
very often you will mix and match these
| | 01:56 | compositional tools that we are talking about.
| | 01:57 | These building blocks can be assembled
in lots of different ways and you would
| | 02:01 | think about them in different combinations
and group them together in different ways.
| | 02:04 | Here's an example of some rhythmic tone,
kind of like what I was talking about in
| | 02:09 | the introduction of this movie. I've
got this dark pit and then a light pit
| | 02:12 | and then a dark pit, and they are
all kind of balancing in the frame.
| | 02:17 | The shadows on either side are making
a nice well-balanced frame with a nice
| | 02:21 | light patch in the middle.
| | 02:22 | This one is a little more subtle, but
I've got light on top, dark on bottom.
| | 02:27 | And I was noticing that while I'm there.
Again, this is not an example of me looking back
| | 02:31 | at it and going well golly look I've
got light up here and dark down there.
| | 02:34 | I was actually thinking
about that when I saw the image.
| | 02:37 | I knew it was going to go black and white.
I knew I could create a balance that way.
| | 02:42 | And this has kind of worked, I was thinking
that maybe the light of this rock would
| | 02:47 | serve to be very symmetrical in
balancing with the dark of these trees, and
| | 02:51 | that sort of worked except that
the shapes are fairly different.
| | 02:54 | But I do like that it's kind of a
gradient that goes from dark into lighter
| | 02:58 | gray and all the way out to white.
| | 03:00 | This one is a little bit strange
and I put it in here for one reason.
| | 03:04 | I do feel like this dark tone over here
is balancing all this light tone over here.
| | 03:08 | Another way of thinking about
this though is an example of shape.
| | 03:12 | I liked the shape of this shadow.
| | 03:14 | So I'm as much playing with
geometry here as I am with tone.
| | 03:18 | Yes the shadow is dark, but I wasn't
necessarily seeing it as a dark balancing element.
| | 03:23 | I was seeing it as a shape.
| | 03:25 | And you'll very often work with tones
this way. You won't always be thinking of
| | 03:29 | them in terms of tonality.
| | 03:30 | You'll be thinking of them as geometric objects.
| | 03:33 | So if you're looking at some of these
things going, well I don't know, that
| | 03:36 | doesn't seem so much like an area of
dark as an area of square. That's fine.
| | 03:40 | They are very often interchangeable that way.
| | 03:42 | But think about light and shadow not as
literal things, but as balancing factors
| | 03:48 | that you can work with when you're
trying to create balance within your image.
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| Content balance| 00:00 | You're looking at a Fairbanks Morse
31-AD-18, 2800 horsepower diesel fuel
| | 00:08 | engine, or as I like to call it,
a really big piece of metal.
| | 00:13 | This is one of four giant diesel
engines in this power station, and I'm
| | 00:19 | standing next to one.
| | 00:20 | And as you can tell, it's a much
larger than I am and it's not just that
| | 00:24 | it's physically larger,
| | 00:25 | it's these hard metal textures and repeating
shapes and it's plainly a source of power.
| | 00:30 | It's a very intimidating piece of machinery.
| | 00:33 | And we framed it in one side of our
shot here, and I am balancing it in the
| | 00:39 | other. And I'm showing you this by way
of showing you that humans carry an extra
| | 00:46 | kind of balancing power.
| | 00:47 | Even though I am graphically very
small, we tend to put more compositional
| | 00:54 | weight onto images of humans than
we do a similar object of this size.
| | 00:58 | In other words, I, a mere human, can
balance this huge, impressive piece of metal.
| | 01:04 | This is something to bear mind when
you're working with people, particularly
| | 01:07 | against landscapes or against giant
diesel fuel engines that psychologically the
| | 01:13 | weight of a human being
compositionally is a little bit heavier than another
| | 01:17 | graphic element of the same size.
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| Squares: Weighting the corners| 00:01 | The ratio of the width of an image
to the height of an image is referred to
| | 00:05 | as the image's aspect ratio.
| | 00:07 | If you're shooting with an SLR, you're most
likely shooting with an aspect ratio of 3:2.
| | 00:12 | This is the same as 35 mm film.
| | 00:14 | Some SLRs though, and most point and
shoots, have an aspect ratio of 4:3.
| | 00:19 | That's the aspect ratio of
standard definition television.
| | 00:22 | HD television has an aspect ratio
of 16:9. If your aspect ratio is 1:1,
| | 00:29 | then you're shooting in a square and
there is a great tradition of square
| | 00:32 | format photography.
| | 00:34 | If you ever had a medium format film
camera, then it probably shot square frames.
| | 00:40 | Shooting squares is different than
shooting rectangles though. As we have already
| | 00:43 | discussed when you shoot with a
rectangular frame, you tend to balance the image
| | 00:48 | by dividing the frame into
thirds and working the thirds.
| | 00:51 | Square doesn't divide into three very
evenly, instead while it divides evenly
| | 00:55 | just doesn't divide very well.
| | 00:56 | Instead when you are shooting squares
it's a good idea to try to balance your
| | 00:59 | image by working the corners.
| | 01:02 | Now a square still has a fulcrum,
just like a rectangular image, so putting
| | 01:06 | something in the dead center can
work very well like we have here.
| | 01:08 | But there are other times when it's
going to be better to try to get weight into
| | 01:12 | the corners of the image like we have here.
| | 01:15 | When you are weighting the corners you
need to consider the same things that you
| | 01:19 | do with any other type of balancing exercise.
| | 01:20 | If you weight one corner, you
might need to weight another corner.
| | 01:23 | You can sometimes work by weighting the
sides of the image rather than the corners.
| | 01:29 | Your balancing elements, just like
with a rectangular frame can be literal
| | 01:33 | objects in the scene, real physical shapes.
| | 01:35 | They can also be tone.
| | 01:37 | So your balancing elements can be
just what they would be if you were
| | 01:41 | working with a rectangle.
| | 01:42 | Squares can be a lot of fun to work with,
but they take practice. It's a really
| | 01:45 | different way of shooting.
| | 01:47 | Some cameras can show you a square crop
of your frame in your viewfinder or on
| | 01:52 | the LCD screen on the back of your viewfinder.
| | 01:54 | Others might give you
guides within the viewfinder,
| | 01:57 | others don't have a square option at all.
| | 02:00 | You're just going to have to
visualize what the crop would be within your
| | 02:03 | rectangular frame and crop it
when you get into postproduction.
| | 02:07 | Even if your camera does show you square
guides in the viewfinder, it's possible
| | 02:11 | that it still takes a rectangular image,
so you're going to need to crop when you
| | 02:15 | get into your viewfinder.
| | 02:16 | So again, think about the corners,
think about the sides, give up on thirds and
| | 02:21 | go try some practice shooting squares.
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| Composing people| 00:01 | There are lots of
specialized forms of photography.
| | 00:03 | There is architectural photography
and landscape and wildlife and macro
| | 00:07 | photography, the list goes on and on.
| | 00:09 | The good news is that each of those
specialized forms of photography uses the
| | 00:12 | same compositional building blocks
and vocabulary that we're learning here.
| | 00:17 | Each of those specialized forms of
photography is a field of study that you can
| | 00:20 | go very deeply into.
| | 00:22 | But you will be doing it on top of the
foundation that we've already covered.
| | 00:25 | You'll be mixing and matching the
same compositional ideas and adding some
| | 00:29 | others to them, but you'll
have a very strong foundation.
| | 00:33 | Those are all far beyond
the scope of this course.
| | 00:35 | You are going to have to pursue
those fields of study on your own.
| | 00:38 | But there are two specialized forms of
photography that you will probably engage
| | 00:41 | in pretty regularly, portrait
photography and landscape photography.
| | 00:45 | And I'd like to give you some basic tips
on both of those.
| | 00:47 | In this movie, we are going to
talk about portrait photography.
| | 00:49 | The most common portrait shooting
mistake that I see, the kind of typical
| | 00:54 | snapshot portrait mistake,
has to do with headroom.
| | 00:57 | Watch what happens if there's a bunch of
extra headroom above me, just a bunch of
| | 01:00 | empty space. How often have you seen a
portrait like this, someone standing in front
| | 01:03 | of a statue or something with
all this extra room above them?
| | 01:06 | It's just bad composition all the way around.
| | 01:08 | What's all this for?
| | 01:09 | There is no room for this space up here.
| | 01:11 | It's not a simple image.
| | 01:12 | It's not focusing on me.
| | 01:15 | It's not a very clear subject.
| | 01:16 | It's just extra space.
| | 01:17 | You can easily avoid this problem by
doing that tracing your eyes around the
| | 01:21 | edges of the frame thing
before you take your shot.
| | 01:24 | That will help you easily see if
you've got extra space in your image.
| | 01:28 | Another common problem also has to do
with extra space and that has to do when
| | 01:31 | you're dealing with someone
who is looking out of the frame.
| | 01:33 | When someone is looking out of the
frame, maybe because they're talking to
| | 01:36 | somebody else, or looking
at something in the distance.
| | 01:38 | You have got extra space in your
rectangular frame that you need to place
| | 01:41 | somewhere, and it's best to
put it in front of the person.
| | 01:44 | This is called leading your subject.
| | 01:46 | It's much easier for the viewer
because as I am looking into the distance,
| | 01:50 | they're going to have curiosity about
what I'm looking at and it just makes
| | 01:52 | more sense to have this space in front of them
so the viewer can see more of what's before me.
| | 01:57 | If we put the space behind me, then I
have a much more claustrophobic image.
| | 02:02 | I'm pressed up against the wall and
there's all the space behind me that
| | 02:06 | could convey weight.
| | 02:08 | This particular one is not a hard and fast rule.
| | 02:10 | There might be times when you want that
sense of weight on a subject to convey a
| | 02:13 | sense of trouble or
menace or something like that.
| | 02:15 | But in general, you want to lead your
subject with space in front of them.
| | 02:18 | Let's talk about how you crop a portrait shoot.
| | 02:23 | Generally, it's best to not crop at
joints, but to crop between joints.
| | 02:28 | Watch what happens if I
am cropped at the wrists.
| | 02:31 | When the frame is cropped so
that my wrists are cut off, ooh!
| | 02:33 | It's just kind of creepy.
| | 02:35 | You can kind of feel it
when you're looking at it.
| | 02:37 | You can feel like oh my god!
| | 02:38 | His hands have been cut off that's disgusting.
| | 02:40 | It's better to crop between joints,
that means go between the wrists and the
| | 02:43 | elbow, between the elbows and the
shoulders, or if you are going for a wider
| | 02:46 | shot between the waist and the knees
or the knees and the ankles, just don't
| | 02:49 | cut off actual joints.
| | 02:53 | If you're going for a tighter portrait,
know though that it is okay to crop a face.
| | 02:57 | It's okay to cut off a forehead.
| | 02:59 | This gives you a very nice intimate look.
| | 03:02 | This is a much tighter, more gentle portrait.
| | 03:05 | You don't have to show a person's whole face.
You don't have to show a person's whole head.
| | 03:09 | As you get more into your study of
portrait photography, you might get
| | 03:12 | more advanced croppings.
| | 03:13 | You may find that it is actually
possible to shoot headless bodies in an
| | 03:16 | interesting way, or eyeless bodies in
an interesting way, but it takes a very
| | 03:20 | skilled eye to pull that
off without it being creepy.
| | 03:23 | Know that if you are really wanting an
intimate portrait, this is a good way to go.
| | 03:26 | One last portrait tip, it's always
better to use a slightly telephoto lens when
| | 03:31 | you're shooting portraits.
| | 03:32 | This will prevent facial
distortion and generally be more flattering.
| | 03:35 | So some basic composition tips, in the
next movie, we are going to look at some
| | 03:39 | basic landscape tips.
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| Composing landscapes| 00:01 | Landscapes of course
are great subject matter,
| | 00:04 | you can make an entire
career out of shooting landscapes.
| | 00:06 | For the most part, your compositional
concerns when you're shooting landscapes
| | 00:10 | are no different than they are
when you're shooting anything else.
| | 00:13 | You at least want to consider your
four essential composition elements:
| | 00:19 | Subject background, a good sense of balance.
| | 00:21 | You want to think about a good
point of view, and you want to work to
| | 00:24 | simplify your image.
| | 00:25 | That last one, simplifying, can be
particularly difficult with landscapes.
| | 00:29 | Invariably, you find a great
landscape and there is a telephone wire
| | 00:32 | running across it, or there is a
fence in the way or a parked car or
| | 00:35 | something like that.
| | 00:36 | So, a lot of times that's going to be
the thing you're wrestling with the most
| | 00:39 | when you're working with landscapes.
| | 00:41 | And of course, once you found a good
location, in addition to those four things,
| | 00:45 | you'll still be able to consider
lines and shapes and shadows and negative
| | 00:48 | space and all of the other things
that we've talked about. It's very easy,
| | 00:53 | that's a whistling windmill right out there.
| | 00:54 | It's very easy when you come out to a
landscape and see it and it's really
| | 00:59 | pretty, particularly when you got a nice sky.
| | 01:01 | It's really easy to go wow!
| | 01:02 | I need the widest angle lens that I can,
so that I can take all of this in and
| | 01:07 | only on rare occasions does that work.
| | 01:08 | Remember, as you go to a wider angle
lens, all the details in the distance are
| | 01:12 | going to get really, really small.
| | 01:14 | And then you may get confused about, well
if I can't have the whole landscape and
| | 01:18 | everything is really small,
I'm not sure what to do.
| | 01:21 | That's when you start trying to work
smaller details, more up close to evoke
| | 01:27 | the landscape that you're in. And I don't mean
that you have to get right on top of things.
| | 01:30 | But while I have this whole landscape
here in front of me, I am going to focus
| | 01:33 | on that windmill and the fence around it.
| | 01:36 | That mix gives me a good subject, that
gives me something to anchor in my composition.
| | 01:41 | And I've got these nice big
poofy clouds moving through.
| | 01:44 | I'm also of course thinking about light.
| | 01:45 | I'm trying to come out here when
I've got good light because light that's
| | 01:49 | casting more shadows is going to
give me more of a sense of depth.
| | 01:52 | It's going to give me more detail.
| | 01:53 | Shooting landscapes in flat light is
almost always a pointless activity, because
| | 01:58 | you simply have no sense of depth
and there is no texture in the image.
| | 02:01 | Something that you have to consider
with landscapes that you don't have to
| | 02:03 | consider with other types of shooting,
is the importance of the horizon line.
| | 02:08 | You've got this really strong horizontal
line running across your image, what are
| | 02:12 | you going to do with it,
where are you going to put it?
| | 02:14 | Are you going to put it right in the
middle, or are you going to let it go up,
| | 02:15 | you're going to let it go down?
| | 02:17 | Here are a few different options,
shooting this windmill with the horizon right
| | 02:21 | across the center of the frame gives
me equal sky and equal ground, equal
| | 02:26 | foreground, and I still have a shot of
the windmill and the fence around it.
| | 02:31 | Look what happens though, if I
tilt up and include more sky.
| | 02:34 | I get an image with a very, very different feel.
| | 02:36 | Now I have this wide-open sky.
| | 02:38 | On an image where the sky
is particularly attractive,
| | 02:41 | this might be the best choice.
| | 02:42 | Maybe I am really wanting to feature
the sky and I'm using the foreground more
| | 02:45 | as an anchor for that.
| | 02:46 | It's interesting though to tilt the
other direction and put a lot of foreground
| | 02:50 | into the front of the shot.
| | 02:52 | There is a tricky exposure situation there.
| | 02:54 | At that point I need to start
thinking about depth of field.
| | 02:56 | All of the stuff that up close to me,
I need to be sure that it's in focus.
| | 02:59 | So I'm shooting with a small
aperture to get deep depth of field.
| | 03:02 | I am choosing my point of focus very carefully.
| | 03:05 | These have different weights to them,
having the horizon line up very high
| | 03:10 | with not a lot of sky and having all
of this heavy foreground down at the
| | 03:13 | bottom has a very different feel than
having a lot of open sky and this sense
| | 03:18 | of empty space up above.
| | 03:19 | I am not going to put a
value judgment on any of these.
| | 03:21 | I think it's pretty obvious how
different they feel, and you're going to
| | 03:24 | need to think about those sorts of
things when you're out shooting.
| | 03:26 | Obviously the easiest way to handle this,
if you're unsure, sure is to do what I
| | 03:30 | did just here and try it in different ways.
| | 03:33 | Very often your main task when you're
working your shot with a landscape is
| | 03:37 | trying different positions of the horizon,
in addition to trying to simplify and
| | 03:42 | find the right angle.
| | 03:43 | Again, landscape shooting is
something you can study for the rest of your
| | 03:46 | photographic career, but you will
want to start by following these basic
| | 03:50 | compositional tips that we've covered here.
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| Sometimes you can't get the shot| 00:01 | I've pulled over here by the road
because there is this wonderful thing
| | 00:04 | out here in this field.
| | 00:04 | It's this big empty field, except
there is this one bit of vegetation that's
| | 00:07 | making this beautiful S-curve through
the whole field ending up with those
| | 00:11 | wonderful clouds, and almost at the
apex of one of those curves is that tree
| | 00:15 | which is this wonderfully nice little accent.
| | 00:17 | So, I am here.
| | 00:18 | I am lined up. I take my
shot and this is what I get.
| | 00:24 | It just doesn't quite work, the
S-curve is little too compressed.
| | 00:27 | It just looks a little flat.
| | 00:29 | Plainly, I'm too low.
| | 00:31 | I need to get higher.
| | 00:33 | I can try standing on the car.
| | 00:34 | I don't have anything else to stand on.
| | 00:35 | There are no trees around to
climb. I just can't get this shot.
| | 00:39 | I'm not doing anything wrong here.
| | 00:41 | I am just not tall enough, and even if I
was taller, then I might be running in
| | 00:44 | the telephone wires up there.
| | 00:46 | There are a tremendous number of
beautiful scenes to photograph in the world.
| | 00:52 | There aren't necessarily the same
numbers of photographic opportunities.
| | 00:55 | Sometimes if you're in a situation like
this and you can see it clearly in your
| | 00:58 | mind's eye, but you can't get your
camera in the right position or there is a
| | 01:02 | tree branch in the way,
don't beat yourself up over that.
| | 01:05 | You're not doing anything wrong.
| | 01:06 | There are times in the world when
you are not going to be able to get the
| | 01:08 | shot, instead,
| | 01:10 | you are just going to have to enjoy the view.
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| Practicing thirds with points and geometry| 00:01 | You've probably spent most, if
not all of your photographic life working
| | 00:05 | with a rectangular frame. That means
there's a good chance that you already have
| | 00:09 | a feel for working with thirds, even if
you never knew that that's what you were
| | 00:13 | doing or didn't have any
idea about the theory of thirds.
| | 00:17 | Now that you do, now that we've looked
at thirds, now we've analyzed it some and
| | 00:21 | looked at some examples,
| | 00:22 | I'd like you to go out and
practice composing with thirds.
| | 00:24 | Practice balancing the frame by
dividing it into three equal parts,
| | 00:28 | and seeing how you can place elements
in different places to get a good
| | 00:31 | balanced composition.
| | 00:33 | Because you do have some vocabulary to
put to this idea now, you might learn
| | 00:37 | some things or identify some things or
get a deeper feeling for things than what
| | 00:41 | you had when you were maybe just
winging it based on experience.
| | 00:45 | Now, your camera may have the ability
to display a grid in the viewfinder that
| | 00:50 | shows the frame evenly divided into thirds.
| | 00:52 | If I were you I'd turned that off.
| | 00:54 | The thing about thirds is it's just
really not critical that you have them
| | 00:58 | placed exactly mathematically perfectly.
| | 01:00 | The thirds rule, the thirds idea,
is something that can float around.
| | 01:05 | You can play with it a lot.
| | 01:06 | You don't have to have
things positioned just perfectly.
| | 01:08 | And in fact, sometimes you will
need some extra space on one end of the
| | 01:12 | frame or another to get another
element in, and if you are balancing
| | 01:15 | everything out okay that will still work.
| | 01:17 | So you don't have to nail
those thirds lines just perfectly.
| | 01:20 | So don't get too hung up on that.
| | 01:21 | In fact, practice with that,
practice with the looseness of thirds.
| | 01:25 | See how a little bit of movement in one
place or another can make a difference.
| | 01:29 | Also, if you have the habit of maybe
always placing your subject on the left
| | 01:32 | side, go out and work explicitly on
putting it on the right side, putting it in
| | 01:37 | the center, trying to get out of your
composition thirds comfort zone and play
| | 01:42 | around with putting things
in some different places.
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| Practicing squares with points and geometry| 00:01 | Working with squares is very
different than working with rectangles as
| | 00:04 | we discussed earlier.
| | 00:05 | So I want you to get out
and practice that right now.
| | 00:08 | For subject matter, stick with the
points and geometry thing we have
| | 00:11 | been working on.
| | 00:12 | Find good strong point type objects
to compose around, or work with lines or
| | 00:17 | shapes or feel free to mix it
up, practice combining them.
| | 00:20 | Anything that is striking your eye
or feeling like something you want to
| | 00:24 | practice, just keep it in a square frame.
| | 00:26 | Now remember when you're shooting
squares, you're no longer thinking in thirds.
| | 00:30 | You are not weighting one
third against each other.
| | 00:32 | You are going to work corners.
| | 00:33 | You are going to try and
weight corners against each other.
| | 00:36 | Now, you can work with the sides of
the frame, but when you do that, you'll
| | 00:40 | typically just be bisecting the frame
and playing one side directly against
| | 00:43 | another, not having that
extra third in the middle.
| | 00:47 | Squares are a great way to frame
something in the dead center of your image.
| | 00:50 | That can create a perfectly
balanced image if you are doing your
| | 00:53 | work right.
| | 00:54 | The other nice thing about squares
with something in the center is you get
| | 00:58 | simply a simpler image because you
don't have as much frame to be trying
| | 01:01 | to fill.
| | 01:02 | So, working with squares, get out, give
it a try and see if you can get a feel
| | 01:08 | for how the compositional way
differs from working with rectangles.
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| Image analysis: The work of Steve Simon| 00:00 | Ben: I am here with Connie Imboden,
who you should be familiar with now.
| | 00:03 | She is teaching the workshop here
at Quartz Mountain this weekend.
| | 00:06 | We're going to look at the work of
another photographer from a composition
| | 00:10 | standpoint, analyzing it,
trying to figure out why it works.
| | 00:13 | Connie, why is this something that
any of the viewer should care to watch
| | 00:16 | us doing?
| | 00:17 | Connie: Well, we're looking at some
really beautiful photographs from professional
| | 00:22 | photographers, and if we can analyze why
these photographs work, we can learn a lot
| | 00:28 | about composition and how compositional
elements work in untraditional ways.
| | 00:34 | Ben: Okay, great! We are looking at
the work of Steve Simon.
| | 00:37 | He is originally a Canadian photographer,
| | 00:40 | he now lives in New York.
| | 00:41 | I first met Steve when he was
teaching here a few years ago.
| | 00:44 | He's a great guy and as
you'll see a fantastic photographer.
| | 00:47 | He has a photo journalism background,
but Steve also has a really interesting
| | 00:53 | ability to just fade into the background
and capture moments that I don't often
| | 00:57 | see, and yet do it with a
almost fine art sensibility.
| | 01:01 | So let's just start with this one right here.
| | 01:02 | This is from a -- all of these are
from a project called America on the
| | 01:06 | Edge wherein Steve traveled the US-
Canadian border just shooting whatever
| | 01:10 | he could find.
| | 01:12 | Connie, what do you -- how
do you want start this off?
| | 01:14 | Connie: Well just looking on a very
formal level, not looking at the content or
| | 01:18 | really what it means, but just
looking at the use of this line coming down
| | 01:23 | here and this very wonderful dark
figure with, who is wearing a hat, and it's
| | 01:29 | in enough motion.
| | 01:30 | It's a little soft, but the figure is so
dark and so strong with the silhouette
| | 01:35 | that that's really what brings your eye
to this image, and then you've got this
| | 01:40 | pattern back here of the stars.
| | 01:42 | So you get a really strong sense of the
background, the content of the image and
| | 01:48 | the importance of this figure, which is
also adding a little bit of the mystery.
| | 01:52 | Ben: It is. We can't see any detail
here on the face.
| | 01:56 | I would also point out and you may
have spotted this already, he's playing
| | 02:00 | straight to the thirds.
| | 02:01 | We've got this figure here on this
third and he's balanced it over here with a
| | 02:05 | wonderful shadow in this third.
| | 02:07 | So we get a very, very balanced image.
| | 02:09 | Let's move on.
| | 02:12 | Connie: Oh, this is a great one.
| | 02:13 | Ben: Yeah.
| | 02:15 | I think this is a great example of seeing.
| | 02:18 | He sits stand to take a portrait of
somebody and spots the reflections in
| | 02:22 | the eye glasses.
| | 02:23 | This is also a great point of view example.
| | 02:26 | We're looking at his face, but we are
able to in the reflection see his whole
| | 02:29 | body and get an idea of what he is up to.
| | 02:30 | Connie: The other thing that I like
about this is that there is a very intimate
| | 02:34 | feeling about it, and part of
that is we can analyze that.
| | 02:37 | He's used the brim of his hat here to
contain the face and keep it off the
| | 02:44 | edge of the portrait.
| | 02:45 | He has also cropped off
the bottom of his chin here.
| | 02:48 | So we are really directly confronting
his face and of course, the reflection of
| | 02:55 | the flag and his face is what's
really drawing us into the center.
| | 02:58 | And there's nothing in the background
here to distract us away from what's
| | 03:03 | happening right here.
| | 03:04 | Ben: Yeah, you really get
drawn right into his face.
| | 03:06 |
| | 03:09 | This is an interesting one.
| | 03:10 | It's a parade and Steve has
definitely chosen a very unusual angle.
| | 03:14 | He's out in the street, in the
parade along --
| | 03:17 | This is a reflective tanker truck and
we can see reflections of the street that
| | 03:21 | are behind us, and then we've still
got this waving parade person up on top.
| | 03:29 | Connie: What's marvelous about this
one to me, is that he's given us so
| | 03:32 | much information.
| | 03:34 | There is a tremendous amount of
information in this photograph, but he's
| | 03:37 | organized it in such a
way that it's not chaotic.
| | 03:41 | He has organized it so that we really
have access to this visual information.
| | 03:46 | Here, he is letting us know it's
the July 4th celebration here.
| | 03:49 | Right here, we are getting a sense of
what's going on, on the sidelines here,
| | 03:54 | and then we also have the -- what
is she, a beauty queen or something?
| | 03:58 | Ben: I guess so, yeah.
Connie: She looks like a beauty queen.
| | 03:59 | Ben: Tanker queen.
Connie: The tanker queen, yes.
| | 04:01 | Ben: And she's -- your eye still
understands very well that this is the subject
| | 04:07 | of the image. She is in the light
really beautifully.
| | 04:09 | we've got these wonderful leading lines.
| | 04:10 | We haven't really talked about the idea
of economy in an image, but this is an
| | 04:14 | incredibly economical image, like
Connie said, the amount of information that's
| | 04:18 | delivered in a very simply way is really nice.
| | 04:22 | Connie: Well, if you just look at the
structure of the image, you've got all of the
| | 04:25 | lines coming this way and
then leading back up to her.
| | 04:28 | So it's very well-organized,
just on a very formal level.
| | 04:34 |
| | 04:36 | Ben: This one can be a
bit of a mystery at first.
| | 04:37 | Connie: Definitely.
| | 04:38 | Ben: Yeah, this is still from the same
parade and it may be just in case you can't
| | 04:43 | tell this on screen.
| | 04:45 | This is a float here and the back of the
float is a cutout of some mountains and
| | 04:49 | then these are real mountains over here.
| | 04:51 | This wonderful line in the middle just
setting up this dividing point that makes
| | 04:55 | these two different layers, these two
different plains in the image, creates a
| | 04:59 | really interesting illusion.
| | 05:00 | Connie: Yeah, that's what I love about
this is that it is an illusion and it
| | 05:04 | really looks like two separate
photographs until you see that it's the same
| | 05:09 | sky and there really is -- the sky is
what connects it and really holds it
| | 05:13 | together, and this wonderful pole as
you said is what is dividing the parade
| | 05:19 | from the reality of it.
| | 05:21 | I think this is just beautifully seen.
| | 05:23 | Ben: It's a little bit
strange to figure out how it works.
| | 05:25 | Where do you fee like your eyes go to
first, because in some ways to me, it's
| | 05:29 | hard not to just see this right away?
| | 05:31 | Connie: And I think this line takes
you right there.
| | 05:34 | So you are drawn to the middle of
the photograph, and then this is almost
| | 05:38 | incidental, but because it picks up
the pattern that's going on here, it's a
| | 05:43 | very important part graphically of the image.
| | 05:45 | Ben: But it's almost as if the subject
of this image is this line in a weird way
| | 05:50 | and it's a way of thinking again
about sometimes the subject of your image
| | 05:54 | really needs to serve as an anchor.
| | 05:56 | We have this anchor here that we're
kind of drawn to and that's a starting
| | 05:59 | point that we can then let our eyes
roam and explore and discover what else
| | 06:02 | is in the image.
| | 06:04 |
| | 06:05 | Connie: God!
| | 06:06 | I love this one.
| | 06:08 | The reason I love this one is that
it's -- there's really nothing going on.
| | 06:13 | That's not a story.
| | 06:14 | It just is a really beautifully seeing
situation where you've got four separate
| | 06:21 | people, but they're lined up so
beautifully with the background, the way that
| | 06:26 | this break is right here, really
centering this figure, this figure is centered
| | 06:31 | and you've got them both on
this line coming down here.
| | 06:34 | The way this line is coming down
it's really connecting the whole image.
| | 06:38 | So the background and the
people in it are relating in a really
| | 06:45 | beautiful, graphic way.
| | 06:46 | Ben: Purely geometrically, yeah.
| | 06:47 | Connie: Very geometric.
| | 06:48 | Ben: I like these diagonal parking lines.
| | 06:50 | They add a little bit of tension, but
there's nothing extra in this image.
| | 06:53 | It's very, very simple.
| | 06:55 | Connie: There's nothing
extra in this image either.
| | 06:58 | This is very direct, and very, a very
strong image. The statement is very strong.
| | 07:03 | Again, we have the strong shape.
| | 07:07 | We know right away what it is.
| | 07:08 | It's a big man, very powerful man.
| | 07:12 | We are in some kind of institutional
setting and we have these two, it looks
| | 07:16 | like smaller people, maybe younger
people, younger boys, have their hands up
| | 07:21 | in a surrender position.
| | 07:23 | Ben: Yeah.
| | 07:24 | This guy is serving both just
as a purely graphical element.
| | 07:27 | Just a dividing point, a very strong
piece of negative space, but also, again,
| | 07:32 | he is recognizable.
| | 07:34 | At first, he is a graphic element and
then he turns into part of the story.
| | 07:38 |
| | 07:42 | Connie: Wow. This is an interesting one.
| | 07:44 | This is what we are looking at right
here, and the photographer is telling us
| | 07:49 | that in the couple of ways.
| | 07:51 | One, she is close to the center of the image.
| | 07:54 | She's the one that's in focus, but
you've also got this line right here which
| | 07:59 | is framing her and you've got this
element here which is bringing you right
| | 08:03 | back to her.
| | 08:04 | But he's organized the background
so that you still have the context of
| | 08:08 | these other people and sitting in this
counter which is giving you a sense of
| | 08:13 | the environment.
| | 08:14 | Ben: As well as just purely formally, a
very nice rhythm and my guess would be,
| | 08:19 | while he was shooting this, this
relationship here was what he was focusing on.
| | 08:24 | My eye would assume that he was moving
left and right until he got them spaced
| | 08:27 | to the way that he wanted, because they
are just so perfectly evenly distributed.
| | 08:32 | I also like that he didn't worry
about squaring off the counter.
| | 08:34 | It is not level.
| | 08:35 | It doesn't have to be.
| | 08:37 | Connie: It actually works this way.
| | 08:38 | Ben: It works better, yeah.
| | 08:39 | It adds a little tension that goes
very well with the expression on her face.
| | 08:44 | This does not appear -- her
expression is a little ambiguous.
| | 08:47 | It's somewhere between sad or just thoughtful.
| | 08:50 | Connie: But it's a wonderful moment.
| | 08:53 | Ben: Oh, it is, yeah, and a
very true recognizable moment.
| | 08:57 |
| | 08:59 | Ben: I think this is another
interesting point of view example.
| | 09:02 | Plainly, he's in a pool hall.
| | 09:03 | He could have shot the pool player, but
he kept his eyes open and he was seeing
| | 09:07 | and he was working point of view, and found
something far more interesting than just
| | 09:10 | a shot of the pool player,
this wonderful textured shadow.
| | 09:12 | Connie: But he gives you enough information.
| | 09:15 | Right here, you see that it's the pool table.
| | 09:17 | You see some of the balls down here and
the cue stick that he is holding, and how
| | 09:24 | it is not lined up with this, but in
contrast, so that you see this as different
| | 09:29 | from the background.
| | 09:30 | Ben: Yeah, cropping the pool table, we
still might have recognized this as a cue
| | 09:34 | stick, but it would have taken a
little bit of extra work and that could have
| | 09:38 | ruined the image somehow.
| | 09:39 |
| | 09:41 | Connie: This is a wonderful image
because it breaks some of the basic rules.
| | 09:45 | Usually, you want to simplify the
information so that you are presented with a
| | 09:50 | very cohesive, easy to read visual
information, and here he's broken
| | 09:56 | that rule and it works just magnificently.
| | 09:58 | Ben: This is a very busy picture.
| | 09:59 | Connie: Very busy picture,
but that's what it's about.
| | 10:01 | That's what's so exciting.
| | 10:03 | He has made us experience chaos
without showing us a chaotic image.
| | 10:09 | Ben: It's not disordered.
| | 10:10 | There is an order to the
chaos that he's got in here.
| | 10:15 | Connie: Right, which is
very difficult to do I think.
| | 10:18 | Ben: Yeah, I love the she's camouflaged
that's the first thing that I see here,
| | 10:20 | but I also think he made an important
choice with the height of his camera.
| | 10:24 | We are back to point of view.
| | 10:26 | I want -- it's good that her top of
her head is poking up over the rim of the
| | 10:31 | couch here.
| | 10:32 | If he had been a little bit higher,
shooting down on her and her face was
| | 10:35 | buried in here,
| | 10:36 | I don't think it would work as well.
| | 10:36 | Connie: I agree.
| | 10:37 | Ben: We need this to join
her to this section up here.
| | 10:40 | Connie: We also need this
because it defines her face more.
| | 10:44 | Ben: It's a frame.
Connie: It's a frame, yep.
| | 10:44 | Ben: And that's something
we haven't talked about.
| | 10:47 | We have talked about framing an entire
composition with something, but you can
| | 10:50 | also frame within the frame,
which is what he is doing here.
| | 10:55 | Something that I didn't notice until
one of the later times that I looked at
| | 10:59 | this image, there is a cat right here.
| | 11:01 | Connie: Oh, I didn't even notice that.
| | 11:03 | Ben: And once you notice it, I
kind of can't take my eyes off of it.
| | 11:06 | It's a pretty good balancing element actually.
| | 11:10 | He's working the corners,
so yeah, I love that picture.
| | 11:12 |
| | 11:17 | Connie: Oh, This is a sweet picture.
| | 11:19 | Ben: (laughter) Yeah, and I think
it's --
| | 11:20 | Connie: In the best sense of the word.
Ben: Right. Right.
| | 11:23 | I think there are two
interesting balancing things going on here.
| | 11:25 | There is almost a yin yang thing
happening here in the middle, both tonally, the
| | 11:29 | black cow and the white shirt, and
their positions are interlocking.
| | 11:34 | Connie: And then you've got the same thing
happening back here with the cow that has
| | 11:37 | the black and the white going on here.
| | 11:39 | And simple things as we are
talking about simplifying and organizing
| | 11:43 | information, the addition of this line,
| | 11:47 | this row up here is so
important in containing the image.
| | 11:51 | Ben: Yeah, and I think it's important to
understand that this is not -- he didn't
| | 11:56 | walk by and just snap this.
| | 11:57 | I have gotten to work with Steve,
| | 11:59 | he heavily covers his shots, he works his shots.
| | 12:01 | He has positioned these
things this way on purpose.
| | 12:04 | There is a lot of thought
put into an image like this.
| | 12:06 |
| | 12:09 | Connie: And here we are.
| | 12:10 | Ben: This image I think is notable for
the very large cow, something that you
| | 12:14 | don't get in a lot of images.
Connie: (laughter)
| | 12:16 | Connie: Well, I like the little girl's
position with the very big cow, but this
| | 12:21 | wouldn't mean nearly as much without.
| | 12:24 | I assume, the parents right here watching.
| | 12:27 | Ben: and I think the parents,
right here are interesting.
| | 12:29 | They serve a purely formal function.
| | 12:32 | They are balancing this side of
the image, but then there is a whole
| | 12:35 | content layer of the fact that
it's the parents watching the daughter
| | 12:38 | underneath the really large cow.
| | 12:40 | Connie: And if we just looked at this on a
very graphic formal level, you would think
| | 12:44 | how can this be balanced out by this?
| | 12:47 | But it's the dynamic
relationship here that creates that balance.
| | 12:52 | So this is another way of really
kind of bending or breaking the rules
| | 12:55 | of composition.
| | 12:56 | Ben: Yeah.
That's it.
| | 12:59 | This is Steve Simon, again, a
Canadian-based photographer, now living in
| | 13:02 | New York.
| | 13:03 | One thing that always strikes me about
Steve's images is as carefully formal
| | 13:08 | as they are.
| | 13:09 | They look very casual.
| | 13:10 | They look like I was just out in the
world and I saw this, and that makes you
| | 13:14 | really want to go out and take pictures.
| | 13:16 | That's what I am often left with
when I am looking at his stuff.
| | 13:20 | We are going to be looking at another
photographer's work and then some of
| | 13:24 | Connie's work later in this course.
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|
|
7. LightIt's the light| 00:01 | Check this out!
| | 00:01 | We rounded a corner into this room and
found this, this chair and this lamp in
| | 00:06 | front of this beat-up old wall with
peeling paint, it just looks great.
| | 00:09 | It is such a picture waiting to happen.
| | 00:12 | There is just one problem, the light is bad.
| | 00:15 | And if you're thinking right now,
well what's wrong with the light?
| | 00:17 | Look what it looks like over here on
this side of the room, right near the
| | 00:20 | window where there was also this other
chair is sitting. The light is great here.
| | 00:25 | I've got this just beautiful, soft,
luminous thing around me that, it'd be
| | 00:29 | really nice to have over there.
| | 00:30 | We have talked about a lot of different
compositional ideas, different ways you
| | 00:35 | can piece together lines and shapes
and forms and lights and shadows and all
| | 00:38 | sorts of other things to create an
interesting way of ordering your scene and
| | 00:42 | guiding the viewer's eye, but all of
that is irrelevant if you don't have good
| | 00:47 | light. All photos start with the light.
| | 00:50 | Very often you will look for the
light first, and then find something to
| | 00:55 | do within that light.
| | 00:56 | Just because we got a great scene over
there, if we don't have the light for it,
| | 01:00 | there's probably not
that much we can do with it.
| | 01:02 | Now we can shoot this anyway and see if
we can kind of fake some light stuff in
| | 01:07 | Photoshop, but sometimes that works.
| | 01:09 | It's not something you should really count on.
| | 01:11 | Shoot it anyway, let's see
what you can do with that later.
| | 01:13 | But as you're walking around, trying
to see, and trying to keep your eyes open
| | 01:18 | for all these compositional ideas,
please don't forget that also, first and
| | 01:23 | foremost, you are walking
around looking for the light.
| | 01:26 | Now, you can try to manipulate the light,
| | 01:29 | if you're carrying the right gear to
get the lighting you want over there.
| | 01:32 | That's not what we're doing right now.
We're walking around
| | 01:34 | just with camera in hand, looking for
found situations that we can find.
| | 01:38 | It's very difficult to stress just how
much light is where photography comes
| | 01:43 | from, what makes a good photo.
| | 01:45 | So don't forget that while we're
working through all of these other ideas.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Direction of light| 00:00 | So I'm walking around, the sun is
setting, it's really dramatic and I'm
| | 00:03 | looking in this direction and I'm just
not seeing anything, the sun is so bright
| | 00:07 | and it's washing out everything.
| | 00:09 | It looks kind of flat.
| | 00:10 | As you can see, I've also got
this big problem with lens flare.
| | 00:13 | But if I turn around, I've got the sun
casting shadows into these tire tracks
| | 00:18 | that are cutting across the grid of
the field, and it's all leading into a
| | 00:21 | beautiful full moon with
clouds passing in front of it.
| | 00:24 | This is a nice shot.
| | 00:25 | Now, when I'm looking into the sun, if
I have the problem of lens flare, when I
| | 00:29 | am looking away from the sun, I
have the problem with my shadow.
| | 00:32 | This means I am going to have to work
to try to get out of the way or find a
| | 00:36 | camera position and focal length
that lets me get the framing that I want
| | 00:39 | without including my shadow.
| | 00:40 | When I am looking into the sun, I am going to
have to work on shielding the lens with my hand.
| | 00:45 | If I had just been looking that
way, I would have missed this.
| | 00:48 | Direction of light is a critical
consideration, particularly when the sun is
| | 00:52 | low, both for ease of shooting because
you are going to be facing one of these
| | 00:56 | two problems, and because you are going
to be getting shadows in very different
| | 00:59 | places and that can lead to very
different results in your image.
| | 01:03 | Let's take a look at some other
examples of direction of light.
| | 01:06 | So the sun is setting and like a
moth, my camera is drawn to it.
| | 01:12 | I can't take my eyes off of it.
| | 01:14 | I am standing here in this field,
thinking there's a great picture here because
| | 01:17 | of all this dramatic light and these
clouds, and I've got these cool repeating
| | 01:21 | patterns because of these crops here
that I'm trampling as I walk around
| | 01:25 | looking for a picture.
| | 01:27 | But it's just not
happening and I shot this a lot.
| | 01:29 | I tried a lot of different things
and I just wasn't getting anywhere.
| | 01:33 | Couple of things are going on here,
first of all, the camera is exposing for the
| | 01:37 | bright sky, so this is all going a
little bit darker, but also I'm standing on
| | 01:41 | the shadow side of the plants.
| | 01:43 | In other words, since the sun is
coming from over here, the other side of
| | 01:47 | these, whatever these are, are lit up
and I am standing in the shadowy side.
| | 01:52 | I came very close to going, there is
no picture here, and just turning to the
| | 01:56 | right and walking back to the car.
Instead I turned to the left by chance and
| | 02:00 | actually did a full turn around, and
when I turned about 180 degrees I saw this.
| | 02:05 | So this is very similar to the
example we saw earlier in the video.
| | 02:08 | From this side, something is really happening.
| | 02:11 | Now of course, part of it is I've got
these wonderful geometric patterns of
| | 02:14 | these tire tracks through here.
| | 02:16 | But the reason they're working is that
I'm now looking at the lit side of the
| | 02:19 | plants, and so I've got brightly lit
plants against the dark ground and that's
| | 02:22 | giving me this cool contrast.
| | 02:24 | Yes, I don't have the dramatic sunset
in the sky, but that's okay that would be
| | 02:28 | competing with my subject here.
| | 02:30 | So I found these lines and started to
work the shot building around the lines.
| | 02:34 | But what really makes this image work,
or what makes this subject work, is the
| | 02:38 | change in direction of light.
| | 02:40 | By looking at lit side, rather than the
shadow side, I add something interesting.
| | 02:45 | Now that doesn't mean that
that's a hard and fast rule.
| | 02:47 | Here's a case of standing on
the shadow side where it works.
| | 02:49 | What makes this image work is the nice
dramatic shadow that's coming all the
| | 02:53 | way out to my camera that's forming
this one whole complete piece of geometry
| | 02:57 | here that's interesting.
| | 02:58 | If I'd been standing over here to
the right, obviously I could have had a
| | 03:01 | picture of a tree with a
shadow going off to its left.
| | 03:04 | I could have stood over here and
had the shadow going off to the right.
| | 03:06 | Those might have been interesting pictures.
| | 03:08 | This is the one that really took me.
| | 03:10 | Probably the least interesting picture
in this case would have been to do what
| | 03:13 | I did in the last example, which would be to
walk around the tree and shoot the lit side of it.
| | 03:18 | And I think that probably would've been
least interesting because the lit side
| | 03:22 | of the tree tonally was going to be
about the same as the ground, and so the tree
| | 03:26 | just would've gotten lost.
| | 03:28 | So here is a case where again direction
of light is what's making the image, but
| | 03:31 | in this case it's working
because I'm looking into the sun.
| | 03:34 | One thing I did here was I moved around
quite a bit until I found a tree branch
| | 03:39 | that blocked the main disk of the sun in a way,
in such a way that I did not get lens flare.
| | 03:44 | So the reason I don't have a lens
flare here is I very carefully positioned
| | 03:48 | this tree branch here.
| | 03:49 | It's getting washed out and
lost, but I kind of like that.
| | 03:51 | This nice dramatic point here is a
destination that your eye gets to
| | 03:55 | after following all these lines, and it also
served to really stop a lens flare problem.
| | 04:01 | When you are working in color, in
addition to contrast changing, you will very
| | 04:05 | often find changes in hue, changes in
color, as you look in different directions.
| | 04:10 | A thunderstorm had broken up, the sun
was setting and so this ridiculously
| | 04:15 | dramatic orange sky was happening.
| | 04:17 | This is actually what it looked like.
| | 04:19 | There is not really any manipulation here.
| | 04:21 | The air itself was red.
| | 04:24 | It was just spectacular.
| | 04:26 | But we're also getting some nice
things looking into the sun here.
| | 04:28 | We are getting the silhouettes of the trees.
| | 04:30 | We're getting the dramatic water here,
and I kind of composed and built up around
| | 04:34 | these strong lines coming across here.
| | 04:37 | Curiously enough, looking in the
other direction wasn't much happening.
| | 04:41 | The light was very purple, not red.
| | 04:43 | So this is a case where I'm getting a
color shift because of the direction of
| | 04:48 | light looking into it or looking away from it.
| | 04:51 | Here's another looking into the sun
example, kind of similar to the one
| | 04:55 | we looked at earlier.
| | 04:56 | I wanted to show you this one to show
that sometimes a silhouette is not the
| | 05:00 | only thing you can achieve.
| | 05:01 | The sun was down behind this barn a
little bit, or this little house thing and
| | 05:06 | I was still working to get the tree in such
a way that it was blocking lens flare for me.
| | 05:10 | But it hasn't gone into full silhouette,
so I've got these nice details on it.
| | 05:14 | What caught my eye here was, one, the
dramatic backlighting, but also I just
| | 05:18 | liked this big curve and the mirror,
not quite as big, but a mirroring
| | 05:23 | curve over here so I built
around that compositionally.
| | 05:26 | But again, you can sometimes shoot into
the sun without going to full silhouette.
| | 05:30 | Now here's an interesting one.
| | 05:33 | This is a direction of light example.
| | 05:36 | But there's not a really strong
direction of light that you can see.
| | 05:38 | I am not getting strong shadows anywhere.
| | 05:41 | That's because the sun is directly overhead.
| | 05:43 | Now we talk a lot about how, well when
you're shooting you want to go out when
| | 05:46 | the sun is low, because you get dramatic
shadows and lots of contrast and lots of texture.
| | 05:51 | And that's true.
| | 05:52 | That's a very easy time to shoot.
| | 05:54 | You'll see lots and lots of wonderful
texture and geometry and things to play with.
| | 05:58 | That doesn't matter that you can't go out
in the middle of the day and get good shots.
| | 06:02 | You will have to work harder.
| | 06:03 | It's harder to find interesting
light in the middle of the day.
| | 06:05 | But here's an example where directly
overhead, the sun is never directly
| | 06:09 | overhead, but more overhead.
| | 06:11 | It really works for this image.
| | 06:13 | It gives me just this sea of white in
this cotton field and I like this strip of
| | 06:16 | black here, and then the
strong geometric shape behind.
| | 06:20 | A stronger shadow in one direction or
another, this image might not work as well.
| | 06:25 | I wouldn't have such great white because
the cotton would be casting shadows on itself.
| | 06:29 | So there are times when the correct or
best direction of light for an image is
| | 06:34 | from high overhead, eliminating
shadow and eliminating too much texture.
| | 06:38 | Here's a case where my subject
would be pretty much invisible with a
| | 06:43 | different direction of light.
| | 06:44 | The sun is actually off-
frame a little to the right here.
| | 06:47 | It had risen maybe two hours earlier
and so I'm still getting good strong
| | 06:51 | backlighting, the deer is
running. It's silhouetted.
| | 06:53 | If I had been around on the other side,
well if I had been around on the other
| | 06:57 | side I'd be standing in water, but in
addition to being wet, I would be looking
| | 07:02 | at the deer up against the bare ground.
| | 07:04 | If you've spent any time around deer,
you know they are very well camouflaged
| | 07:07 | and so the shot just really wouldn't work.
| | 07:08 | This deer is pretty much only visible
because it's in silhouette, so again a
| | 07:14 | case of direction of light
really making the difference.
| | 07:18 | In looking at these images now, it's
obvious that being on the shadow side of
| | 07:22 | something is very different than being
on the lit side, or being 90 degrees to
| | 07:26 | the shadow, in other words
being over here looking this way.
| | 07:29 | The main thing I want you to take away
from this is that direction of light matters.
| | 07:34 | It's very important for your composition.
| | 07:35 | If you are in a scene and you think,
boy the light here
| | 07:39 | is really great, but I am just not seeing
anything, be sure you look in all directions.
| | 07:43 | You may be recognizing the hallmarks of
potentially good light like I was here,
| | 07:48 | but you're not looking in the right direction.
| | 07:50 | Looking 180 degrees in the other
direction gets you something more interesting.
| | 07:53 | So be sure when you see good
light to check it in all directions.
| | 07:57 | Or if you see subject matter that
you think is interesting, but you just
| | 08:01 | can't find the shot.
| | 08:02 | It may be because you need to work
with the light in a different direction.
| | 08:05 | It can be important to think about,
do I want to shoot the shadowy side of
| | 08:08 | something or the brightly lit side of something.
| | 08:11 | If you don't want to think through that
whole process, or you don't really know
| | 08:14 | how to visualize that, fine,
just explore, work your shot.
| | 08:18 | Change the direction of light by moving
in different directions and turning in
| | 08:21 | different directions, and you very
well may see that a shot appears in one
| | 08:26 | direction when it's
invisible from another direction.
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| Texture| 00:01 | In addition to making things lighter
and darker, one of the many things that
| | 00:04 | light does is to create texture.
| | 00:07 | As you get angled light onto a rough
surface, the surface casts little shadows
| | 00:12 | on itself and you see
all this wonderful texture.
| | 00:15 | In this old beat-up hotel we are
just finding that all over the place.
| | 00:18 | There's peeling paint.
| | 00:19 | There's broken plaster.
| | 00:20 | There are shattered windows.
| | 00:21 | It's just a texture fest in here.
| | 00:24 | I've noticed with students that
eventually there is some point where every
| | 00:27 | beginning photographer begins to see
texture and recognize texture as a really
| | 00:32 | wonderful thing to photograph.
| | 00:34 | It's a wonderful representation of light itself.
| | 00:37 | That's said, you have to be very
careful with texture, because particularly in
| | 00:41 | a place like this, it's interesting to
come in and see all this texture and go wow!
| | 00:45 | There's got to be a
composition here and sometimes there is.
| | 00:48 | You can start working with it, and
maybe you can find something interesting.
| | 00:51 | It's important to pay attention
though to the fact that very often texture
| | 00:56 | itself is not a subject for a photo.
| | 00:59 | Here is a great example.
I've got this beat-up wall.
| | 01:01 | I've got stuff on the floor. I like the colors.
| | 01:04 | I like the texture.
| | 01:05 | When the light hits it just
right, it looks really great.
| | 01:07 | I don't have a subject.
| | 01:09 | There's not really anything I can do with it.
| | 01:11 | This is another instance where I've
got a great background for something.
| | 01:15 | So, what I would try to do is if I've
got a friend with me, stick them in front
| | 01:19 | of the wall and you may think, but I
am not portrait shooter.
| | 01:22 | That's not what I came here for, yeah,
but then you've got a subject, and you
| | 01:25 | will find that having the subject
gives you again an anchor that allows the
| | 01:30 | viewer to explore that
texture and appreciate that texture.
| | 01:33 | So, I'm going to work in a space like
this when I find texture to find a subject
| | 01:37 | to go in front of it.
| | 01:38 | Sometimes that can be a simple
graphical element that anchors the image,
| | 01:42 | sometimes I need to drag
something else into the composition.
| | 01:45 | So be careful with texture, learn to
develop an eye for it, pay attention to it,
| | 01:49 | watch throughout the day as texture
changes, as the light changes, but do keep
| | 01:54 | an eye on being careful about
shooting texture as subject.
| | 01:58 | Sometimes that's a somewhat risky
endeavor, because as we've said before every
| | 02:04 | image has to have a clearly
defined subject and background.
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| Shadows and negative space| 00:00 | Hopefully, by now you've gotten the
chance to start thinking about light a
| | 00:04 | little bit differently and to
understand that light is where it all starts.
| | 00:08 | But shadow is pretty good also.
| | 00:10 | Light and shadow are really the
fundamental building blocks of photography,
| | 00:15 | especially black and white
photography, and you don't want to ignore
| | 00:18 | dark spaces and shadows.
| | 00:20 | Here, we've got a wonderfully balanced
and framed image, because of all of the
| | 00:24 | negative space in this scene.
| | 00:26 | Very often when you are out looking for
subject matter, keep your eyes open for
| | 00:31 | tonal differences like this, an area
of deep shadow and bright light, you may
| | 00:35 | be able to turn that into an
interesting composition. Or if you are shooting
| | 00:39 | something and really have your eyes
going and are seeing well, take note of the
| | 00:43 | shadows in the image, don't try to get
rid of them, instead try to work with them.
| | 00:48 | It's very easy with the incredible
lowlight capabilities of today's digital
| | 00:52 | cameras to think,
| | 00:53 | Wow! Look I can pull detail out of
every single shadow that's here.
| | 00:56 | If you do that, you're taking away
a lot of your compositional power.
| | 00:59 | Yes, sometimes there will be details
that you need to see for your shot to make
| | 01:03 | sense or to stay balanced, but don't
immediately go for, Uh-oh! I don't have detail
| | 01:09 | in that shadow. I need to overexpose
to pull it out.
| | 01:11 | Play with the shadows, work with them
as balancing elements, work with them as
| | 01:14 | framing elements, work with them as
you would any other compositional device.
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| Exposure concerns| 00:00 | I'm standing here at a situation that
has a pretty fair amount of dynamic range.
| | 00:04 | I've got bright sky back behind the mountains.
| | 00:06 | I've got a light side of the mountain.
| | 00:08 | I have a shadowy side of the mountain.
| | 00:09 | What's interesting about this shot and
the reason that I stopped here is those
| | 00:13 | trees poking up out of the
shadows into the sunlight.
| | 00:15 | Those can be very
interesting things to compose with.
| | 00:17 | They're point elements that I could
compose around because they are nice
| | 00:21 | bright accents amongst what
would otherwise be shadow.
| | 00:24 | Exposure-wise this is pretty simple.
| | 00:25 | I'm going to expose for the highlights,
just like I always do for the most part
| | 00:29 | to ensure that highlight detail was preserved.
| | 00:31 | Now the program modes and the light
meters on most cameras are going to do
| | 00:35 | that for you anyway.
| | 00:37 | If you are not comfortable with
these exposure concepts, check out my
| | 00:40 | Foundations of Photography: Exposure course.
| | 00:42 | There's another issue here that I
might be facing though, depending on what
| | 00:45 | kind of camera I am using.
| | 00:46 | If I'm using a point and shoot camera
or any other type of camera that uses
| | 00:50 | an LCD viewfinder, then I am potentially going
to have trouble when I start to frame this shot.
| | 00:55 | My eye can see detail in all those shadow areas.
| | 00:58 | That's part of what stopped
me as I was thinking, wow!
| | 01:00 | Those brightly lit trees, against some
of those shadowy rocks, those could be
| | 01:03 | interesting elements to compose with.
| | 01:04 | The LCD screen on the back of
the camera can't do that though.
| | 01:07 | It can't show the full dynamic range of
the scene, like my eye can see, or like I
| | 01:12 | would see through the
optical viewfinder of say, an SLR.
| | 01:15 | Instead, it's going to expose for the
highlights and show those, and plunge the
| | 01:21 | darker areas into shadows.
| | 01:22 | Now that doesn't mean that it's not going to
capture detail in the shadows when I shoot.
| | 01:26 | It can do that when I shoot, because
it has time to take a longer exposure.
| | 01:29 | But when I am just looking at the
viewfinder, shadowy areas may go to
| | 01:32 | complete black. So this is a simulation.
| | 01:36 | If I point a camera like this at a
scene like this, on the viewfinder, I am
| | 01:39 | probably to see something like this.
And this is what I am talking about, the
| | 01:42 | shadowy side of the
mountain has lost lots of detail.
| | 01:45 | I can no longer see rocks and things in there.
| | 01:48 | When I take the shot though, I will
probably get something like this, and this
| | 01:53 | is showing me the detail.
| | 01:54 | Now the reason it's important to be
aware of this is you might be walking along
| | 01:58 | and something catches your
eye compositionally. Hello!
| | 02:00 | Look there is a rock and a
brightly lit tree. Cool!
| | 02:02 | That's the shot I am going to take, and
you raise your camera up and look at the
| | 02:05 | LCD, and because it can't show you all
that shadow detail, you may not see those
| | 02:09 | details, and go oh, well, I thought
there was a shot here, but there's not.
| | 02:12 | No, there still is,
| | 02:14 | it's just your viewfinder can't show it.
| | 02:15 | You've got to take the shot anyway.
| | 02:17 | And one way to work that
is to go back and forth.
| | 02:20 | Look at the scene with the full dynamic
range of your eye and take note of where
| | 02:24 | things are, and try and
frame it on the viewfinder here,
| | 02:26 | even though you can't see all those details,
take the shot, double check it,
| | 02:30 | make sure you've got what you need.
| | 02:31 | So if you think there is an image
there when you are working with shadows and
| | 02:35 | you hold up the viewfinder and you
don't see it, don't give up on the image.
| | 02:37 | It may just be that your camera isn't
showing you the whole scene if it's a
| | 02:41 | camera that uses an LCD viewfinder.
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| Keeping one eye on post| 00:00 | This is a scene we saw earlier where
because of the direction of light I am
| | 00:04 | getting these wonderful tire tracks
across this field leading into the moon.
| | 00:07 | The problem is though, when I shoot
this, those tire tracks may not be as
| | 00:12 | visible in my final picture as they are here.
| | 00:15 | This is where I am
thinking about post-production.
| | 00:17 | I am seeing the shot and knowing, wow!
| | 00:20 | If I darken up those tire tracks, if I
get this scene really contrasty, I am
| | 00:24 | going to have something very, very cool.
| | 00:26 | All the way back to the beginning of
photography, photographers have, when
| | 00:30 | they've been out shooting, kept
one eye in their post-production,
| | 00:33 | be that darkroom, or digital post-production.
| | 00:35 | They've known that to get certain
shots, they have to do certain things
| | 00:40 | in post-production.
| | 00:41 | If you're thinking about post-
production as you are shooting, a whole
| | 00:46 | new raft of subject matter can appear.
| | 00:48 | If I didn't know that I could darken
those tire tracks, I may not think of this
| | 00:52 | as a scene that was worth shooting.
| | 00:54 | We are going to come back to this
subject when we talk about post-production.
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| Light as subject| 00:01 | You can't hear it enough, so I am going
to say it again, all photos begin with light.
| | 00:05 | Good light will take an otherwise
boring scene and give you a great photo.
| | 00:10 | With bad light, it doesn't matter
how interesting your subject is,
| | 00:13 | you're going to have a hard
time coming back with good results.
| | 00:17 | I want you to try a very
different type of exercise now.
| | 00:19 | I want you to go out and shoot pictures
with the idea of light itself as your subject.
| | 00:26 | In other words, I want you to go out and
look for interesting plays of light, an
| | 00:30 | interesting splash of light,
interesting contrast in light and shadow.
| | 00:34 | Maybe a glint of light off of the highlight of
something, anything that looks like an
| | 00:39 | interesting play of illumination, I
want you to try working that shot and
| | 00:43 | turning it into an image.
| | 00:45 | This is a great exercise.
| | 00:46 | It's a really valuable exercise to come
back to lot, for a couple of different reasons.
| | 00:51 | First of all, with light as subject,
you will begin to understand that whatever
| | 00:56 | light is bouncing off of doesn't matter so much.
| | 00:59 | It's light that makes a photo.
| | 01:00 | This is a way of really
exploring why light is so important.
| | 01:03 | Also, when you go out to shoot light
itself, you'll find a whole realm of new
| | 01:08 | subject matter that you
might not have seen before.
| | 01:11 | This is a great approach if you feel
like you're stuck or if you live somewhere
| | 01:16 | boring, or if you shot the same place
over and over and you just can't find
| | 01:20 | anything else in it. Go looking for
just simply light and see what happens.
| | 01:25 | This is a great exercise to do if you
feel like you're in a rut, if you're not
| | 01:29 | feeling inspired, but it's also a
great exercise to do to build up a better
| | 01:33 | understanding of light and to
simply come back with great pictures.
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|
|
8. Workshop: Finding LightIntroducing the workshop location and instructors| 00:01 | As I mentioned before, Quartz
Mountain State Park is also home to the
| | 00:04 | Oklahoma Arts Institute, a wonderful
organization that delivers arts workshops
| | 00:08 | in multiple disciplines to teenagers and adults.
| | 00:12 | I'm here this weekend to teach a
four-day workshop with Connie Imboden,
| | 00:15 | a wonderful photographer, and a great teacher.
| | 00:18 | You're going to get to meet her
later and see some of her work.
| | 00:20 | We've also got a bonus teacher in the
form of Konrad Eek, also a great teacher.
| | 00:24 | I have had the pleasure of working with
him before and it's always a lot of fun.
| | 00:27 | Now, you may be wondering, why
should I be interested in watching
| | 00:30 | somebody else's photo class?
| | 00:31 | Typically, when you teach
composition, it's a very interactive process.
| | 00:35 | Group critiques are critical to really
getting different perspectives on your
| | 00:39 | image and understanding how
to talk about your images.
| | 00:41 | So by taking you in here, and letting
you see some of the work that's going on
| | 00:44 | and see how the group and the
instructors are talking about the images.
| | 00:49 | You're going to get a more refined
vocabulary for analyzing your own images and
| | 00:54 | learning how to see them differently,
and from that, getting a better idea of
| | 00:58 | where your compositional mistakes
and successes might be happening.
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| Assignment: Finding light| 00:01 | Connie: I'm going to give you the
assignment for this afternoon first.
| | 00:05 | The assignment is
| | 00:08 | Female Speaker: Light.
Connie: Yes, brilliant.
| | 00:10 | Okay, light is what photography is
all about. Can't make photographs
| | 00:15 | without light.
| | 00:17 | But what I want you to do is make light
the subject of your photograph, which is
| | 00:22 | a little bit different way of thinking.
| | 00:24 | We're used to photographing a landscape,
or photographing an object or a person,
| | 00:31 | and we all know a general approach to
take to photographing a landscape, or to
| | 00:36 | photographing a person.
| | 00:40 | But light is different.
| | 00:41 | There isn't a preconceived way of
photographing light, and that's why I want
| | 00:48 | you guys to do this.
| | 00:50 | It's going to get you out of
that hopefully preconceived notion.
| | 00:55 | So let's start.
| | 00:57 | I have a couple of examples
here from our students this summer.
| | 01:01 | Isn't this brilliant?
| | 01:04 | These kids were -- they were outstanding.
| | 01:07 | So does anybody know what this is?
| | 01:09 | Female speaker: I
looked up the word for it:
| | 01:12 | crepuscular rays, crepuscular and the
cast is the -- clouds casting shadows.
| | 01:22 | (crosstalk)
Male speaker: That's a ceiling.
| | 01:23 |
Female speaker: Oh, it is?
I thought it was a sunset.
| | 01:26 | Connie: Doesn't it look like a
sunset with a little city down here?
| | 01:28 | Female speaker: Yeah.
| | 01:29 | Connie: You know what it is?
Does anybody know what it is?
| | 01:33 | Male speaker: It's the ceiling.
| | 01:35 | Connie: It's a ceiling.
| | 01:35 | These are the curtains.
| | 01:36 | He was on the top of his bunk bed,
and this is the morning coming in.
| | 01:43 | This is the curtains right here,
the sun is coming through like that.
| | 01:47 | Female speaker: Did you give him an A?
(laughter)
| | 01:50 | Connie: You know, I would have given him
a dozen A's, but I didn't have the choice.
| | 01:54 | (crosstalk)
| | 01:57 | But again, as the point is, it's
a ceiling, it's a ceiling.
| | 02:02 | it's all in the seeing.
| | 02:04 | Okay, another one, another student.
| | 02:08 | Isn't that just brilliant?
| | 02:10 | It's just brilliant.
| | 02:12 | These kids were so uninhibited and
that's the thing that I want you guys to
| | 02:17 | think about as you go out and shoot.
| | 02:20 | We're not here to make good pictures,
so you can just sort of let go of that.
| | 02:23 | That's not what this is about.
| | 02:25 | We're here to really explore,
and learn, and have fun.
| | 02:30 | This stuff is fun.
| | 02:31 | When you're doing it, it's just so much fun.
| | 02:34 | So think outrageously.
| | 02:37 | Female speaker: So is that light
being reflected off a puddle?
| | 02:40 | Connie: There is a hot tub right here.
| | 02:42 | Female speaker: Oh! Okay.
Connie: And it's the light.
| | 02:48 | Connie: Let yourself play, and when you
find something, when you find a patch of
| | 02:52 | light, and you start photographing,
don't take one picture of it and move on,
| | 02:56 | stay with it. You know,
| | 02:58 | you think about how much work goes in
to making a pot, or making a painting.
| | 03:05 | It takes a tremendous amount of
effort just to get used to the graphic
| | 03:10 | forms that you're looking at, and
that you're dealing with, and so take a
| | 03:14 | lot of pictures.
| | 03:15 | Don't worry about wasting pixels.
| | 03:18 | So play with it, play with what would've
happened if she had come over this far
| | 03:23 | on the image, would it have made it
stronger or not as strong, or come up and
| | 03:28 | just had this much?
| | 03:29 | There is no right or wrong here, so play
with it, play with it, and when you get
| | 03:33 | back and when you're looking at them
in the computer, then we can talk about
| | 03:36 | what difference it makes if
you did it this way or that way.
| | 03:40 | Okay, I think there might one more.
| | 03:43 | Yeah, this was a student where I teach
at Maryland Institute College of Art.
| | 03:48 | He was interning with me this summer,
and I told him to go out and do the
| | 03:53 | assignment and gave him 15 minutes.
(laughter)
| | 03:56 | I thought he did pretty well.
Male speaker: Yeah, very good!
| | 03:58 | Connie: Yeah. I think that's it.
Is that it?
| | 04:02 | Yeah okay that's it.
| | 04:04 | Female speaker: Are we doing it
in black and white light?
| | 04:07 | Ben: We are going to talk
about how to do black and white.
| | 04:10 | Connie: Okay, that's Ben's job.
(laughter)
| | 04:12 | So any questions about that?
| | 04:13 | Male speaker: Here is Connie in blue light.
(laughter)
| | 04:16 | Connie: Any questions about that?
| | 04:21 | So one thing to think about is, let's
say that there's some beautiful light
| | 04:27 | falling on this chair, what you
don't want to do is make a composition
| | 04:32 | around the chair.
| | 04:34 | You want to make a composition
around the light falling on the chair.
| | 04:38 | So you can let go of horizon line.
| | 04:40 | It doesn't have to be up and down.
| | 04:43 | Find the best composition, the best
way that that pattern of light falls into
| | 04:48 | the rectangle of your camera.
| | 04:49 | Okay? So, does that kind of make sense?
| | 04:53 | So just a couple of rules, no tripods,
so you're not stuck on a tripod and
| | 04:59 | you can't move around.
| | 05:01 | I want you to able to move your camera
and really look through the lens and take
| | 05:07 | a lot of pictures and don't judge yourself.
| | 05:10 | Just take a lot of pictures, let
yourself get into that really kind of
| | 05:14 | intuitive flow.
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| Shooting the light| 00:01 | Male speaker: The assignment is to capture
light and part of the idea of capturing light is
| | 00:10 | you're capturing form as well.
| | 00:12 | So I was just playing with the light
coming across the building here, being
| | 00:17 | shadowed by the overhang, making these
triangular statements here, the shadow
| | 00:24 | that falls underneath the boards
themselves and just trying to look at that in
| | 00:30 | a variety of ways.
| | 00:34 | Even with all of this going on you've
got all these sort of sub-statements
| | 00:40 | going on as well, so I am curious to
see how that will translate out into the
| | 00:49 | final images.
| | 00:53 | Ben: Like you, these students have been
given the task of going out and trying to
| | 00:57 | shoot light as a subject itself.
| | 01:00 | So they're looking for
interesting plays of light.
| | 01:02 | They're looking for scenarios where the
light has caught their attention and can
| | 01:06 | hold down the subject of
an entire photo on its own.
| | 01:09 |
| | 01:14 | Something that's interesting about a
class like this is we've got a wide variety
| | 01:18 | of skill levels, some of these
students are fairly beginners, others are
| | 01:21 | experienced shooters actually
coming from a film background.
| | 01:25 | Many of them have never experienced
a group critique before and they're a
| | 01:28 | little nervous about that.
| | 01:29 | Some of them may have photographic
experience, but not have much experience
| | 01:34 | with digital photography and none of them
have ever done an exercise like this, an
| | 01:38 | exercise that's really challenging the
way they see, and getting them to try and
| | 01:41 | look at the world in a very different way.
| | 01:59 | Male speaker: Well I think you would want to go
ahead and take this little bit of light out of
| | 02:05 | the shot in post-production.
| | 02:08 | I think we could bring in the shot a
little bit and reframe it, just to make
| | 02:12 | it more interesting.
| | 02:13 | Ben: We really encourage them to stay
around the lodge because for an exercise
| | 02:17 | like this, it doesn't matter where you are.
| | 02:18 | Another nice thing about this exercise
is it really teaches you that good photos
| | 02:22 | can happen anywhere.
| | 02:23 | You don't have to go somewhere special,
light is happening all over the place
| | 02:26 | and so we're hoping the students are
going to seek it out in the nooks and
| | 02:29 | crannies around the lodge, in
their own rooms, out in the parking lot
| | 02:32 | wherever they can find it.
| | 02:34 |
| | 02:40 | What's compelling about this
exercise is it gets you seeing in a very
| | 02:42 | different way.
| | 02:43 | It gets you to stop thinking about
the objects in front of you, and start
| | 02:46 | thinking about the light that's in front of you.
| | 02:48 | Very often, what makes an interesting
photo is not what you're pointing your
| | 02:51 | camera at, but the light that's
bouncing off of what you're pointing your
| | 02:55 | camera at.
| | 02:56 | Very often you might see shadows that
are interesting and think well, this is
| | 02:59 | an example of interesting light but,
and this is treacherous philosophical
| | 03:02 | ground here, no, that's a picture of a
shadow, not light, even though it's a
| | 03:06 | shadow created by light and that's
often a pitfall that students run into on
| | 03:09 | this exercise.
| | 03:11 | We really want the exercise to be
about shooting interesting light.
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| Critiquing the light assignment| 00:00 | Connie: Okay, so before we get started on
critique, which I hate the word critique,
| | 00:08 | but it's kind of the industry standard.
| | 00:11 | But I want to talk a little
bit about what a critique is.
| | 00:14 | And I love this quote by Rilke the 19th
century Czech poet:
| | 00:19 |
In artistic work one needs nothing so
much as conscience;
| | 00:22 | it is the sole standard.
| | 00:24 | There is really no reason to be
defensive or to lie, to pretend that it didn't
| | 00:36 | happen. It's a little bit
like lying to your therapist.
| | 00:40 | It doesn't do any good in the long run.
| | 00:42 | Because what critique is about is to
make you more aware so as you go out and
| | 00:48 | photograph next time you will be more
aware of some of the situations that
| | 00:51 | we've talked about here.
| | 00:53 | So the sole purpose of it is to
make you stronger, better photographers.
| | 00:57 | Ben: And isn't critique the
French word for disembowelment?
| | 01:01 |
(laughter)
That's how I always think of it.
| | 01:06 | Connie: Well, that makes me feel so
much better, if I had to make a critique.
| | 01:09 | Okay, that was a good one.
(laughs)
| | 01:14 | Ben: Yeah, can we have that slide
up next time?
| | 01:15 | Connie: Yeah, quote by Ben Long.
| | 01:20 | So the way I like to do critiques is
not to approach it so much by what the
| | 01:27 | image means or the feelings that it
evokes from it, that we can certainly get
| | 01:32 | into that, but I like to approach
it from a very graphic point of view.
| | 01:37 | What works in the image and why,
and what doesn't work and why.
| | 01:41 | And where does your eye go in the image,
and what's pulling you into that
| | 01:46 | point and what's taking you away,
what are the distracting moments.
| | 01:49 | So that's the way I would like to go
about this and everybody's free to talk.
| | 01:56 |
Connie: Whose is this?
Okay, where do your eyes go?
| | 02:02 |
(indecipherable speech)
| | 02:06 | Right around here, yeah and that
just keeps taking us down this way.
| | 02:11 | I would love to see you get rid of
this little piece right up there, because
| | 02:18 | there's nothing really there.
| | 02:20 | It's pulling us -- we are going in this
direction.
| | 02:23 | It's just pulling us up there.
And it's nothing interesting.
| | 02:27 | It's just sort of a distraction.
| | 02:30 | But I think this image is wonderful.
| | 02:32 | I love the simplicity of it.
| | 02:35 | I love how you have it coming in from
one side, and it's like making use of the
| | 02:39 | really dynamic corner to
corner of the rectangle.
| | 02:44 | Ben: One technical comment, the over
exposed highlight on the right side.
| | 02:49 | I say that's over exposed because
there's no detail in there, look at the change
| | 02:53 | in detail as it ramps back into the pipe.
| | 02:57 | If you were shooting raw, that's the
kind of detail that you can recover.
| | 03:01 | That's one of the advantages of
shooting raw over JPEG and we haven't talked
| | 03:05 | about raw at all, but one of the big
advantages of raw is that you would be able
| | 03:08 | to get detail back into that highlight
and put some texture back in there, and
| | 03:12 | make it just a little bit less of an eye magnet.
| | 03:14 | Connie: Is there a way of relating this
with these forms in a different way and
| | 03:20 | that's all playing with camera angle,
and I think it may not work, but it's
| | 03:24 | interesting to play with.
| | 03:25 | Ben: And that's another reason that
we stress the working the shot thing.
| | 03:29 | You never know -- oh look when I got
little bit lower like what happened to the
| | 03:32 | shadows and that kind of thing.
| | 03:35 | Connie: Who's is this?
Female speaker: That one's mine.
| | 03:39 | Connie: Okay, where do your eyes go?
| | 03:41 |
(indecipherable speech)
| | 03:43 | I think they go -- yeah walk right up
there and isn't that light just gorgeous?
| | 03:53 | And there's no doubt this is light.
| | 03:56 | This is totally light.
| | 03:59 | And what she's done also is make
these darker tones here really define the
| | 04:04 | light here.
| | 04:05 | So we're defining the highlight.
| | 04:07 | We get such a strong sense of
what these highlights are about.
| | 04:11 | Yeah, that's great.
| | 04:13 | Ben: And I think that's a good example
of how she is gone abstract enough that we
| | 04:16 | don't get into a literal interpretation and
so can more easily see the light.
| | 04:23 | Connie: Who's is this?
| | 04:24 | Male speaker: That's mine.
Connie: Okay.
| | 04:27 | Where do your eyes go, what do you see?
| | 04:33 | Well, I think this is
composed around this wall here.
| | 04:36 | I would get rid of this little patch
of light here, this is an interesting
| | 04:41 | little element.
| | 04:43 | But this is really -- it's a nice photograph
of a wall, a barn wall or wood wall,
| | 04:49 | rather than the light falling on the wall.
| | 04:54 | Oh this is beautiful, good, this is
great, yeah that is just beautiful and
| | 05:03 | compositionally again it's going right
into the back -- everything is working in
| | 05:08 | harmony, everything speaking to one another.
| | 05:12 | And you've got a sense of space
that works, but it's not obvious.
| | 05:17 | So there's something there
that really keeps us engaged.
| | 05:19 | It's nice.
| | 05:22 |
Male speaker: That's mine.
| | 05:24 | Isn't that beautiful? The composition is
nice, the way it's filling the
| | 05:31 | frame, but it's not in the center of
the frame so the balance is really working.
| | 05:36 | The negative space is all
working and the light right there.
| | 05:40 | It's beautiful.
| | 05:44 |
Male speaker: Also mine.
| | 05:47 |
Connie: Shadows, it's busy and
it's about shadows.
| | 05:56 | You could have gone in there and really
examine this and looked right here to
| | 06:02 | see if there's an interesting way that
you could really frame the light in here,
| | 06:06 | and use all of this stuff to frame the light.
| | 06:09 | Do you know what I mean?
| | 06:11 | So find the light in there.
| | 06:12 | It would be the interesting thing.
| | 06:14 | And that's again working it,
getting in there and really working it.
| | 06:19 | Male speaker: Actually after I converted
this image I realized that I have a couple
| | 06:23 | others that would have worked.
| | 06:25 | This was more about the shadow, and I
thought, wait a minute this would be
| | 06:29 | doing a lot of that.
| | 06:33 |
| | 06:34 | Connie: There is so much light going on in here.
| | 06:36 | There's something about it that
feels just a little bit awkward.
| | 06:42 | I am trying to figure out what it is.
| | 06:44 | Ben: There is a strange sense of depth
or lack of depth in the image because the
| | 06:50 | tones in the floor and the tones in
the chair and the tones in the apple are
| | 06:53 | the same.
| | 06:54 | It's hard to see any three-dimensionality to it.
| | 06:57 | At the same time I like that, it makes
it very painterly.
| | 07:01 | It looks like a pencil drawing, which is
cool, and yet I think that may be what's
| | 07:05 | disorienting is, I don't have a
strong sense of depth, but I like that
| | 07:09 | pencil drawing quality.
| | 07:11 | Connie: Yeah the confusion of
the space here is interesting.
| | 07:16 | But I think if it was truly about
light, this point would have been
| | 07:20 | finished right here.
| | 07:23 | That feels like that's cut off.
| | 07:25 | Ben: This also, though you may not
recognize it when you are standing there, this
| | 07:29 | also would count as a pretty high
dynamic range scene, which is why we've lost
| | 07:34 | the highlight over there on that apple.
| | 07:36 | That's a case where, we talked earlier
about the histogram and you saw why it's
| | 07:41 | a critical postproduction tool.
| | 07:42 | Your camera will also show you in
the camera histogram of any image that
| | 07:46 | you've taken.
| | 07:47 | So you could take -- when you're in a
situation like this where you go wow,
| | 07:49 | I've got a really bright highlight on
a shiny object, I really don't want to
| | 07:53 | over expose it.
| | 07:54 | You could take the picture and look at
the histogram on the back of the camera.
| | 07:57 | Anytime you see a big spike on the
right side, very right side of the histogram
| | 08:01 | that means over exposure.
| | 08:02 | And a lot of cameras will also, in the
thumbnail preview, when you are looking at
| | 08:06 | the histogram, they'll flash any
area in the image that's over exposed.
| | 08:10 | So I would expect you would see
this entire right side of this apple
| | 08:13 | flashing black.
| | 08:14 | At that point you could say, oh I need to
underexpose this image. Your camera has
| | 08:19 | an exposure compensation control that
let's you say, you can just dial in a
| | 08:23 | certain amount of over or under exposure.
| | 08:25 | So you could say underexpose this by a
stop and that would probably come -- you
| | 08:29 | would probably get
detail back in that highlight.
| | 08:32 | It would mean in postproduction that
you are going to have to work to brighten
| | 08:34 | the rest of the image and we can go
over where those controls are later.
| | 08:39 | Connie: Okay this could work.
| | 08:41 | This really could work, taking the
whites up quite a bit in here and even in the
| | 08:48 | reflection and taking the rest of this
down, and really get a sense of light.
| | 08:53 | Light that's going through plastic
and light that's hitting water is just
| | 08:57 | beautiful. You've got these
really specular highlights here that are
| | 09:00 | just gorgeous.
| | 09:01 | So I think you could make this work and
I'll work on this with you if you want
| | 09:06 | to make this really have that feeling of light.
| | 09:10 | Well, I am impressed.
| | 09:11 | I think you guys did a really
good job with this assignment.
| | 09:14 | It's a hard assignment. It's kind of
pushing you to see differently, so kudos.
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|
|
9. ColorThe basics of color| 00:01 | I've been asking you to shoot in
black and white throughout this course and
| | 00:04 | I hope by now it's obvious why.
| | 00:06 | When you take color out of the equation,
you get down to pure geometry and form,
| | 00:10 | and that can make developing and
experimenting with your compositional
| | 00:13 | vocabulary much easier.
| | 00:15 | But of course, we live in a color world
and so a lot of times, and maybe for you
| | 00:20 | all the time you're going
to want to shoot in color.
| | 00:22 | As I said earlier though, working
with color is hard, color is an entirely
| | 00:27 | different layer of information that's
set on top of your image, and now you've
| | 00:31 | seen the importance of simplifying
your image to help make the subject and
| | 00:35 | background more clearly defined. Well if
you're adding more information in the form
| | 00:39 | of color, your image
immediately gets more complex.
| | 00:43 | Nevertheless, there are some simple
guidelines you can follow for composing with color.
| | 00:49 | Color composition is a very complex
subject and we're not going to be able to go
| | 00:54 | in to great depth here in this course,
but in this chapter, we're going to take
| | 00:57 | a look at a few simple guidelines and
ideas that can help you improve your
| | 01:01 | compositions when working with color.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| When to shoot color| 00:01 | I've been asking you to shoot in
black and white so far throughout this
| | 00:04 | course, obviously in this
chapter we're talking about color.
| | 00:07 | But the reason I've been asking you to
shoot black and white is because color
| | 00:10 | can be confusing sometimes, it's
difficult to compose with color.
| | 00:14 | Color creates an extra layer of
information for the viewer, and sometimes that's
| | 00:19 | just more information than you need.
| | 00:20 | As I said earlier, when you strip
color out, you get down to really
| | 00:23 | basic composition.
| | 00:25 | But take a look at this, right now
I'm standing here against a background
| | 00:29 | that is a peach color.
| | 00:31 | In black and white, the tone of the
background and the tone of my skin are
| | 00:36 | almost exactly the same, which means
it's hard to get separation of me from
| | 00:40 | the background.
| | 00:41 | Tone is simply the
brightness of a particular gray value.
| | 00:47 | The brightness of my skin,
the brightness of the back wall,
| | 00:49 | they're about the same, and so I am
kind of disappearing here into the wall.
| | 00:53 | There are a couple of ways of dealing with this.
| | 00:55 | In my black and white conversion, I
can make sure that this peach color gets
| | 00:58 | rendered maybe as a darker tone, but
there's another option and that's to go
| | 01:03 | to color.
| | 01:04 | Now, this doesn't really solve our
problem, but I wanted you to see what I look
| | 01:08 | like in the real world, in the
real color world, up against this wall.
| | 01:12 | I've got two problems here,
| | 01:13 | I am still the same tone as the
background. As we saw in Grayscale mode, tonal
| | 01:20 | values are the same, the brightness of
this particular peach color is the same
| | 01:24 | as the brightness of my skin
and so I am fading into the wall.
| | 01:27 | When you throw in the fact that it's
almost the same color as my skin, I really
| | 01:30 | get camouflaged here, and
I don't really stand out.
| | 01:34 | I want to create some separation here.
| | 01:36 | Let's go back to black and white, and I
want you to see what it looks like if
| | 01:40 | we shoot a reverse angle, we're going
to move the camera around here and shoot
| | 01:44 | the opposite direction.
| | 01:45 | Now I know you can't see
this because we're in grayscale,
| | 01:48 | but that wall behind me is green.
| | 01:51 | However, notice I am still getting lost in it.
| | 01:54 | That green again is the same tone as
my skin tone, and so I am not seeing a
| | 01:59 | lot of separation.
| | 02:00 | So we've had a peach wall that I get
lost in, and now we've got this green wall.
| | 02:05 | Colors even if they have a different
hue can still have the same tone, that is,
| | 02:09 | the same brightness.
| | 02:10 | So I am facing the same
problem that I had before.
| | 02:13 | Now, I could of course tone the
green in a way so that I stand out more.
| | 02:17 | I could go to a darker green or a
lighter green, but there's another option.
| | 02:20 | If we go to color, we see now that
even though I am the same tone, the
| | 02:26 | difference in hue makes me stand out more.
| | 02:29 | My reddish skin against the green wall
makes for better separation than it did
| | 02:34 | against the peach wall.
| | 02:35 | So this is a great example of
using color in a compositional sense.
| | 02:39 | I am using color to separate
a foreground from background.
| | 02:42 | in this case, it's a better choice
than working with black and white.
| | 02:46 | There are a lot of reasons you might
choose to shoot color and work with color.
| | 02:50 | For example, you might use color as an accent.
| | 02:53 | You saw this earlier actually when we
were shooting on the set in front of the
| | 02:56 | computers and there was
that nice thin strip of stuff.
| | 02:59 | These are some examples of other
times when color can make a nice accent.
| | 03:03 | Now, sometimes when you're working with
color, you need to really concentrate on
| | 03:07 | your simplify step, because color does
add this extra complexity, you want to
| | 03:12 | make sure that you're working with a
very simple composition, so that the extra
| | 03:16 | color element doesn't make things
too overwhelming for the viewer.
| | 03:20 | Color can have an emotional quality to it.
| | 03:22 | Warmer colors can feel very
different than bluer colors.
| | 03:25 | So you might choose to build a
composition with a color tone in mind, or a color
| | 03:30 | quality in mind to get a
particular emotional choice.
| | 03:34 | For the most part, you will choose to
work with color at the most basic level in
| | 03:38 | the same way you work with simple
shapes and geometry, a patch of color can
| | 03:44 | effectively be a geometric shape in
your image that you can compose with.
| | 03:47 | Composing with color is a huge topic.
| | 03:50 | You should be able to get started
with it based on the simple compositional
| | 03:53 | ideas that you've learned here.
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| How to shoot color| 00:00 | When you start working with color in
your compositions, you will continue to
| | 00:04 | do the same thing you've
been doing in black and white.
| | 00:07 | You'll need to be sure you
have a subject in a background.
| | 00:09 | You'll want to have a balanced
composition, you will need to try to go for a
| | 00:13 | very simple image, and you'll
need to think about point-of-view.
| | 00:15 | But when you're working with color,
you will have an additional set of
| | 00:19 | considerations on top of those.
| | 00:21 | First of all, as you add color, you
need to think about what weight it has
| | 00:26 | in your composition, particularly in
an instance like this where we've got
| | 00:30 | some color accents.
| | 00:31 | Do those bits of color throw
the balance of the image off?
| | 00:34 | And does that balance need to
be corrected with something else?
| | 00:38 | Just as we've been balancing different
tones against each other, different kinds
| | 00:41 | of geometry against each other,
balancing tone against geometry.
| | 00:44 | You can balance color
against any of those other things.
| | 00:47 | You can mix and match them.
| | 00:49 | As you add color, you will probably
need to think more about the simplicity
| | 00:53 | question, because as we've said, color adds
an extra layer of complexity to your image.
| | 00:58 | It's a whole extra bit of stuff
that the viewer has to process.
| | 01:02 | So you may need to go for an even simpler image.
| | 01:05 | You may need to get in tighter.
| | 01:06 | You may need to work harder to
crop out extra extraneous stuff.
| | 01:11 | Finally, you'll want to think about
the atmospheric or emotional quality that
| | 01:15 | color lends to your composition.
| | 01:17 | A bunch of warmer tones are going to
have a very different feel than a bunch
| | 01:20 | of very cool tones, and so you want
to think about how that affects the
| | 01:23 | overall feel of the image, and if that
impacts the composition in any way that
| | 01:27 | needs to be adjusted for.
| | 01:29 | Technically, there are some things
that you need to think about once you
| | 01:31 | start working with color.
| | 01:32 | Of course, you have to have a
good white balance on your camera to
| | 01:36 | accurately record color.
| | 01:39 | So you'll need to consider that,
something you've been able to ignore when
| | 01:41 | working in black and white. But you'll
also want to think about color tone that
| | 01:46 | we've been working purely in tone up to
this point, lightness and darkness, but
| | 01:50 | colors have tones also.
| | 01:51 | I've got these red bricks back here.
| | 01:52 | They're a kind of light color, but
there are a lot of different shades of red.
| | 01:57 | There's lighter red, darker red, and I
can control that through exposure, a
| | 02:01 | little bit of over-exposure is
going to lighten these up even more,
| | 02:04 | under-exposure is going to deepen the
color, make it more saturated, and that in
| | 02:08 | turn can impact my composition.
| | 02:10 | Does a darker color have a heavier
weight in my scene than a lighter color?
| | 02:14 | And do I need more or less weight?
| | 02:17 | Does that mean that I need
one type of exposure or another?
| | 02:20 | These are all things that you need to
be balancing out, and of course once you
| | 02:23 | start playing with exposure to adjust
tone, you will possibly be introducing
| | 02:28 | other troubles into your image.
| | 02:30 | If I am overexposing to lighten the
color tone in my image, that might mean that
| | 02:34 | highlights somewhere in the scene
are going over-exposed and blown out.
| | 02:38 | So these are all things that I have
to balance, all things that I have
| | 02:41 | to consider and weigh against each
other as I start introducing color into
| | 02:46 | my compositions.
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| Practicing color composition| 00:01 | You've probably spent the bulk of
your photographic life working in color,
| | 00:04 | but of course I've had you
shooting in black and white.
| | 00:05 | So now, I think it's time for you to go
back to color and start practicing some
| | 00:10 | of this compositional
vocabulary that we've been working with.
| | 00:13 | As I said before, it's for the most
part exactly like what you've been doing
| | 00:18 | in black and white.
| | 00:19 | There are just these extra considerations
that you need to weigh when you're
| | 00:22 | setting up your shot.
| | 00:24 | Because of that, why don't you start
simply, start with images that are still
| | 00:27 | mostly about tone, interesting plays of
light and that kind of thing, but that
| | 00:31 | maybe have a color accent.
| | 00:33 | One little bit of color weight that you can
start playing with and from there go more complex.
| | 00:38 | A very nice place to start is working
with portraits because you know exactly
| | 00:42 | what color values you are going to
have to work with and you can try to find
| | 00:45 | situations that balance those out.
| | 00:47 | As I said, color is a long course in itself.
| | 00:52 | We are just trying to get the basics
of color worked into the vocabulary that
| | 00:56 | you've already had so that you can
take what you've learned back into your
| | 00:59 | color life for times when it's
more appropriate than black and white.
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| Image analysis: The work of Paul Taggart| 00:00 | Ben: All right we are
back for more image analysis.
| | 00:03 | We've got a different photographer
up here on the chopping block this time.
| | 00:06 | We are going to look at the work
of Paul Taggart, an international
| | 00:09 | photo journalist.
| | 00:10 | I first met Paul here at Arts Institute also,
| | 00:12 | he is also a former student.
| | 00:15 | Fantastic photographer, you might have
seen his work in the New York Times or
| | 00:19 | Time Magazine, any number of
other journalistic institutions.
| | 00:24 | And we have got a little selection of
Paul's work here, starting with this one.
| | 00:27 | It's a powerful image.
| | 00:29 | Connie: It's a very powerful image.
| | 00:30 | Ben: So much so that we didn't know what to say.
| | 00:31 | Connie: Right, it left me speechless.
| | 00:34 | What I love about this image
is this very dark figure here.
| | 00:39 | That's a little soft focus.
| | 00:41 | You don't see any --
| | 00:42 | it's all silhouette, you don't see any
features against this really brilliant
| | 00:47 | white background and everything in
the photograph is really pulling us up
| | 00:51 | to that.
| | 00:52 | That is such a mysterious moment.
| | 00:54 | It really almost takes your breath away.
| | 00:57 | Ben: Well, particularly as you're
drawn here first, to me it's -- there's a
| | 01:03 | wonderful two step thing that happens
here, she almost looks like a bride of
| | 01:06 | some kind, you're lured into
this place of like oh!
| | 01:09 | I am going into the light and here this, oh!
| | 01:12 | And as your eye starts moving around
you realize this is much more sinister
| | 01:15 | scene than maybe you initially
thought, and it really has power.
| | 01:18 | This is a hospital and there
is something in this bed here.
| | 01:22 | There's some nice vignetting going on
also that's really directing attention.
| | 01:26 | Connie: The relationship between this form
and this form becomes so powerful and part
| | 01:33 | of it is that, that this figure is
right in the middle of this form right here
| | 01:38 | and then again you've got the
environment here which is giving you the context
| | 01:43 | for that relationship.
| | 01:44 | Ben: And this is almost just a
straight geometric pattern here.
| | 01:47 | I also like that this line is going
through her head not above or below her or
| | 01:50 | his head, through the figure's head.
| | 01:51 | Very formal, but a tremendous
amount of power in this image, great
| | 01:57 | example of the power of direction of light also.
| | 02:00 |
| | 02:02 | Connie: This image I love for
its simplicity and clever seeing.
| | 02:08 | I love that.
| | 02:09 | So obviously we're looking into a
mirror here, we have three figures that are
| | 02:13 | lining up here, but then we have this
wonderful crack that's going through
| | 02:17 | the mirror.
| | 02:18 | So in just these few graphic
elements he's given us a tremendous amount
| | 02:23 | of information.
| | 02:24 | Ben: And created a very well-
balanced photo, the crack really ties
| | 02:27 | everything together. And there is --
| | 02:28 | you could almost create a
metaphorical context into the crack if
| | 02:32 | this is trouble and it adds a little
bit of an extra element to this scene.
| | 02:37 |
| | 02:39 | Connie: This is also one that gives you
not just the information of what's going on,
| | 02:44 | but gives you the emotional impact of
that information with this very strong
| | 02:49 | figure here taking up more than half
of the photograph with these really rich
| | 02:54 | dark tones, and because we see a little
bit of his facial features here, but not
| | 02:59 | so much. It's not the person here and
that's important, but the symbol of the
| | 03:03 | person with this rich strong dark head.
| | 03:08 | And then we are given additional
information back here which gives us more of
| | 03:12 | a context again.
| | 03:14 | Ben: It's fascinating because this guy,
this is a human profile right in the
| | 03:18 | foreground of image as you said taking
up half the shot, and yet it's really this
| | 03:21 | guy who is almost the subject of the image.
| | 03:24 | This is an indicator, but this is
the guy that we are really looking at.
| | 03:28 | This is also I think just compositionally
just -- he's been so meticulous and
| | 03:32 | perfect in his form.
| | 03:34 | If there was any less space here, if this
was cropped at all, if this was cropped
| | 03:37 | at all we would have trouble, it's just
a -- he was doing the basic work in the
| | 03:42 | middle of this rapidly developing scene.
| | 03:44 |
| | 03:47 | Connie: This is one if we analyze just
on a purely graphic level, compositionally
| | 03:52 | is brilliant because you've got this
form coming across like this which is
| | 03:56 | perfectly framing these two faces, and
then you've got this form going across
| | 04:01 | like this which is again balancing
them, and then you have this form
| | 04:06 | reiterated down here.
| | 04:08 | So everything -- all of the graphic
elements are working together in this piece to
| | 04:13 | pull us right into these two figures.
| | 04:16 | Ben: And I think there is something
else going on here. Paul does a lot of war
| | 04:20 | photography and like all of the best
war photographers, he has his good strong
| | 04:25 | formal chops, he's working these
things that Connie just said, and yet
| | 04:29 | somehow he is able to do that in a
situation that's potentially tense, while
| | 04:33 | never losing track of
the humanity in the moment.
| | 04:36 | The choice of expressions on
these guys' faces is very interesting.
| | 04:40 | There is a story here.
| | 04:41 | They're getting some news that's
pretty good news and there's just
| | 04:46 | something tense about police guys with
big rifles getting good news that can be
| | 04:51 | turning either way
depending on what side you are on.
| | 04:53 | There is a lot of story in this image.
| | 04:55 | Connie: Before we move away, just
pointing out that if he had made a different
| | 04:58 | decision here and this background had
gone through the back of his head,
| | 05:03 | we would've really lost the impact of his
position here and the importance of his
| | 05:10 | gesture and expression.
| | 05:12 | Ben: Well, I think, I'm not sure if
it's obvious at home, this is barbed wire.
| | 05:18 | So he's looking through barbed wire
which is giving this whole other context.
| | 05:20 | I'm thinking this is in the foreground.
Connie: Oh!
| | 05:25 | Well, then it's even better
that it didn't run cross his face.
| | 05:29 |
(laughter)
Ben: Exactly, would have been messy.
| | 05:32 |
| | 05:33 | Connie: Well, this is kind of a similar --
he has a style about him for sure, you
| | 05:38 | know and bringing some figures in the
foreground here that have such strong
| | 05:43 | features and really set the mood of
the photograph, and then giving us these
| | 05:48 | other details in the back here
that are really reemphasizing.
| | 05:53 | Ben: There's so much in this image
that works just the formal composition, but
| | 05:57 | also the immediacy, his choice of
camera position, his choice of point of view,
| | 06:03 | I feel like I am standing here with
these guys. And I just love the cropped faces
| | 06:08 | and that they're both looking
into the camera and he is not.
| | 06:10 | It's a wonderful moment.
| | 06:11 | Connie: And again because he came in
close and cropped off the top of this guy's
| | 06:15 | head, it feels like it's more
immediate, more candid, more intimate.
| | 06:22 | Ben: Yeah it really feels like a
moment and yeah, perfectly well-crafted
| | 06:26 | at the same time.
| | 06:28 | And again that's getting back to -- he is
doing his formal work and yet he is still
| | 06:31 | staying in touch with the people that he
is shooting and knowing where the exact
| | 06:35 | moment is and that is really not easy to do.
| | 06:40 | This is a great example again
of shadow and negative space.
| | 06:45 | It would be easy to pull detail out of
here and he has very wisely chosen not
| | 06:49 | to, it's creating wonderful framing.
| | 06:51 | I like the sweep of the image into here
with the lines, and it's a very intimate
| | 06:56 | shot, which it should be for what it is.
| | 06:58 | Connie: And this wonderful little
figure coming in from the side here.
| | 07:02 | Ben: Yeah looking at us.
| | 07:03 | Connie: It feels like we're looking at a
family doing a very intimate family thing.
| | 07:12 | Ben: Yeah amazing.
| | 07:15 | Connie: It's amazing that we can see this.
| | 07:17 | Ben: Yeah to get access to that again,
we are talking about someone who's been
| | 07:20 | working to build trust, working to get
the inside story and the inside access.
| | 07:24 | All righty then, Connie and I have a
disagreement about this image and she's got
| | 07:30 | a pencil so I am little worried. She
thinks it doesn't work, she's wrong.
| | 07:36 | (laughter)
| | 07:38 |
Connie: I love this photographer,
I just want to say.
| | 07:42 | Okay do you want to present your case first?
Ben: No, no go ahead.
| | 07:45 | Connie: Well, what I think this image is
about is this figure here against this boat
| | 07:50 | here, and giving us the context that
there is a lot of destruction going on here.
| | 07:57 | That this is in the middle of rubble.
| | 07:59 | But as I look at this I see
that this is too overwhelming.
| | 08:03 | It's very bright and the eye always goes
to the lighter part of the print first.
| | 08:09 | And so we are really drawn into this,
and it's out of focus and taking up more
| | 08:15 | than half of the photograph.
| | 08:18 | I think this photograph would have been
stronger if he had given us much less,
| | 08:23 | enough still to tell us what this is
and maybe even coming in a little bit like
| | 08:29 | this, so that we are
really concentrating on this.
| | 08:32 | And I hate to do this to another
photographer's photograph.
| | 08:35 | Ben: It's okay, you're wrong,
so it doesn't bother me.
| | 08:36 | Connie: (laughs) Okay.
| | 08:38 | Ben: I absolutely see what you are
talking about, and I don't know why, but for
| | 08:41 | some reason I don't have a problem with him,
| | 08:43 | my eye just goes right here.
| | 08:45 | And I think partly it may be the color
information, the yellow against the pink
| | 08:48 | is enough of a difference, enough of an
eye magnet that it's outweighing this.
| | 08:56 | I like the economy of the image.
| | 08:57 | This is the Tsunami in Japan and the
economy of rubble, plainly what is a boat.
| | 09:05 | This is another great example that you
can trust viewer, we don't have to see a
| | 09:07 | whole boat we know this is what
this is, a guy with a breathing mask on.
| | 09:13 | I see what you're saying and I can
understand why it shouldn't work and yeah
| | 09:17 | when the first time I looked at
this image, I just went right there.
| | 09:20 | So I think there's a good lesson
to be had here, which is that Connie
| | 09:25 | is wrong.
| | 09:27 | And also that there can be -- there are
no rules. We can sit here and talk about
| | 09:32 | well this line should be here and this
line should be here, and yet you can show
| | 09:35 | the same image to someone else
and it just doesn't work sometimes.
| | 09:38 | And that's how it goes.
| | 09:39 | Connie: And ultimately it's your decision.
| | 09:41 | You the photographer, it's your decision.
| | 09:44 | Going through this process is really
important because you understand, you know
| | 09:48 | as we explain what works for me and
what doesn't work for me, it helps you to
| | 09:53 | understand how the image works,
doesn't work, how the flow is about, and then
| | 10:00 | you make up your own mind about
what's the most important thing.
| | 10:03 |
| | 10:07 | Well, I think this is so beautiful
because of the, again the sparse
| | 10:14 | information, but and we're looking
at something that is very difficult to
| | 10:18 | look at.
| | 10:19 | It's a very tragic scene,
but he's showing it to us in an
| | 10:25 | aesthetically beautiful way.
| | 10:28 | We've got these bags which I assume
are holding bodies, and these bags are
| | 10:34 | balanced with the mountains in the
background and then picking up this lovely
| | 10:39 | blue of the sky, so there is
this wonderful relationship here.
| | 10:44 | And then we've got just
enough information -- you want to,
| | 10:46 | your curiosity is piqued so you want to
come into the image, it brings you into
| | 10:51 | it and this is what I assume
looks like a plane crash.
| | 10:56 | Ben: Or trouble of some kind, yeah.
| | 10:57 | Connie: Yeah, so there's a very narrative
quality to this image, and we may not
| | 11:03 | know the truth, we have no verbal context
for this, but we can really
| | 11:08 | understand at least the
feeling of what's going on.
| | 11:12 | Ben: These three elements just make a
nice geometric form and I don't want to go
| | 11:16 | too formal because one of the things
that impresses me about this is it's a very
| | 11:22 | -- through his formalism and his
composition there's a lot of care and concern
| | 11:26 | for what has happened
here built into this image.
| | 11:28 |
Connie: Yes, a lot of respect.
Ben: It's a very sensitive image and respectful.
| | 11:32 |
| | 11:33 | Connie: This is just a beautifully
graphic image, and an amazing situation --
| | 11:39 | Ben: And by graphic you
mean the graphical lines and --
| | 11:41 | Connie: Yes and the formal
relationships of this, you know how this is going
| | 11:46 | right across the frame, how this is
entering the frame, you've got the iceberg
| | 11:50 | back here.
| | 11:51 | You've got this line coming down.
| | 11:53 | So it's beautifully arranged, but
you also get such exciting sense of
| | 12:00 | what's going on here.
| | 12:01 | Ben: Yeah, a real difficult moment to
capture in real-time because plainly things
| | 12:05 | are changing quickly and he nailed it.
| | 12:08 | It's our last one here and I just
can't stop looking at this picture.
| | 12:13 | Connie: Yeah, it's amazing.
| | 12:13 | Ben: And this again sums up a lot of
what we've been saying about Paul's work.
| | 12:16 | Really perfect formalism here and yet at
the same time staying in touch with the
| | 12:21 | reality of the moment and the reality of
this guy, the expression on his face is
| | 12:25 | exactly right for the giant
boat that's bearing down on you.
| | 12:29 | He has just really nailed it.
| | 12:30 | Connie: But look at how sensitive he
is visually, all of this is going on.
| | 12:35 | I mean it has got to be totally
chaotic, but look at how sensitive he is
| | 12:38 | in creating this form.
It's not crossing this form.
| | 12:42 |
Ben: It's perfectly separated.
Connie: So this form is very strong and powerful.
| | 12:45 | If he had been confused with this form,
it wouldn't have had that same
| | 12:50 | sense of gigantic power coming
imploding on top of you --
| | 12:54 |
Ben: It would have been lost.
Connie: Yeah it would have been lost and
| | 12:56 | the sense of the moment here is just exquisite.
| | 12:59 | So to balance that kind of
composition with sense of moment I think
| | 13:03 | is incredible.
| | 13:04 | Ben: Again that's Paul Taggart.
| | 13:06 | That's the work Paul Taggart, photojournalist.
| | 13:09 | And it's really -- we could keep
looking at his stuff all day long.
| | 13:12 | But next up we are going to looking
at some of Connie's work and I'm going
| | 13:16 | to have the pencil.
(laughter)
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Guiding the ViewerEntry and exit| 00:00 | If the purpose of composition is
to order a scene so that it makes more
| | 00:05 | sense to the viewer of your photo,
then it follows that in the process of
| | 00:10 | creating a composition, you are setting
up elements that will guide the viewer's
| | 00:15 | eye through your picture,
| | 00:17 | and that's just what's happening in this
scene that you are looking at right now.
| | 00:21 | We've got this bannister down here, this
diagonal line of peeled paint along the
| | 00:25 | wall, they're all leading right into
me, and I'm framed by this doorway.
| | 00:30 | We're using a lot of elements here that
are very carefully arranged to make sure
| | 00:34 | that your eye enters the
frame and is led directly to me.
| | 00:39 | Geometry is one of the most prevalent
ways that you will guide the viewer's eye
| | 00:45 | as you're setting up your compositions.
| | 00:48 | Here's a fairly textbook example of
leading lines, and I think it should be
| | 00:52 | pretty obvious. These big curved lines
of these tire tracks, these good strong
| | 00:56 | diagonal lines of these shadows,
| | 00:57 | they are all leading light here into the
trees, guiding our eye exactly into the
| | 01:01 | middle of the image.
| | 01:03 | I think it's important to point out that
I did not see these trees and think "Wow!
| | 01:07 | I really want to take a picture of those trees.
| | 01:10 | I'll walk around until I
can find some leading lines."
| | 01:13 | It was really the opposite.
| | 01:14 | I saw the lines and thought boy, these
shadows are really pretty and I like the
| | 01:17 | way this curve cuts across these strong
diagonal lines, but I need a subject for
| | 01:22 | the image, and so I moved around until I
found a place that the lines could go,
| | 01:27 | something the lines could lead me to.
| | 01:29 | So this was a case where I was very
pointedly working with the lines in the fact
| | 01:33 | that I knew they were going to guide
the viewer's eye somewhere and I had it
| | 01:36 | guide them directly into these two trees.
| | 01:39 | Here the eye is being guided
by a number of different things.
| | 01:42 | Primarily, we've got this strong line
right through here and this dark shadow
| | 01:47 | up in here that are helping to just contain
our eye so it flows right along the lit-up fence.
| | 01:53 | Now you might argue that, well, my eye is
just going to the brightest spot, which is
| | 01:56 | this white stuff, which is true,
but these lines are serving to keep it
| | 02:01 | centered, keep it focused, and keep
it from wandering around the image.
| | 02:04 | Meanwhile we've got this line here and
this repeating group of lines here that
| | 02:09 | just help our eye go right on
out the other side of the frame.
| | 02:13 | There are lots of things that you
will use to guide the viewer's eye.
| | 02:16 | So again, we've got implied lines here,
we've got tonality here and here. All of
| | 02:21 | them are serving to keep the
viewer's eye from getting lost.
| | 02:25 | This one is a strange one, because
it's really about the lines. They don't
| | 02:29 | actually lead anywhere, but
they do all work together.
| | 02:31 | I have these strong lines here,
which lead me right to these.
| | 02:36 | Even if you miss the barbed wire at
first, you certainly go right to the fence,
| | 02:39 | which leads you back in here directly
into the light or maybe over to this pole.
| | 02:45 | They don't actually end up anywhere.
| | 02:46 | This is a kind of journey-is-the-reward
kind of case, where the lines themselves
| | 02:51 | give you something to do.
| | 02:53 | Notice that with the lines and the
simplicity of the image, even though there's
| | 02:58 | not a really strong subject in this
image, my eye still does not get lost;
| | 03:02 | it knows where to go.
| | 03:04 | As westerners, we tend to read images
the same way we read text, that is, we
| | 03:08 | go from left to right.
| | 03:10 | This is a case though where the lines
in the image are leading me more from
| | 03:14 | right to left and back here into
the mirror and back to the chair.
| | 03:18 | Again, simplicity is a big part of this image.
| | 03:21 | My eye knows where to go partly because
there are these strong lines to follow,
| | 03:25 | but also because there's
really not that much extraneous.
| | 03:27 | In looking at the image now, I wish I'd
gone in and moved this table out of the
| | 03:31 | frame so that it was only the chair,
because the chair does get lost a little
| | 03:35 | bit in the table. And I could
possibly have mitigated this a little bit by
| | 03:39 | standing up, getting the camera higher,
so that maybe there was more space
| | 03:43 | between the top of the chair and this
line on the table. That might have helped
| | 03:47 | to make the chair stand out.
| | 03:48 | It also possibly would have moved the
chair down here a little bit so that it
| | 03:51 | intersected more with this line.
| | 03:53 | I was thinking more of this as a
graphic element that I wanted in the center of
| | 03:57 | the frame for balancing reasons.
| | 03:59 | Still, this is a case where I probably
should have worked my shot a little more
| | 04:02 | so that I wouldn't be
wondering about these questions now.
| | 04:06 | Here's a case where--actually, here is
the case where I've got a focus problem.
| | 04:10 | My camera focused back here.
| | 04:11 | I needed deeper depth of field.
| | 04:13 | You may think, didn't you notice this before
| | 04:15 | you chose this image for
the presentation? I did.
| | 04:18 | I wanted to include some images that
have some trouble so that you can see that
| | 04:22 | very often you get into an image and
only find out then if there's a technical
| | 04:26 | problem or that you should have done
something else, and learning to recognize
| | 04:29 | those problems is a way to improve later.
| | 04:32 | Still, for the lesson of leading lines,
| | 04:34 | this image still works.
| | 04:35 | It's pretty obvious where the subject is.
| | 04:37 | It's these kids with their cameras.
| | 04:38 | But these strong lines here really help
reinforce that right away I know that I
| | 04:43 | am falling into the center of this image.
| | 04:46 | Here's a case where the
line is doing double duty.
| | 04:49 | It is actually the subject of the image.
| | 04:51 | It's what we really noticed.
| | 04:52 | It's what caught my eye.
| | 04:54 | But it's also serving a leading-line function.
| | 04:56 | My eye just follows this wonderful
wavy path right back here to this barn and
| | 05:00 | this tree and this cloud, which worked
together as a single graphical element.
| | 05:04 | But the line still does
serve to guide my eye there.
| | 05:07 | This is another case where
leading lines combined with simplicity.
| | 05:11 | There's nothing extra in the frame.
| | 05:13 | There's nothing competing with the line.
| | 05:16 | If the line was here, my
eye might wander a little bit.
| | 05:18 | It might not know where to go.
| | 05:19 | So the line is constraining it.
The simplicity is making the line more effective
| | 05:24 | by guaranteeing that it's not
competing with anything else.
| | 05:27 | There are a lot of ways of
controlling a viewer's attention.
| | 05:29 | We're going to look at
more of them in this course.
| | 05:32 | But it's a good idea to really start
paying attention to lines that lead the
| | 05:36 | viewer's eye into and if
need be, back out of, the frame.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Framing| 00:01 | We've been talking a lot about
framing, but we've been referring to framing
| | 00:04 | as the process of framing
your shot inside your viewfinder.
| | 00:07 | There is another type of framing, and
that's to frame your subject within a
| | 00:10 | compositional element of some kind.
| | 00:12 | We're doing that right now.
| | 00:14 | I'm being framed by this car window
because I am sitting here in this old car.
| | 00:18 | Framing is another tool that you
have to control the viewer's eye.
| | 00:21 | With a good strong frame on the image,
attention is brought more to the subject
| | 00:25 | and the viewer's eye is
prevented from wandering off the frame.
| | 00:28 | Now, though the frame is here in
front of me in this case, I am still the
| | 00:32 | subject of the image, and there's
still a background to the image.
| | 00:35 | The frame is serving simply to
keep the viewer's eye under control.
| | 00:40 | When framing is done well, you
won't even notice it happening.
| | 00:43 | Consider this shot of a windmill.
| | 00:45 | The windmill is very plainly framed
inside this larger, weird geometric shape.
| | 00:51 | The framing object itself
is not part of the windmill.
| | 00:54 | It doesn't have to be, and it doesn't
have to be a perfect square either.
| | 00:57 | That's part of what makes this shot
interesting is the frame itself is an
| | 01:01 | interesting shape, an
interesting compositional element.
| | 01:04 | Sometimes frames can be created by
tonal framing, having darkness around the
| | 01:09 | edges. Sometimes frames can be created
from different objects that you manage to
| | 01:14 | compose in such a way that they
patch together and form a frame.
| | 01:17 | One thing to be very careful of when
you're framing though is depth of field,
| | 01:21 | especially in a situation like this.
| | 01:22 | We've got the car door in front, and I am
a little bit further back, and we've got
| | 01:26 | some background behind me.
| | 01:27 | If I want the car door in focus,
then we're talking about a deep depth-of-
| | 01:32 | field situation.
| | 01:33 | That means a smaller aperture, bigger F number,
| | 01:36 | and paying attention to where we're focusing.
| | 01:38 | I would probably want to put my focus
point on the door so that the depth of
| | 01:42 | field falls behind and puts me in focus.
| | 01:45 | Now, you don't always want your frame in focus.
| | 01:48 | A soft-focus frame works well also,
so of course that would be a wider
| | 01:52 | aperture or smaller F number, and
that's the kind of thing you can experiment
| | 01:56 | with while you're shooting.
| | 01:56 | Bracket your apertures and
try soft and sharp frames.
| | 02:00 | In this case, a sharp frame is probably
better because we want to identify this
| | 02:04 | as a car door and maybe tie
it into the rest of this scene.
| | 02:08 | Composition is very often just about
ordering the world within your scene,
| | 02:12 | controlling the viewer's eye, and a good
strong frame is a nice way to do that.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Examining the composition of this set| 00:01 | One of the things that I really
like about working with lynda.com is
| | 00:04 | the production value.
| | 00:04 | A lot of time and effort and thought
goes on behind the camera to create the
| | 00:10 | image that you're seeing right now,
and the people behind the camera are very
| | 00:14 | skilled photographers and videographers.
| | 00:16 | That means that you can learn a lot
about composition just from looking at
| | 00:20 | the actual framing that the lynda crew has
come up with for all of the scenes in this course.
| | 00:25 | This scene is a great example.
| | 00:27 | The crew spent a lot of time
organizing this set based on strong
| | 00:31 | compositional ideas,
| | 00:33 | so let's just take a look
at what they came up with.
| | 00:36 | Let's start with the lines in this image.
The curving line of the tops of these
| | 00:40 | monitors leads you right into me.
| | 00:43 | Why wouldn't I like that?
| | 00:44 | These wonderful diagonal lines
meanwhile, in the background, along the ceiling,
| | 00:48 | they guide you the rest of the way
into the image and back out of the frame.
| | 00:53 | Note the cropping of the ceiling.
| | 00:55 | There are three rows of lights visible.
| | 00:58 | The rule of threes in composition can be
very important. If you have a repeating pattern,
| | 01:03 | three is sometimes kind of a sweet
spot for how many of those repeating
| | 01:08 | elements you should show.
| | 01:09 | If you show only two of the repeating
element, then it doesn't really look like
| | 01:14 | a pattern, while more than three
can be too compositionally busy.
| | 01:18 | So we've got three rows of lights back there.
| | 01:21 | These are further reinforced by
the diagonal line of that far wall.
| | 01:27 | This is a fairly monochromatic image--
black-and-white computers on white tables
| | 01:31 | with white walls--so the accent of this
wood finished railing going behind the
| | 01:37 | monitors really breaks up the shot and
provides a nice highlight, both because of
| | 01:41 | its color and its position in the frame.
| | 01:44 | Take note of the position of that wood railing.
| | 01:47 | It cuts just below the top of the monitors.
| | 01:50 | If it had intersected with the top of
the monitors, well there could have been a
| | 01:54 | less satisfying intersection of lines.
| | 01:56 | More importantly, it could have created
some confusion about the depth in the scene.
| | 02:01 | Finally, note where they've put me.
| | 02:04 | I'm sitting here on the boundary of
the leftmost third, and I am balanced out
| | 02:09 | by those monitors over there, which
have a fair amount of compositional weight
| | 02:13 | because of their strong rectangular shape
and the black bezels and their repetition.
| | 02:19 | If you haven't noticed already, go
back and take a look at the movie that
| | 02:22 | you've already watched.
| | 02:24 | This time take an eye for how they're composed.
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| Narrative| 00:01 | A picture may be worth a thousand
words, but depending on how you compose it,
| | 00:04 | it may or may not tell a story.
| | 00:06 | I am standing out here on the now-new
shoreline of Lake Altus-Lugert, which is
| | 00:11 | the lake right behind the Quartz Mountain Lodge.
| | 00:13 | Oklahoma is in the middle of one of
the worst droughts it's had in decades and
| | 00:18 | normally, the water would be
about 30 feet above my head.
| | 00:21 | The lake is down to about 25% capacity and as
it has receded, it's left a lot of dead fish.
| | 00:27 | So we have been walking around seeing
this dead fish, and they are just down to
| | 00:31 | white skeletons. And they
are very pretty objects.
| | 00:33 | They have nice repetition in them.
| | 00:35 | They cast nice shadows in the morning,
light particularly when the sand itself
| | 00:38 | has gotten real texturey.
| | 00:41 | I can take a picture of one of these dead fish.
| | 00:43 | It's kind of hard not to. They are pretty compelling.
| | 00:45 | I might get something like this.
| | 00:47 | Sure enough, that's a picture of
a dead fish, and that's about it.
| | 00:51 | It's not a particularly interesting picture.
| | 00:53 | I could maybe go in closer and turn it into
more of an abstract picture of a dead fish,
| | 00:57 | but this is just a fish skeleton in sand.
| | 00:59 | There's no real story here.
| | 01:01 | If it wasn't on sand, it would
probably be even less compelling.
| | 01:04 | It would just look like garbage that
had fallen out of a trashcan or something.
| | 01:07 | I can make one simple change though
and really alter how this photo works.
| | 01:11 | If I come around in front and
take another picture, I get this.
| | 01:15 | This is an image that has
a little more narrative.
| | 01:18 | I can see possibly that the shoreline
has receded. Pair this with some words and
| | 01:23 | I have a really solid story.
| | 01:25 | Even on its own, it's got more of
a story than just a fish in sand.
| | 01:29 | This is a picture of a lake that is
receding and leaving behind a lot of dead animals.
| | 01:35 | Sure, a lot of times narrative, strong
narrative, requires you to shoot multiple
| | 01:39 | shots of a location or an event or a
person to build out an essay about them.
| | 01:44 | But you want to try to work as much as
possible within a single frame to give as
| | 01:50 | much context as possible to try to
build up narrative when it's appropriate.
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| When the scene doesn't fit in the frame| 00:01 | As sometimes happens in life, I find
myself in a forest full of old car doors.
| | 00:07 | And as usually happens when that sort of
thing transpires, I think, boy, photo opp!
| | 00:12 | I look out here at this
scene and it just seems like boy,
| | 00:16 | this is such a picture waiting to happen.
| | 00:18 | It's all of these rusted-out car doors,
and they're all old car doors. Whoever
| | 00:22 | has done this has this weird fetish
for old car doors and plainly has been
| | 00:26 | ripping them off from cars and heaping
them out here in great rows. And it's nice.
| | 00:31 | There is all this repetition.
| | 00:32 | There is all this cool rusted texture.
| | 00:35 | This is just seemingly a gold
mine of photographic opportunity.
| | 00:39 | If I'm into details, it is.
| | 00:41 | I have been prowling around here,
working the details of these scenes,
| | 00:45 | working the repetition, working
the shattered glass, trying to find
| | 00:48 | interesting textures.
| | 00:49 | When the sun comes out--and we have got
clouds rolling through pretty quick here.
| | 00:52 | So a lot of time it's in shade--
| | 00:54 | when the sun comes out, I have got cool
glints off of chrome and that sort of thing.
| | 00:58 | So there's a lot of detail
here that's very interesting.
| | 01:01 | What I'm having trouble with is some
kind of big shot of the whole thing.
| | 01:05 | To a degree, these detail
shots are pretty abstract.
| | 01:07 | It's difficult to really get too
much of an idea of what's going on.
| | 01:10 | It's difficult to get the complete
weirdness of a bunch of old car doors out in
| | 01:15 | the middle of nowhere in the country.
| | 01:17 | So I keep thinking, yeah, there's some
great picture here that's going to take
| | 01:20 | it all in, and I can't find it.
| | 01:24 | I can go wide, but it just looks like junk.
| | 01:27 | I also got the problem of car doors are
metal urban textures, and I have got all
| | 01:32 | these trees going around, and so
there's just a lot of leafy garbage around.
| | 01:36 | It's difficult to really get a clean shot.
| | 01:38 | It's difficult to simplify.
| | 01:40 | It's difficult to find a shot that's
really balanced because trees are really
| | 01:44 | tall and they're going out of the frame.
| | 01:45 | I am just having difficulty finding it.
| | 01:47 | As I prowl around some more and look
at it from different angles and I am
| | 01:51 | working my shot and I am seeing, well, if
I come back too far, it just turns into
| | 01:55 | this kind of noisy texture.
| | 01:56 | If I get up real close, details look
nice, but I lose the overall picture.
| | 02:01 | So I am starting to realize my
problem here is I don't have a subject. As
| | 02:04 | fascinating as this is, it's not
fascinating enough to hold down the image.
| | 02:09 | I need a subject of some kind.
| | 02:12 | A lot of times when I get into a
situation like this, I think, what I need is
| | 02:14 | a rock band, because they could stand
here and look tough and look ironic and
| | 02:18 | things like this and this would be a great
background, and I just don't have one with me.
| | 02:21 | So I am left with a background with no subject.
| | 02:24 | If I had a friend with me,
| | 02:24 | I could put them in front of it,
and probably get a cool portrait.
| | 02:27 | But as far as this being a scene unto itself,
I don't think I'm missing anything here.
| | 02:33 | I think it's just not interesting enough.
As fascinating as it is to be standing
| | 02:38 | here, I don't think it's
interesting enough to carry a photo.
| | 02:40 | Remember, photos are abstractions.
| | 02:42 | The viewer doesn't get the full
experience of being out here and experiencing
| | 02:46 | just how weird it is to have cows
walking by a bunch of old car doors.
| | 02:49 | So if you find yourself in a
situation like this where you think, ah!
| | 02:52 | This is so obviously a photo, and you
can't find it, very often, it's because a
| | 02:57 | scene that seems so obviously a photo is
really a photo background and you need a subject.
| | 03:01 | Again, if you've got a friend
with you, put them in the shot.
| | 03:04 | If you can find an element that's
simple enough that can serve as an anchor,
| | 03:07 | then you can do that; otherwise, I am
afraid you just have to enjoy yourself
| | 03:11 | and let go of the image.
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| Guiding the viewer's eye| 00:01 | As I have mentioned many times during
this course, the purpose of composition
| | 00:04 | is to order a scene so that it
makes sense to the viewer, so that they
| | 00:08 | understand what your subject is.
That inherently means that you are guiding their
| | 00:13 | eye through the scene to your subject
so that they know how to read it.
| | 00:17 | If you have successfully taken a
good composition then you have already
| | 00:22 | successfully guided the viewer's eye.
| | 00:24 | Nevertheless, it's not a bad idea to
practice this process of really trying to
| | 00:29 | drive their eye somewhere.
| | 00:30 | A lot of scenes in the world have
complexity in them, maybe have multiple
| | 00:34 | subjects, maybe have more
or less ambiguous subjects.
| | 00:38 | So I think a good way to practice
guiding the viewer's eye is to find a scene
| | 00:41 | like this where there is a very
obvious subject, where there's no doubt what
| | 00:45 | the subject is, and then work up different
ways of guiding the viewer's eye to that subject.
| | 00:51 | You can try it with geometry, as we have here.
| | 00:53 | You can try it with tone.
You can even try it with color.
| | 00:56 | Really, find a simple subject and see
all the ways that you can make it very
| | 01:01 | clearly defined as the subject of an image.
| | 01:03 | If you practice with an easy example
like this, you will develop a kind of
| | 01:08 | leading-lines vocabulary that you can
then take into more complex situations.
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|
|
11. Workshop: Foreground and BackgroundAssignment: Foreground and background| 00:00 | Ben Long: Those that survived the group critique--
| | 00:02 | actually, the group critique went really well.
| | 00:04 | Everyone took it very well.
| | 00:05 | It was a very diplomatic critique, and
there were some students who did have to
| | 00:09 | face the fact that an image that they
took really wasn't a picture of light, and
| | 00:14 | it's great to see a group of students
who are really open and wanting to learn.
| | 00:17 | They didn't take the critique personally.
| | 00:20 | They really heard the message and
went out and started shooting again.
| | 00:23 | So the critique went really well.
| | 00:24 | Now, it's time for another assignment,
and this next one is even harder.
| | 00:28 | Connie Imboden: So now I've decided to give
you a really hard assignment.
| | 00:34 | Female speaker: Since we did so well on that one,
you want to give us a really good one.
| | 00:38 | Connie: That's right! We don't have much time.
We've got to get everybody rolling here.
| | 00:42 | Okay, this assignment is find a
relationship between a subject in the foreground
| | 00:47 | and a subject in the background and by
using camera angle--use camera angle to
| | 00:54 | create a new form or a new
relationship, a new shape, or a new meaning.
| | 00:59 | So take something in the foreground
and something in the background and
| | 01:03 | really work your camera angle until
you can find those two things relating to one another.
| | 01:11 | In order to do this
successfully--you're looking at me with daggers.
| | 01:17 | To do this--to do this assignment really successfully,
what you need to do is think of the
| | 01:24 | world in graphic elements.
| | 01:27 | So you're not going outside and
seeing a bench or a trashcan or a lamppost;
| | 01:33 | you're seeing graphic lines.
| | 01:36 | You're free to turn the horizon line.
| | 01:39 | We don't have to keep the
horizon line horizontal.
| | 01:44 | You can move that, but the thing that I
want you to do--and it could be that you
| | 01:48 | draw a relationship between a rock in
the foreground and a mountain in the
| | 01:53 | background, or a line in the
foreground and a cloud in the background, but
| | 02:00 | through camera angle, find a way
that they relate to one another.
| | 02:05 | It doesn't mean that they have
to touch, but draw some kind of
| | 02:08 | relationship between the two.
| | 02:10 | Bill: Can you show us some examples?
| | 02:13 | Connie: Well, I'm just about to do that Mr. Bill.
Mr. Bill: Good!
| | 02:18 | Connie: Okay? So here, I'd like to say that Keith
Carter took my workshop, but he didn't.
| | 02:24 | He hasn't yet at least, we will say that.
| | 02:27 | Keith has such a
wonderful way of seeing spatially.
| | 02:32 | He makes so many wonderful relationships.
| | 02:34 | I love this with the two
little pears framed in this window
| | 02:38 | that's framed through this background.
| | 02:39 | It's just lovely.
| | 02:41 | Then this one with the young boy.
And here, he has let go of the horizon line,
| | 02:46 | and what it does is it makes the
relationship that much more intimate and that
| | 02:49 | much more mysterious.
| | 02:54 | Another Keith Carter.
| | 02:58 | So, your picture goes here.
(laughter)
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| Shooting foreground and background relationships| 00:00 | Ben Long: So we've been looking at layers and
how different layers in the world can be
| | 00:05 | compressed into a flat two-dimensional image.
| | 00:07 | This class is going to do the same thing.
| | 00:09 | They've been tasked with going out
and trying to take pictures that show a
| | 00:13 | relationship between foreground and
background objects that doesn't actually
| | 00:16 | exist in the real world.
| | 00:18 | This is very much like what we've
been exploring in our layers discussions
| | 00:21 | about how something in the foreground
can be made to intersect with or stand
| | 00:26 | next to something in the background. In a
way that you don't really see, there are
| | 00:30 | a lot of things that
indicate depth to the human eye.
| | 00:33 | There is scale--things in
the distance seems smaller.
| | 00:36 | There is depth cueing that
comes in the form of light falloff.
| | 00:40 | Things in the distance maybe have
a different type of light on them.
| | 00:43 | These are all things that your brain
does a masterful job of sorting out so
| | 00:46 | that you understand the
3D world that you live in.
| | 00:49 | We are asking these students to short-
circuit that entire process, to try to
| | 00:52 | learn to unlearn that way of seeing, to
try to not sort the world out that way
| | 00:58 | and see a very different relationship
of the one object to another around them.
| | 01:08 | Female speaker: I think I filled one of them.
Male speaker: You were awfully brave asking him to--
| | 01:11 | Female speaker: He didn't care. He was like okay.
Male speaker: Okay, good.
| | 01:14 | Ben: It's a way of creating
almost an optical illusion.
| | 01:17 | It's a way of making yourself really
see what's before you at all levels of
| | 01:22 | depth on lots of different planes and
try to pre-visualize how those might
| | 01:27 | combine together into a
flat two-dimensional image.
| | 01:29 | Female speaker: Okay, take off the tag.
Okay there, be still.
| | 01:40 | Okay, this might be the closest.
I think this is very pleasing.
| | 01:45 | I can't really see it.
| | 01:46 | Male speaker: Yeah, but its there is kind of
like there are two people sitting side by side, right?
| | 01:49 | Female speaker: Yeah, except one is middle.
| | 01:51 | Female speaker: It's further away, and you're orange, so I think you are --
Male speaker: Oh, yeah! I think that's going to work.
| | 01:54 | Female speaker: I can't see it really.
See that's you and you.
| | 01:56 | Female speaker: This is the only thing that's kind of--
Male speaker: Yeah, I think that will work. Let's try that.
| | 02:00 | Female speaker: You want to try it from the other side?
| | 02:02 | Ben: It's a tricky assignment because
it requires you to look with a level of
| | 02:06 | depth that you're not normally seeing.
| | 02:08 | Your brain tries to sort out the
layers of the world so that they don't
| | 02:11 | intersect, so that they don't look
like they relate to each other, and we are
| | 02:14 | asking you to see past that
and try to put them together.
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| Critiquing the foreground and background assignment| 00:01 | Connie Imboden: Are we ready to start?
Ben Long: We are ready to start.
| | 00:03 | Connie: Okay, so does this fulfill
the assignment? I love these tires.
| | 00:13 | Okay so--but what's the relationship,
the foreground-background relationship?
| | 00:18 | Female Speaker: Just an obvious
continuation of the form.
| | 00:21 | Female Speaker 2: There's a repeating shape
Could it be the rocks in the background?
| | 00:24 | Connie: Yeah, I am wondering. I'm wondering if there is
potential with this little guy up here
| | 00:28 | and this guy here. I'm not sure.
| | 00:31 | Male Speaker: Or it could be like the tires are
taking the form of a mountain range.
| | 00:35 | Connie: Yeah. Yeah.
Male Speaker: And then the mountain range in the background.
| | 00:38 | Male Speaker 2: What if the light
disappeared and the tires went into the background?
| | 00:41 | Connie: Yeah, that could be interesting.
That could actually be very interesting.
| | 00:47 | Male Speaker 3: Another month of the
draught and we could probably--
| | 00:49 | (laughter)
| | 00:55 | Connie: Ah, I think that's much better.
| | 00:56 | Male Speaker 4: And I think the black-and-
white simplifies it so much more.
| | 01:00 | Connie: It does, and this whole wonderful heap
here that's just filling so much of the
| | 01:04 | frame, and then this leading off.
| | 01:07 | You actually are leading off
to this little point up here.
| | 01:10 | Yeah, I think that's much more successful.
| | 01:15 | Connie: I loved this. Whose image is this?
Female Speaker 3: It's mine.
| | 01:19 | Connie: Oh, this is great. I love it.
| | 01:21 | So what you're doing here is absolutely--
everything that's in the photograph here
| | 01:26 | is working in concert.
| | 01:28 | Everything is bringing us right to this
point, and you've got such a beautiful
| | 01:32 | composition and arrangement of everything.
| | 01:36 | It's simplified. The statement is
simplified. It's not a simple statement, but
| | 01:42 | all of the graphic information is
bringing us right to that one point, and it's
| | 01:46 | just beautiful. I love it.
| | 01:47 | Ben: I also think it's really good that
these are here instead of going right out
| | 01:51 | the corner the way the other two are.
And all of these little details, like it
| | 01:54 | being off center and so and so forth,
those all count, and they all add up,
| | 01:57 | and that, again, why you work your shot.
| | 01:59 | You may not even be seeing
this while you're there.
| | 02:00 | A lot of times you don't know until afterwards,
and that's why you want gobs of coverage.
| | 02:06 | Connie: Okay and whose this is?
Male Speaker 3: It's mine too.
| | 02:08 | Connie: Okay, so I love this relationship
here, but I hate this little piece of
| | 02:14 | grass right there. Yeah, because these forms,
especially this egg form, is just so beautiful.
| | 02:20 | And then the relationship to here.
And again, I think I would have played
| | 02:24 | with this relationship.
| | 02:25 | Is this the best way to relate these two?
| | 02:29 | Hopefully you did play with it, tried
sticking it right in there, tried having this
| | 02:34 | edge just touch the bottom edge
of the circle in the background.
| | 02:37 | So you're really playing with it
and finding the most dynamic place.
| | 02:41 | Ben: This is case where actually tracing
your eye around the edge of the frame
| | 02:44 | beforehand might have--I imagine
you just didn't even see this when you
| | 02:47 | Ben: were shooting.
Male speaker 3: I didn't see it, I was concentrating on--
| | 02:49 | Ben Long: You are concentrating on the
egg and the relationship, yeah.
| | 02:51 | And now you can look at it and go,
how did I not see that or that or this or that?
| | 02:57 | Tracing your eye around the edge
will sometimes just open you up to
| | 03:01 | oh my God, there is a twig
in the middle of my image.
| | 03:03 | Male Speaker 3: When you say trace the edge,
are you're talking about like the egg down to the opening.
| | 03:06 | Ben Long: Just after you compose the shot, just
run, really trace your edge, look along
| | 03:11 | every edge and see--you'd probably
get to here and go, oh wait a minute, what's this?
| | 03:16 | It's going to make you not focus
your attention on your idea, but actually
| | 03:21 | look at the frame and look at what's
in the frame and look at what's in the
| | 03:24 | frame. It's going to put you
in a really objective place.
| | 03:25 | Connie: So the relationship is obviously here and here.
Do we think this works?
| | 03:34 | Male Speaker 4: Yeah, I do.
| | 03:38 | Connie: I do too. It totally fulfills the assignment,
and I like the way that you've positioned
| | 03:44 | this form in the rectangle.
| | 03:48 | You've filled it with this
in a very dynamic way.
| | 03:51 | Whose this is? Okay.
This I think is just beautiful.
| | 03:56 | There is so much complexity going on
here, and look at all the graphic lines.
| | 04:02 | This could be utter chaos, but
because of the way it's seen, it's very
| | 04:06 | simple, it's easy to read, it's
easy to get into, and really, in my mind,
| | 04:12 | really, really works.
| | 04:13 | You see how this line is reiterated
here and here. You've got these lines coming
| | 04:19 | down meeting this point here.
| | 04:21 | So you've got everything, even the
negative space up here, the sky, it's all
| | 04:26 | working together. It's
just beautifully organized.
| | 04:29 | Ben: This is a great example of repetition
in that repetition doesn't always have to
| | 04:33 | be really linear.
| | 04:34 | It doesn't have to be just one
shape after another in a perfect row.
| | 04:37 | You've got these triangles all over the
place that are repeating throughout the
| | 04:40 | image, and it creates a rhythm. It's
not linear, but your eye still picks up on it.
| | 04:45 | (laughter)
| | 04:49 | Connie: Isn't that wonderful?
| | 04:51 | Male speaker 4: Yeah, this relates so well with the
first one where they are just tight and
| | 04:55 | they give you every bit of information,
and there is nothing extraneous. There is just--
| | 04:59 | Connie: And it's such a magnificent metaphor. It truly, truly is.
(laughter)
| | 05:08 | I meant that in the most
loving and supportive way, Bill.
| | 05:13 | But a visual metaphor is really when
you're seeing two very disparate things and
| | 05:19 | you're seeing the similarity between them.
| | 05:21 | So it's a visual metaphor.
| | 05:23 | Female speaker 4: Would it have been better to
have turned his head enough to not see the ear?
| | 05:28 | Ben: Ooh, I think the ear makes it.
| | 05:30 | Male speaker 5: I actually tried that, and I
really liked the ear in it.
| | 05:35 | Female speaker 4: Uh huh.
| | 05:38 | Connie: Okay, and whose image is this? Okay.
| | 05:42 | So we've got obviously this wonderful
relationship with the foreground stuff and
| | 05:47 | the background, and we have the
separation in the texture here versus the texture
| | 05:52 | here, but otherwise we've
got such a nice relationship.
| | 05:55 | This is such a continuation of the mountains.
That's totally the assignment. Oh!
| | 06:03 | Female speaker 5: This was the hair.
I went to look at the hair.
| | 06:08 | Male audience member: She went up to this guy
and said, "I love your bald head. Would you put it in there for me?"
| | 06:11 | (laughter)
| | 06:13 | Female speaker 5: His wife was standing next to him
and she said, "Everything will be fine!"
| | 06:16 | (laughter)
| | 06:19 | Ben: He had no say in the matter.
(laughter)
| | 06:22 | Connie: Okay, so do we need all
of this to make this work?
| | 06:28 | Connie: This is what it's about, right here.
| | 06:31 | The one that we looked at right
before the egg, everything that was in that
| | 06:35 | photograph was there for a
purpose. It all worked together.
| | 06:39 | And here we've got extraneous stuff.
| | 06:42 | If you had come right in this or even
up like that, I think I would have been--
| | 06:47 | So you could have had this crazy stuff up there.
(laughter)
| | 06:53 | Female speaker 5: This one I didn't like. I didn't
really like this one, but I saw it and I said, "Oh I
| | 06:56 | see something here. And I
didn't like the composition.
| | 06:59 | Female speaker 5: I thought it was too busy in the background.
| | 07:01 | Connie: I agree.
Female speaker 5: I didn't know how to neutralize it.
| | 07:04 | Connie: Yeah, that's a tough one.
| | 07:07 | It may have been bringing these two
together and having enough of a camera angle
| | 07:13 | that you could either bring it against
the sky or crop it so that you're against
| | 07:17 | the darkness of the roof here.
| | 07:20 | Ben: If you give up on showing the whole
shape of both forms and maybe have him
| | 07:24 | overlap the statue so we are seeing
just one side mirroring on the other
| | 07:28 | side over here.
| | 07:30 | Female speaker 5: That's what I was trying to get.
I wasn't sure how to get that.
| | 07:31 | Ben: Yeah, because then you can get in
tighter and maybe lose some of the extra stuff.
| | 07:36 | Connie: Okay, great job you guys!
(applause)
| | 07:43 | You especially did a good job on the
light today. But that's the way it happens.
| | 07:49 | It really is. That's the way it happens.
| | 07:51 | And tomorrow I guarantee you'll be
seeing spatial things. And these are
| | 07:56 | all exercises.
| | 07:57 | We said at the beginning we are not
here to make beautiful photographs, though
| | 08:00 | we've seen some really beautiful photographs.
| | 08:02 | The whole goal is to shake you up to see
a little bit different, and I think it's
| | 08:06 | so important to see what other people
are doing, because we can learn from this
| | 08:11 | whole group experience.
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|
|
12. LayersPlanes| 00:01 | Ben: We've found a lot of
interesting things in the hallway.
| | 00:03 | There is this cool peeling paint.
| | 00:05 | There is stuff on the floor.
There is a dead bat.
| | 00:08 | There is also a lot of really cool geometry.
| | 00:10 | We've got these receding lines that are
creating this nice perspective, and here
| | 00:15 | we have got this PVC pipe that's
creating a line right across the hallway, and
| | 00:20 | that works well against that
window there with the big cross in it.
| | 00:22 | But we have got something else here.
We have got an electrical problem happening.
| | 00:25 | We've got this wire
coming across the hallway here.
| | 00:28 | Now, it may be obvious to you as you
have seen me walk forward here, but this
| | 00:32 | wire and that piece of PVC pipe are
at different distances from the camera.
| | 00:36 | They sit on different planes.
| | 00:38 | They're in different layers.
| | 00:40 | And because they're at different
distances from camera, they can be mixed and
| | 00:44 | matched and combined in different ways
depending on how the camera moves around,
| | 00:47 | and you can see that happening right now.
| | 00:49 | As the camera is moving, you're
finding very different relationships in them.
| | 00:53 | They're creating different shapes, not
just with each other, but in terms of how
| | 00:58 | they relate to the cross
in the window back there.
| | 01:01 | So by choosing a camera position of
a particular kind, I can get a very
| | 01:05 | different geometric shape here.
| | 01:07 | This is something to look for as you're
out moving around. When you see objects
| | 01:10 | at different depths, understand that by
the time the photo is compressed down to
| | 01:15 | a two-dimensional object, you're going
to have different shapes depending on
| | 01:19 | where you put the camera.
| | 01:20 | This is a powerful compositional tool.
| | 01:22 | Let's take a look at some of the other examples.
| | 01:23 | We are going to look now at three
sample images shot by students of the 2011
| | 01:30 | Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute.
| | 01:32 | So these were teenagers.
These are 14 to 18 year olds.
| | 01:36 | We gave them an assignment to go out
and shoot images, very much like the ones I
| | 01:40 | was just discussing, where there is a
relationship between foreground elements
| | 01:44 | and background elements.
| | 01:46 | We didn't specifically say
color or black and white.
| | 01:49 | So this first image that we
are looking at is in color.
| | 01:51 | And if you haven't figured it out
already, this is a reflector on the guardrail
| | 01:57 | alongside a highway.
| | 01:58 | And here we can see the
guardrail extending into the distance.
| | 02:01 | This was shot by a student named Ethan Yates.
| | 02:04 | And what Ethan has done here is really
pay attention to his full field of view
| | 02:09 | and I don't mean full in terms
of left and right, but depth.
| | 02:13 | As we move through the world, it's very
easy for us to focus our attention only
| | 02:18 | on the plane where our subject lies.
| | 02:22 | We tend to focus on just this one plane
and ignore everything in the background,
| | 02:27 | but photos of course are two-dimensional.
| | 02:29 | They get meshed flat and when they're
meshed flat like this, there is a direct
| | 02:33 | relationship between this circle and
this line and it's difficult to shift your
| | 02:38 | focus away from simply seeing on the
plane where your subject is to seeing the
| | 02:43 | relationship of objects
in three dimensional space.
| | 02:47 | And Ethan has done a
great job of this right here.
| | 02:49 | If he had shifted his position in different
ways, the image wouldn't have worked so well.
| | 02:54 | If he had gotten down lower, then
this circle would be here up amongst this
| | 02:59 | vegetation in the background.
| | 03:00 | What I like about his positioning
here is the circle is serving to tie this
| | 03:05 | graphic element into this graphic element.
| | 03:07 | Our eye leads along this line.
| | 03:10 | It either gets led into the scene or
we see this first and find our way back
| | 03:14 | out of the scene. Very nicely composed image.
| | 03:17 | This is a shot by Marie Fleur and great
visualization of foreground and background.
| | 03:25 | She has obviously mirrored the shape of
the mountain in the curved shape of this
| | 03:30 | water fountain. And again, it would be
very easy to be standing at this scene,
| | 03:35 | looking at the water fountain, and
seeing only what lies on its plane and simply
| | 03:38 | not recognizing that right there in
the background is a repeating pattern--
| | 03:43 | another line that mirrors the line of the water.
| | 03:46 | Now for this to work and be set up properly
she has to position her camera very precisely.
| | 03:50 | If she was standing up higher
then the water would be down lower.
| | 03:54 | If she was standing down lower then the water
might intersect with the line of the mountain.
| | 03:58 | Those might be interesting shots too.
| | 04:00 | But to get this one where we've
really got the repetition of these two
| | 04:03 | lines, two lines that sit hundreds
of yards apart from each other, to get
| | 04:08 | that representation or that
relationship going, she had to position her
| | 04:12 | camera very carefully.
| | 04:14 | Amber Griffith took this picture.
| | 04:16 | I really, really like the mirrored
shapes here, and this one is inverted.
| | 04:22 | The fish is in upside-down version of
the mountains, and the whole thing creates
| | 04:28 | an overall sense of circle right here in
the middle. And she has done a great job
| | 04:32 | with her toning and adjustments of this image.
| | 04:36 | The light here on the dead fish is beautiful.
| | 04:39 | Really excellent work. And again, she is
seeing not just on the plane where her
| | 04:45 | subject lies; she is seeing objects in
the distance as graphic elements she can
| | 04:50 | work with, and she is positioning her
camera and her body such that they have a
| | 04:55 | very particular relationship.
| | 04:57 | This is a difficult thing to learn
to pay attention to, but it's a great
| | 05:01 | exercise. And learning to try to see
the three dimensional world in more flat,
| | 05:07 | straight, graphical representation is
really going to open your eyes up to lots
| | 05:12 | of new subject matter.
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| Controlling depth| 00:00 | So I am out here and I've
just found another one of these,
| | 00:02 | another wrecked, dilapidated building.
| | 00:04 | This place is filthy with them; I love it.
| | 00:06 | But this one is special, because it has
this windmill further back in the next
| | 00:10 | field to the right of the house.
| | 00:13 | And I am so proud of myself.
| | 00:15 | I am thinking in layers here, because I
have got this barn layer here and I've
| | 00:19 | got the windmill layer back there, and
I'm seeing in my mind a picture wherein
| | 00:24 | the windmill and the house can look
like they're kind of next to each other or
| | 00:28 | in closer proximity than they really are.
| | 00:30 | In other words, I'm seeing layers and I
am understanding that there's all the
| | 00:33 | depth that I can work with that I
can compress down to a single picture.
| | 00:36 | So with that in mind, I'm going to take my shot.
| | 00:41 | Okay, here it is, and it just doesn't work.
| | 00:44 | Ah, boy, the windmill's tiny.
| | 00:46 | That's not what I was seeing at all.
| | 00:48 | Okay, let's look at why.
| | 00:51 | I'm standing right here.
| | 00:52 | I'm pretty close to this building. And
so to get the framing that I want, which
| | 00:57 | is the house over to the left
and the windmill next to it,
| | 00:59 | I have to go to a fairly wide angle.
| | 01:01 | And you should be familiar with this
already, but let's go over it again.
| | 01:04 | At wider angles, the sense of depth
in a scene appears to be stretched.
| | 01:09 | I would like the windmill to appear
closer to the house, so I need to use a
| | 01:13 | longer focal length, which means I
am going to have to go farther away.
| | 01:18 | I've had to change lenses.
| | 01:20 | That last lens I was using was a very
wide-angle lens, and now I put a 70 to 200 mm on.
| | 01:25 | Now I don't want to walk a long way,
| | 01:26 | so I've actually got it at the widest angle.
| | 01:29 | I am at 70 mm right now, and at 70
mm when I frame my shot, I need to be
| | 01:33 | about right here.
| | 01:34 | That's how I have chosen this position
is I set 70 mm, and now I'm going to
| | 01:40 | take my shot from here, and from here I
can actually get the same framing that I
| | 01:46 | had before, meaning the house at about
the same size in the same part of the
| | 01:50 | frame, and here is what that picture looks like.
| | 01:53 | Okay, this is getting better.
The windmill's getting larger.
| | 01:55 | Now it's important notice that it
doesn't look identical to the first one.
| | 01:58 | Here's the first one.
Here is the second one.
| | 02:01 | Notice the building is
appearing to change shape.
| | 02:03 | The perspective is changing.
| | 02:05 | This is not anything I can avoid.
| | 02:07 | It's simply a function of using a
longer focal length and changing my field
| | 02:12 | of view. In this case, I don't mind that.
| | 02:15 | I wasn't trying to get a
particular shape on the building.
| | 02:17 | It's more about the relationship
between the building and the windmill. And
| | 02:21 | actually, I like the building
better this way, a little bit squared up.
| | 02:25 | I am still not sure if this is the right one.
| | 02:26 | Maybe I want the windmill a little
bit bigger. And I've got a lot more
| | 02:29 | telephoto power in this lens,
| | 02:31 | so I am going to go even further back.
| | 02:34 | So I've been walk away from the house,
and I've gotten to a point where the
| | 02:37 | ground is about to drop off, and when
that happens my up-down perspective on the
| | 02:41 | house changes and that's not quite right.
| | 02:43 | So I am going to stay right about here
and when I do that and frame my shot up
| | 02:46 | the way that I want it,
I'm at a little over--I am at about 120 mm.
| | 02:51 | So I am going to take this shot.
| | 02:53 | Now, you may be thinking, boy, you sure
don't look like you're lined up properly
| | 02:57 | for that shot, but trust me, I am.
| | 02:59 | And notice that as you move away
and go to a longer focal length, your
| | 03:03 | left/right position may change to get
the shot framed the way that you want.
| | 03:08 | Here's what we've got and I think I
like this one the most. The windmill is
| | 03:12 | a good size. It's actually
coming up to the top of the roof.
| | 03:15 | I maintained mostly the size of the house.
| | 03:18 | Let's look at all three again.
| | 03:19 | This was my first one.
| | 03:20 | This was up close, at a very wide angle.
The windmill looks very far away. I've
| | 03:24 | got tremendous amount of depth in the scene.
| | 03:26 | I pulled back and went a little more telephoto.
| | 03:28 | The windmill is getting bigger. The
sense of depth in the scene is compressing.
| | 03:32 | I'm trying to keep my house roughly
the same size and my overall composition the same.
| | 03:37 | I went further back, zoomed
in even more, and got this.
| | 03:41 | Nice big windmill, a tremendous
amount of compression of the layers in the
| | 03:45 | scene, and again my house is still
roughly the same size, and my overall
| | 03:48 | composition is the same.
| | 03:51 | Looking back at these, again remember,
perspective on the house is changing, the
| | 03:55 | vanishing points are changing, the
overall shape of the house may be more or
| | 03:59 | less distorted. A wider-angle lens
when you're really close to something is
| | 04:02 | going to add a lot of geometric
distortion. As I pull back, I am getting more
| | 04:05 | straight up and down.
| | 04:07 | I also can't get the
house precisely the same size.
| | 04:10 | Don't get too stuck on mathematical
perfection as you're moving around.
| | 04:16 | Every time you stop and frame again
with a different focal length, just build a
| | 04:19 | composition that looks good to you.
| | 04:20 | Don't sit there and compare to the other
one to make sure it's exactly the same.
| | 04:23 | Just find one that looks nice.
| | 04:25 | So, longer focal lengths compress the
depth in the scene; shorter focal lengths
| | 04:30 | expand the sense of depth in a scene.
| | 04:33 | This means that when I'm working with
layers I can manipulate how big farther
| | 04:39 | layers are or how small farther
layers are by moving forwards and backwards
| | 04:44 | while changing my focal length.
| | 04:46 | This is a basic lens function, and you
can learn more about it in my Foundations
| | 04:51 | of Photography: Lenses course.
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| Juxtaposition | 00:01 | Another way to think about layers is
to think about collaging or juxtaposing
| | 00:05 | things at different depths into the same frame.
| | 00:08 | Reflections are a great
way to experiment with this.
| | 00:11 | Notice the reflection of the water
tower in the puddle here, and we've got the
| | 00:14 | water tower in the background.
| | 00:15 | These are technically different layers,
and there is a lot of other stuff going
| | 00:19 | on in front of the water
tower and in the puddle itself.
| | 00:22 | This is a really interesting easy way
to start seeing different planes, to look
| | 00:28 | for reflections or to think about
what you would do if you were collaging,
| | 00:31 | taking disparate elements and putting
them next to each other or thinking I am
| | 00:35 | going to juxtapose this
building with that water tower.
| | 00:39 | These are all ways of kind of changing
the language that you're using around
| | 00:43 | layering and possibly
opening up more ideas for yourself.
| | 00:46 | Let's take a look at some others.
| | 00:48 | So this one is pretty straightforward.
| | 00:50 | I'm simply mirroring this shape down
here with this shape up here. Purely
| | 00:57 | a geometric exercise.
| | 00:58 | Obviously, there is no real
correlation between dry mud and a mountain.
| | 01:02 | I'm relating these two very different
bits of subject matter compositionally,
| | 01:06 | or graphically, and just looking for shapes
that create nice symmetry and that juxtapose well.
| | 01:12 | Here is a case of I was first struck by
the light that was striking these boards.
| | 01:17 | It was very silvery.
| | 01:18 | It was very pretty. But I also just
liked what was going on outside the window.
| | 01:22 | So I have kind of balanced and built
the composition to include the window
| | 01:27 | content and I need to do some
post-production here to bring some detail back
| | 01:31 | into here, because this is a
very high-dynamic-range situation.
| | 01:34 | We are looking into this
bright window washed out.
| | 01:38 | So I have these nice strong lines that
are lit up that here I obviously can't
| | 01:42 | really come in left to right here.
| | 01:44 | But it does follow these lines, and the
whole thing kind of swirls around and
| | 01:48 | ultimately ends at the window.
| | 01:49 | So juxtaposing these strong lines with
this view that's outside in the distance
| | 01:55 | is kind of what I am working on here.
| | 01:57 | This is a framing example that we use
elsewhere in this course, but it's a great
| | 02:01 | example of layers in an image, of
juxtaposition of a shape right in front of the
| | 02:05 | camera with a shape way in the distance.
| | 02:08 | And of course, you look at this and you
understand, well yeah, this is up close
| | 02:11 | and this is far away.
| | 02:12 | But of course in a purely
graphical sense, we are looking at a flat,
| | 02:15 | two-dimensional image, and so I am
juxtaposing these shapes against these shapes.
| | 02:20 | So, when we were talking about
juxtaposition, we are often very much thinking in
| | 02:24 | a purely theoretical graphic-design
kind of sense of this line and this line
| | 02:29 | sitting next to each other, even
though in reality they're very far way.
| | 02:33 | You can play with
juxtaposing tone, juxtaposing color.
| | 02:36 | Layering is another way of thinking about this.
| | 02:39 | I've got this layer in
front and a layer in back.
| | 02:41 | We are going to be talking more about
layering elsewhere in this course, but
| | 02:44 | that's another way of
thinking about juxtaposition.
| | 02:46 | Thinking in these terms is a good way
of breaking up your normal seeing habits
| | 02:51 | and starting to think of the world
as a place with more depth and more
| | 02:54 | combinations and more graphic play.
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| Fear| 00:01 | I want to talk to you about fear.
| | 00:04 | If you're alive right now, you could
make the argument that it's because you
| | 00:07 | have particular relationship to fear.
| | 00:11 | You could also argue with that that
relationship is build upon your ability
| | 00:14 | to say no to things.
| | 00:16 | So, for example, if someone says hey!
| | 00:18 | Why don't you come and stand in
there is a rickety, old, decrepit
| | 00:21 | 85-year-old elevator?
| | 00:23 | If you say no then you have
successfully ruled out the possibility that you'll
| | 00:29 | plunge to your death in a
horrible elevator crash.
| | 00:32 | You have also though ruled out the
possibility that you might see these really cool
| | 00:36 | old elevator controls that are on the inside.
| | 00:39 | Nevertheless, we all have our own
relationship to fear. We all have our own
| | 00:42 | willingness to say yes or no to certain things.
| | 00:46 | The interesting thing about your
relationship to fear though is that you will
| | 00:50 | employ it even in times when
you're not actually in any danger.
| | 00:55 | So, consider that unless you are a
war photographer, say, or unless you out
| | 00:59 | shooting lions, you're probably not in
any danger when you're taking pictures.
| | 01:05 | Nevertheless, all of your fear-
management mechanisms will be going.
| | 01:09 | I recognized this a few years ago
when I was teaching a class and a student
| | 01:13 | came up to me during lunch and said
"Would you mind coming and taking a look at
| | 01:16 | some of my compositions? I just keep
doing the same thing over and over, and I'm
| | 01:21 | not liking it anymore."
| | 01:22 | So I went looked at his pictures and
he had some really nice shots, but sure
| | 01:25 | enough, he was composing in the same
way every time, and I would offer a
| | 01:29 | suggestion and every time I started
to offer a suggestion he would actually
| | 01:31 | finish my sentence for me,
because he already knew that idea.
| | 01:34 | So I would say, well you know you could divide
your frame into, oh yeah thirds I know about that.
| | 01:38 | Or I would say, well you know you could
balance this tone, against that
| | 01:41 | tone, yeah I know about that also.
| | 01:43 | And finally I had to say, "Okay you know
all of these things. What's the problem?"
| | 01:47 | And he said, "Well, I just keep doing the
same thing over and over," and all I can
| | 01:50 | think I have to say was so stop doing that.
| | 01:53 | Later though I started to think about what he
was going through and how I felt it before too.
| | 01:59 | There was some point in his
photographic life where he went and composed a shot
| | 02:03 | in this way and he liked it because it
was new and fresh and when he came home
| | 02:08 | he had a great feeling of success.
| | 02:10 | None of us want to come home with bad images.
| | 02:14 | We fear coming home with bad images,
because if we have bad images, we have to
| | 02:19 | think, wow, maybe I'm really not a good
photographer. Maybe this is all just a
| | 02:23 | waste of my time and the fear of
facing that is so great that when we find
| | 02:29 | something that we know works, we will
just continue to do that and we won't stop.
| | 02:33 | And what starts as a way to feel
success eventually becomes a rut, and we end up
| | 02:39 | back in the very spot we were afraid of
in the first place, which is feeling like
| | 02:43 | you're bad photographer.
| | 02:44 | That's what this guy was facing.
| | 02:46 | Maybe I'm not a very good photographer.
| | 02:47 | I keep taking the same picture over and over.
| | 02:51 | I can't offer you a way out of fear,
but I can offer you the suggestion that
| | 02:56 | maybe once you learn to recognize
that you will employ your fear-management
| | 03:01 | self then you can keep from
getting into those kinds of ruts.
| | 03:05 | In other words, when you go out,
takes chances, and it strange to use this
| | 03:09 | language about takes chances.
I don't mean go stand in the middle of the
| | 03:12 | street and shoot pictures.
| | 03:13 | I mean challenge yourself to shoot
things in a way that you don't normally shoot.
| | 03:18 | If you find yourself always framing in the
same way, you've got to frame a different way.
| | 03:22 | Now that's big talk coming from a guy
standing in a rickety elevator who is not
| | 03:26 | actually out shooting at the moment.
| | 03:28 | So maybe build it into your shooting
workflow while you're out shooting.
| | 03:33 | Think okay, when I see a thing that I
like I can shoot that picture that I
| | 03:37 | always shoot, the one that feel safe to me.
| | 03:39 | At least I'm going home with that one.
| | 03:40 | But I can't leave the scene
until I shoot some other things.
| | 03:44 | I have to try moving
around and working the shot.
| | 03:47 | I have to do the thing that I think, oh, this
just can't be a good idea, I'll do it anyway,
| | 03:51 | because you never know where
that's going to lead you. You have to
| | 03:54 | challenge your fear.
| | 03:55 | You have to confront it directly
and try to sneak around it and force
| | 03:59 | yourself to do other things.
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| Layers| 00:01 | It's time now to go out and
practice with this idea of layers.
| | 00:05 | I want you to think about two things.
| | 00:06 | First, simply the process of compressing
multiple layers into a single geometric
| | 00:12 | plane and seeing how the
interrelationship of those different layers can create
| | 00:17 | new shapes independent of
any of the individual layers.
| | 00:20 | But mostly what this exercise is about
is to get you to stop seeing just a flat
| | 00:25 | plane in front of you.
| | 00:27 | As we move through the world, very
often it's very easy to see a particular
| | 00:31 | thing and kind of only pay attention
to things at that distance and see the
| | 00:34 | background just as background.
| | 00:36 | I would like you to really practice
seeing that, yeah, you may notice a subject
| | 00:41 | at one distance, but there's other
stuff in your frame also at other distances
| | 00:45 | and through depth of field
control and clever composition,
| | 00:48 | you can work with those different layers
to create a single unified composition.
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| Image analysis: The work of Connie Imboden| 00:01 | Ben Long: Okay, you've seen Connie going
after lots of other photographers here.
| | 00:04 | She has been very fair.
| | 00:06 | But we're going to now put her
images up here and take a look at them,
| | 00:08 | because Connie has a body of work
that's very, very different from what
| | 00:12 | we've been seeing so far.
| | 00:13 | Paul and Steve are coming from a more
journalistic background, shooting in the
| | 00:16 | moment, shooting found things.
| | 00:18 | Connie you just spend a lot of time
crafting very particular images, and you've
| | 00:22 | Ben: been doing the same thing for--
Connie Imboden: Thirty years.
| | 00:25 | Ben: Thirty years, and you
haven't found the image yet.
| | 00:27 | Connie: I'm still working at it.
| | 00:30 | Ben: Some beautiful stuff
you're going to see here.
| | 00:32 | So let's start with this image and
explain to us what we're seeing here,
| | 00:37 | because this is going to be similar
to the technique that we're going to be
| | 00:39 | seeing throughout--
| | 00:40 | Connie: Well, the first thing I want to
say is that none of my images have been
| | 00:44 | manipulated, either in the camera or
the darkroom or through Photoshop;
| | 00:50 | they're all seen this way.
| | 00:51 | And with this image, I have the model
partially submerged in a hot tub, and you
| | 00:58 | can see the reflections of
the trees and the outside.
| | 01:01 | And I've just arranged it all through
camera angle so that the trees are coming
| | 01:04 | right into her forehand here.
| | 01:06 | Ben: So are you underwater?
| | 01:08 | Connie: At this point, I'm still above water.
| | 01:10 | Ben: You're above water and so the
figure is underwater poking out?
| | 01:13 | Connie: Yes, just this part
of her face is coming out.
| | 01:16 | Ben: Okay, so you're shooting
this from outside of the hot tub.
| | 01:21 | You've put them in.
| | 01:22 | How did you come to be interested--
because most of the work we're going to see
| | 01:26 | here is going to involve underwater
figures, underwater camera, work with
| | 01:29 | mirrors, lots and lots of reflections,
how did you come to that?
| | 01:31 | Connie: Well, it's very simple.
| | 01:34 | I'm looking with my camera trying to
find something interesting to photograph,
| | 01:39 | and I see reflections in puddles, and
then I see light glinting off of water and
| | 01:46 | I love that kind of specular light.
| | 01:47 | I think that's really special.
| | 01:49 | So I started to look at the way
reflections distorted, what it was reflecting,
| | 01:54 | and then I wanted
something interesting to reflect,
| | 01:56 | so I put a figure in the water
and I've been doing it ever since.
| | 02:00 | Ben: That's great! So you had an initial impulse
out in the real world and then decided to go
| | 02:04 | deeper into it by
constructing a similar situation.
| | 02:08 | Connie: Basically, I think of myself
as taking baby steps for thirty years.
| | 02:12 | And after thirty years, you
get somewhere, hopefully.
| | 02:15 | Ben: Let's take look at another one here,
and this is a pretty early image also.
| | 02:20 | Connie: Yes. This was done in 19--Thank you!
Ben: Would you like to borrow my pencil?
| | 02:24 | I feel like I have more power now.
| | 02:27 | This was done in 1988, and is still
in the hot tub, and it's very simple.
| | 02:31 | I've used the same reflections of
trees, and this is a bar of a window that
| | 02:37 | kind of makes a cross.
| | 02:38 | And in this case, I've focused on the
reflection, so the face here is a little
| | 02:43 | soft, and I like that.
| | 02:46 | To me, I look at this face and it looks
like she's not really looking outward,
| | 02:51 | but she's not blind.
| | 02:52 | It's like her attention has been turned inward.
| | 02:55 | And that's what attracts me to this image.
| | 02:57 | Ben: Yeah, the look on her face is really
ambiguous in a very interesting way.
| | 03:02 | Working with reflections, when you're
focused on the trees, you're not actually
| | 03:05 | focused at the distance of
the surface of the water;
| | 03:07 | Ben: you're focused at the distance of the tree.
Connie: Of the tree, yeah, yes.
| | 03:10 | Ben: Yeah, so you've got very, very deep
focus here which is why she is falling
| | 03:14 | Ben: so far out of focus.
Connie: Right, right.
| | 03:15 | Ben: Yeah, that's very interesting.
| | 03:16 | Connie: Yeah, working with reflections, you
really have to know depth of field and
| | 03:20 | it's very, very interesting.
| | 03:22 | Connie: I've had to learn a lot technically, working with this stuff.
Ben: Really.
| | 03:25 | Ben: Okay, this one is very difficult.
| | 03:29 | It's beautiful right off the bat, but
it's also--you get lost pretty quickly
| | 03:32 | Ben: trying to figure out what this is.
Connie: Yeah, I like that.
| | 03:33 | Ben: It looks like it has something
to do with an elephant and yet I know
| | 03:37 | Ben: that's not true.
Connie: You're close.
| | 03:39 | Connie: This is actually where the camera is underwater.
Ben: Okay.
| | 03:41 | Connie: I have a big housing for my Canon Mark II 5D.
| | 03:47 | It's a big housing, like this.
| | 03:50 | And this is what's underwater.
Right here, all of this is underwater. The camera
| | 03:54 | is underwater. And this line right
here is actually the line of the water, and
| | 03:59 | this is a reflection on the
surface of the water from underneath.
| | 04:02 | This is a reflection of this.
| | 04:04 | Ben: Okay, so if we imagine the water
coming out like this as a plane, this is--
| | 04:08 | we're looking up at a reflection from
the underside of the surface of the water.
| | 04:11 | Connie: Right, what's cool about the
reflection is that you get to see a totally
| | 04:15 | different point of view from the
reflection than you do it from the real.
| | 04:18 | Ben: Both at the same time.
Now this is all natural light?
| | 04:22 | Connie: This is natural light, yes, yes.
Ben: And we're going to get into some more lighting.
| | 04:25 | Connie: One of the things that I really
love about working this way, where I don't
| | 04:30 | conceive of these images, but I
really explore and train my eyes to see in
| | 04:36 | particular ways, but I could never
conceive of a line that's this kind of
| | 04:41 | elegant and beautiful, but it's there in nature.
| | 04:44 | All we have to do is learn to see them.
| | 04:46 | Ben: Yeah, and that line is really
beautiful, and the brightening of these
| | 04:49 | highlights that come along here that
really counter all of this darkness over here.
| | 04:53 | This black, where is this coming from?
| | 04:55 | Is that because the rest of your
scenario where you're shooting is
| | 04:58 | Ben: actually black? Okay, Okay. That's great!
Connie: It is actually black, yeah.
| | 05:01 | Connie: And I use black a lot because, for
instance, I like to keep things simple.
| | 05:11 | I like to really pull the viewer into
what is the most important thing in the
| | 05:16 | photograph without any extraneous stuff.
| | 05:18 | Ben: It definitely works,
particularly in this image.
| | 05:22 | It's--your work hits at two different levels.
| | 05:25 | First, I get, like, wow!
That's just really pretty.
| | 05:28 | But it's difficult not to stop and
go, what in the world is going on?
| | 05:32 | Okay, there's a hand that it's turning
into this really gossamer floaty thing.
| | 05:36 | Connie: Right.
| | 05:37 | Ben: And even though I know you're
working underwater, it's hard for me to figure
| | 05:41 | out where the surface is
and where the boundary is.
| | 05:45 | And that's a wonderful ambiguity.
| | 05:48 | So what's going on here?
| | 05:49 | Connie: You want to me to tell you? No!
Ben: Yes! Shouldn't have given you the pencil.
| | 05:54 | Connie: Okay, so what I'm doing here is
I'm working at night and I'm putting an
| | 06:00 | underwater light in the water.
| | 06:03 | So I'm illuminating just the layer
that's under the water, so what's above the
| | 06:06 | Connie: water doesn't show up.
Ben: Okay.
| | 06:08 | Connie: So this is actually a man. This is
his hand in the water, and this is his
| | 06:15 | upper arm coming down
his chest around his thigh.
| | 06:20 | And then this is where his leg just
barely comes out of the water, so you get
| | 06:25 | this beautiful little
tendril of light coming there.
| | 06:28 | So out of the water, it's very awkward
looking because he is holding himself up,
| | 06:33 | or maybe I have people holding him up,
and just dipping him enough so that we get
| | 06:38 | Connie: these beautiful lines here.
Ben: That's wonderful.
| | 06:40 | Connie: And everybody has to hold the
position because otherwise these lines would be moving.
| | 06:44 | Ben: So you're using some kind of light-
controlling mechanism on the light to
| | 06:49 | create a very thin shaft of light?
| | 06:51 | Connie: No. That's all a function of, in the water, yeah.
Ben: Underwater, underwater refraction so much.
| | 06:56 | Connie: So what you see here is the
only part of him that's in the water.
| | 06:58 | Ben: That's wonderful.
Connie: The rest of him is out of the water.
| | 07:01 | Ben: How much is this image cropped
from your original camera frame?
| | 07:04 | Connie: It's not cropped, though I
might have positioned it in this
| | 07:09 | frame differently.
| | 07:11 | Because, it's an unusual image in
that there's not much to it, so how do you
| | 07:16 | balance out the space? If I
had it coming across here,
| | 07:19 | it would be kind of dead.
| | 07:21 | But to have it, especially when
you're dealing with a rectangle like this,
| | 07:26 | to have it go from one corner up to the
other, you're really making as much use
| | 07:30 | of this space as you can in
creating attention this way.
| | 07:34 | And having this line come down right to
this corner here is also a beautiful way to sort of begin this.
| | 07:40 | Ben: Yeah. Well, I think it's a really
interesting exercise, just in pure line.
| | 07:44 | There's just this line that goes and
it's completely abstract up until about the
| | 07:48 | armpit, which is the first
thing that I can recognize.
| | 07:51 | And it's this very curios line of light
that turns into a human arm, and because
| | 07:54 | it's a human arm, it just has
this tremendous compositional weight.
| | 07:57 | Connie: I like to think of this as this
line that's just beginning and it becomes
| | 08:02 | very vaporous right here, almost
flat or like a vapor, and coming through,
| | 08:08 | Connie: becoming more and more solid until you have a real 3D hand.
Ben: Yeah, that's beautiful.
| | 08:15 | Connie: This is still underwater.
Ben: Okay.
| | 08:18 | Connie: This is the face that's underwater.
| | 08:20 | This face is a little bit deeper in the
water and its his reflection showing on
| | 08:24 | the surface of the water.
| | 08:26 | And so it's lining the two up. So--
| | 08:29 | Ben: So for a shot like this, you've
got his face half on the surface of the
| | 08:33 | water, how much are you previsualizing?
| | 08:35 | Do you put him in the water and
then just start looking for a picture?
| | 08:38 | Connie: I don't do a lot of previsualizing.
| | 08:42 | I may get ideas that start in one shoot
and I pull them together through other
| | 08:49 | shoots, but they usually end up very different.
| | 08:52 | If I have an idea, I think of it as a
starting point, and then I let go of it
| | 08:56 | as soon as I can.
| | 08:57 | Ben: So in a way you're still where
you were when you were just looking at
| | 09:00 | reflections in puddles.
| | 09:01 | It's just you're creating your own
puddle with your own thing in it and then
| | 09:03 | seeing what you can find.
| | 09:05 | Connie: Yeah, but I'm not quite there
because going through this whole process,
| | 09:09 | I'm really training my eyes
to see very particular ways.
| | 09:13 | And the more I do it, the more nuance
I see and the more--the deeper I can
| | 09:18 | go with the images.
| | 09:19 | Ben: From a purely formal perspective, I
just love this really strong line that's
| | 09:24 | really bright and you've
balanced it so well against the black.
| | 09:28 | The mouths though carry
tremendous compositional weight.
| | 09:31 | The human mouth is a really powerful thing.
| | 09:34 | It's communication and
breathing and everything else.
| | 09:37 | You just can't--
| | 09:38 | Connie: When I finished this image and I
looked back at it, I thought ooh, it looks
| | 09:42 | he is sucking his soul back in.
| | 09:45 | But that didn't occur to me
really until I had finished the image.
| | 09:47 | Ben: That's interesting.
| | 09:48 | So now we're into something very different.
| | 09:53 | Connie: I'm working with mirrors here in a studio.
| | 09:56 | So I have a mirror that's set up
here and I've taken the silver off of it
| | 09:59 | in places, so it's transparent in
places but still reflective where there is silver.
| | 10:04 | Ben: And that's what's causing the texture.
| | 10:06 | Connie: That's the texture here.
| | 10:07 | So this figure here is reflected on the
front, and this figure is showing through
| | 10:13 | from behind where I've taken the silver off.
| | 10:16 | So they're actually several feet
apart, even though it looks like
| | 10:19 | they're interacting.
| | 10:20 | Ben: So there are actually two people?
| | 10:22 | Connie: There are two people.
Ben: Okay.
| | 10:24 | Connie: Yes, and I've--playing with
camera angle and having them move,
| | 10:30 | I come up with places where I think
the interaction between them becomes
| | 10:37 | important or has some sense of mystery to it.
| | 10:40 | Ben: So when you set this up,
you're then working the shot.
| | 10:43 | You're seeing what you can find
within this setup that you create.
| | 10:45 | Connie: Right, right.
I don't start off with this in mind.
| | 10:48 | Ben: Yeah, and at that point you're
probably working in a fairly formal mindset.
| | 10:52 | Connie: I am. I'm not thinking
about the meaning of these at all.
| | 10:56 | I think if I started to work out this
image in my head and came to do it, it
| | 11:02 | would be really corny.
| | 11:07 | So now we've--I'm moved into
color/ I finally found color.
| | 11:10 | Ben: It's all the rage these days.
| | 11:12 | Connie: And the first thing I
found--this is back in water--
| | 11:15 | the first thing I found was phenomenal
to me, is that the figure that's outside
| | 11:21 | of the water is rendered in warm tones
and the figure that's inside the water,
| | 11:27 | Connie: right here and here, is rendered in cool tones.
Ben: Yeah, that's great!
| | 11:30 | Connie: And it's because the water absorbs
all of the colors except for the blues and the greens.
| | 11:35 | So this was another way for me to
really look at above and below water.
| | 11:39 | Ben: This background looks so painterly,
and partly it's the pose you put him in.
| | 11:44 | It's just--it looks like this
wonderful Renaissance painting with a human
| | 11:47 | Ben: figure coming out of it.
Connie: Yeah.
| | 11:49 | Ben: It's very interesting. Yeah.
Connie: That's the way that water distorts.
| | 11:52 | Connie: It's just so lovely!
| | 11:54 | Ben: Do you have to--do you spend a
lot of time waiting for the condition of
| | 11:56 | Ben: the water?
Connie: Oh yeah.
| | 11:57 | Connie: Yeah, I take a deep breath, I go
down and wait for the water to still, and
| | 12:04 | then I started shooting.
| | 12:05 | Ben: It's a whole additional
photographic concern that one doesn't normally
| | 12:09 | think about, air.
| | 12:12 | Is it difficult in that situation to
learn to--reflections can happen at
| | 12:17 | different depths and I think a lot of
times our eyes are kind of trained to
| | 12:21 | not see them.
| | 12:22 | They're not essential information.
| | 12:23 | Does it take a while to get to where
you can see, oh wait, there's a reflection
| | 12:26 | right there with a figure in it?
| | 12:27 | Connie: Yeah, absolutely!
| | 12:28 | And as I move--camera
angle is so critical in these--
| | 12:31 | as I move, I can really change the
relationship between the reflection in
| | 12:35 | the real and above.
| | 12:37 | So through a camera angle, I can
make all kinds of relationships change.
| | 12:43 | Ben: Okay, that's great! And we've talked about that,
the power you have from camera and focal length to
| | 12:47 | really define shapes and a sense of space.
| | 12:50 | Connie: This is also in the water.
| | 12:58 | And here I'm working with reflections.
| | 13:00 | So he is underwater here, looking up at
the surface of the water, and this you can
| | 13:06 | see is the surface of the water.
| | 13:07 | His hand is just touching it.
| | 13:09 | And this is his reflection
on the surface of the water.
| | 13:12 | And what I find interesting is that
in the real face here, you see one
| | 13:17 | expression, and there in the reflected
face, you see an entirely different--
| | 13:20 | Ben: Yeah, the water has distorted it
into something completely different.
| | 13:22 | Connie: Right.
Ben: Yeah, yeah.
| | 13:24 | I also just love all of the
interaction with the surface of the water.
| | 13:27 | You get these wonderful strong
lines that really are tangible somehow.
| | 13:32 | You feel it in your hands.
They are very interesting.
| | 13:35 | Connie: And sometimes the movement of the
water creates kind of a ghostly, almost
| | 13:40 | ethereal feeling to them.
| | 13:41 | Ben: So when you're shooting an
image like this, what are you thinking
| | 13:45 | compositionally as you're--I mean,
yes, it's wonderful to have discovered
| | 13:48 | this, but are you working--how
are you trying to balance the image?
| | 13:52 | Connie: Well, that's something that I don't
really think about, because just as
| | 13:57 | athletes train so that they
have responses and muscle memory,
| | 14:03 | I work so hard at this that, it
take so many images, that that sense of
| | 14:08 | composition is really a part of me now.
| | 14:11 | So I don't think so much about composition.
| | 14:14 | I respond to it.
| | 14:15 | Ben: And that's great, and
we've been talking about that.
| | 14:17 | That's the point you want to get to by
exercising these building-block things,
| | 14:21 | just so that you've shot so much
you just see this stuff automatically.
| | 14:25 | This is beautiful.
| | 14:26 | Connie: Yeah, this is a figure under the water.
| | 14:31 | This is the line of the water, and
this is his reflection on the surface.
| | 14:36 | And I'm using an underwater strobe here,
so he's very sharp here, very clear.
| | 14:41 | But the sunlight here, because I'm
using a longer exposure, the sunlight is
| | 14:46 | creating this wonderful kind
of soft movement with the light.
| | 14:52 | Ben: And our last one.
| | 14:54 | Connie: So this is back to the
mirrors with the--in color.
| | 15:03 | And I'm working with two figures
again: one in front of the mirror and one behind.
| | 15:08 | And I'm combining the two bodies.
| | 15:11 | Connie: It's like I'm creating my own being.
Ben: Ooh.
| | 15:13 | I know.
| | 15:14 | So here I have a male and a
female and I'm putting them together.
| | 15:18 | Ben: It's just wonderful.
| | 15:22 | And is this again, you're working with mirrors.
| | 15:25 | You've modified them, you've got
everything in position, and now you're just
| | 15:27 | trying to find what you can within
that environment that you've created.
| | 15:30 | Connie: Right, and I move a little bit this
way and that way and I totally change the
| | 15:33 | relationship of the two figures.
| | 15:35 | Ben: Are you not moving back and forth
between color and black and white and water
| | 15:39 | and mirrors, or do you
feel there's a progression?
| | 15:42 | Connie: Yeah, I've been in color for about
five years now, and I'm pretty committed
| | 15:46 | to color now.
| | 15:48 | And I tend to stay, when I work in
water, I tend to stay with that for years,
| | 15:52 | and then I move to working with mirrors for years.
And then I find that they inform one another.
| | 15:58 | Ben: I can imagine, yeah, I mean
obviously, the next thing is mirrors underwater or
| | 16:01 | Ben: water on the mirror.
Connie: That's too much. That's too chaotic.
| | 16:04 | I can't do that. Let somebody else do that.
Ben: It's beautiful. I'm taking my pencil back.
| | 16:11 | It's beautiful work, Connie. Thank you very much!
It's just fascinating.
| | 16:14 | Connie Imboden, and you'll bee seeing
much more of her as we continue working
| | 16:18 | with the class here at Quartz Mountain.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
13. Post ProductionRecomposing an image with the Crop tool| 00:00 | Ben: Whether you use Photoshop, Aperture,
iPhoto, Lightroom, CaptureNX, whatever,
| | 00:05 | your image editor has lots of
amazing image-adjustment technology in it.
| | 00:10 | With it, you can make corrections and changes
that simply weren't possible in a darkroom.
| | 00:15 | That said, one of the most powerful tools
in your image editor, the one you might
| | 00:19 | end up using the most, is the simple Crop tool.
| | 00:22 | With the Crop tool, you can
recompose your image after you've taken it.
| | 00:27 | Sometimes you'll shoot with a crop in
mind; at other times you'll refine your
| | 00:31 | original image by giving it a crop.
| | 00:32 | Now it may sound strange to devote an
entire discussion to the lowly Crop
| | 00:37 | tool when a program like Photoshop has
such amazing technology as Content-Aware
| | 00:42 | Fill and Perspective correction, but
cropping is a critical post-production task.
| | 00:48 | I've been asking you to shoot in black
and white throughout this course and yet
| | 00:51 | here we are looking at a color image.
| | 00:53 | That's because cropping, or any action
that will result in a crop of your image,
| | 00:58 | should be one of the first steps
of your post-production workflow.
| | 01:02 | The reason for this is twofold.
| | 01:04 | First of all, if you're going to go on
the black-and-white conversion or if you
| | 01:07 | are going to stay in color but perform
tone or color corrections, you want your
| | 01:11 | histogram to be as accurate as possible,
| | 01:13 | so you want to go ahead and
crop out any extraneous material.
| | 01:17 | More importantly though, if you think
an image needs a crop, you need to find
| | 01:21 | out if that crop is successful before
you waste any time with further edits.
| | 01:25 | It doesn't make sense for me to go
on here and start my black-and-white
| | 01:28 | conversion process, if I later crop
and find out that he crop doesn't work.
| | 01:32 | Now obviously sometimes you don't know
that an image needs a crop until you've
| | 01:36 | already started editing.
| | 01:37 | But here's a case where I know that
I want to crop my image before I do
| | 01:40 | anything else, and I want to try that
crop to see if this is going to work.
| | 01:43 | I was standing in this field.
| | 01:45 | Suddenly, I don't know
where this crop duster came in.
| | 01:48 | I didn't have time to think much
about my composition or change my
| | 01:51 | camera position at all.
| | 01:53 | I simply had to work as quickly as I
could with the elements at hand, which were
| | 01:56 | the moon, these tire tracks, and this
plane that was moving across my frame.
| | 02:01 | I got this. It's not bad.
| | 02:03 | But there are some things that I don't like.
| | 02:04 | I've got a lot of extra sky in here.
| | 02:07 | That's making these elements seem kind
of bumbled up here in the center, and I
| | 02:11 | would like them to feel like they
are spread more across the frame.
| | 02:14 | I've also got this shadow
that I need to deal with.
| | 02:16 | So this is what I'm talking about
when I say that I can recompose my
| | 02:20 | image after the fact.
| | 02:21 | Now that doesn't mean that I can
recompose this image to include the Empire
| | 02:25 | State Building or something like that,
but I can recompose it to make the
| | 02:28 | balance and overall feel of
the image a little bit different.
| | 02:31 | I can change the relationship
of the elements within the scene.
| | 02:34 | This is the Crop tool in Photoshop.
| | 02:36 | It looks like a Crop tool.
| | 02:38 | If you've never seen a Crop tool in real life,
just trust me, one looks roughly like this.
| | 02:43 | If you're using a different image
editor don't worry. The things you are going
| | 02:46 | to see here are probably also
available in your image editor of choice.
| | 02:50 | To define a crop, I simply
click and drag out a rectangle.
| | 02:53 | When I let go of the mouse button, I see this.
| | 02:57 | Photoshop has given me some handles
that let me refine my crop, either changing
| | 03:01 | the corners or just dragging the edges.
| | 03:04 | It's blacked out everything outside
of the crop to give me a better view of
| | 03:09 | what my final image will look like.
| | 03:10 | This is called a shield and I can
turn it on and off if I would rather see
| | 03:14 | what other elements are outside of the crop
that I may want to work with. I can do that.
| | 03:18 | I can change the color of the shield.
| | 03:20 | I can change its opacity.
| | 03:21 | I can also turn on these grids.
| | 03:23 | Right now, it's showing
me a Rule of Thirds grid.
| | 03:26 | I can also just have a grid.
| | 03:28 | I'd rather have nothing.
| | 03:29 | I don't want any distraction there.
| | 03:31 | And so now I can work with refining my crop.
| | 03:33 | So I am going to take
out some of that extra sky.
| | 03:36 | I am for sure going to crop out my
shadow. And what I'm looking for here is the
| | 03:41 | exact same thing I would do while I'm composing.
| | 03:43 | I am trying to balance the shot.
| | 03:45 | So with a crop more like this, I'm
working the thirds a little bit more.
| | 03:49 | I am getting the moon and these tracks
over here in the left third, the airplane
| | 03:53 | over here in the right third.
| | 03:55 | I'm kind of paying attention to
where they're going out the corner of the
| | 03:57 | frame, making sure that looks nice and thinking
about my horizon line and where I might want it.
| | 04:03 | So this looks pretty good;
| | 04:04 | however, what if I wanted to print
this to fit in a particular aspect ratio?
| | 04:10 | In other words, if I have a frame
that's 8x10, for example, if I want to make
| | 04:14 | sure it will fit in that frame, I
might want to constrain my crop.
| | 04:18 | Aspect ratio is the ratio of the width
of an image to the height, and I can tell
| | 04:22 | Photoshop to crop to a particular aspect ratio.
| | 04:25 | I am going to cancel this crop by
clicking the Cancel button up there on the
| | 04:28 | Crop Control bar. And what I am going
to decide is I want to keep my original
| | 04:33 | aspect ratio, which was an aspect ratio of 3:2.
| | 04:36 | So I am just going to enter
a Width of 3, Height of 2,
| | 04:39 | and now when I drag, I can only
drag in a 3:2-constrained aspect ratio.
| | 04:46 | When I let go of the mouse button,
I no longer have edge handles;
| | 04:48 | I only have corner handles.
| | 04:51 | So I can't change an individual edge because
that would affect the aspect ratio of my image.
| | 04:56 | Note that I can click within a crop
area whether I am constrained or not and
| | 05:00 | simply drag it around to
get the crop where I want it.
| | 05:03 | Once I've got the crop that I like, I
can double-click within the cropping
| | 05:06 | rectangle or simply hit the
Return key to take that crop.
| | 05:10 | So let's look at some before-afters here.
| | 05:12 | Here is my original image that
you've just seen, and here is a completely
| | 05:17 | finished, cropped, black-
and-white and toned result.
| | 05:21 | So as you can see, it's tightened up.
| | 05:23 | I like the composition a little bit better.
| | 05:25 | Here's a case where the photographer
did not have a long enough lens to get the
| | 05:29 | crop that they wanted.
| | 05:30 | We were walking along this beach in Oklahoma.
| | 05:32 | I know, that sounds weird to me too.
But there are some very nice beaches in the
| | 05:37 | Quartz Mountain State Park.
| | 05:38 | And he just couldn't get
the zoom that he wanted.
| | 05:40 | We got this bush in here
which is a little bit extraneous.
| | 05:43 | So a simple crop gives me a tighter image.
| | 05:46 | Again I've simplified my image.
| | 05:48 | I've taken out some extra stuff.
| | 05:49 | I've recomposed it more to the thirds
and generally got a better composition.
| | 05:54 | Another example, shooting someone
running this video camera here. In general,
| | 05:58 | the positioning of him is nice, but I have got
this extra post behind him that I don't like.
| | 06:03 | A crop lets me take it out and
help get focus more onto my subject.
| | 06:07 | Here is an image that you saw me
working earlier in the Shapes example.
| | 06:12 | Now when I shot this, I shot it with
the intention of cropping it to a square.
| | 06:17 | My camera can't shoot in a square crop, so
now I need to go in and perform that crop.
| | 06:22 | In Photoshop, I can get a square crop
simply by placing the same number in both fields.
| | 06:28 | I am going to clear
this out, enter a 1 in both.
| | 06:31 | I could put a 3 or 5 whatever.
| | 06:33 | Just because this says 1 inch doesn't
mean that I'm actually necessarily stuck
| | 06:38 | with a one-inch image, because after
I've cropped, I can go into my Image Size
| | 06:46 | dialog box and as you can see, I've
got plenty of pixels to size this up.
| | 06:50 | We are going to talk about
image sizing in the next movie.
| | 06:52 | But that's a square crop by
putting simply the same number in both.
| | 06:57 | And finally, let's take a
look at a fairly extreme crop.
| | 07:00 | These were some birds that
I chased out of a field.
| | 07:03 | I took off into the air and I got this.
It didn't come out as interesting as I
| | 07:06 | wanted, because I was not in the best position.
| | 07:09 | But a really extreme crop gets
my something very interesting.
| | 07:11 | They look like bats or mosquitoes or something.
| | 07:14 | How extremely you can crop depends on
how many pixels your camera shoots, and
| | 07:19 | we'll explore that in more
detail in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Resizing an image| 00:00 | Ben: We've already talked about cropping,
but hand in hand with cropping goes
| | 00:04 | the issue of sizing.
| | 00:06 | Sizing is a very important
consideration if you're going to print.
| | 00:10 | If I crop a whole lot, I may not have
enough pixels left to get a good print at
| | 00:15 | my chosen print size.
| | 00:17 | Conversely, if I want to enlarge my image,
I will need to be concerned about how
| | 00:21 | many pixels I have, whether I have
enough to get a nice sharp print.
| | 00:25 | So sizing is a pretty critical
issue near the end of your workflow.
| | 00:29 | Fortunately, Photoshop makes
questions of sizing very simple, thanks to the
| | 00:33 | Image Size dialog box.
| | 00:35 | If I go up here to the Image menu and
choose Image Size, I get this thing.
| | 00:40 | Now what's cool about the Image Size
dialog box is it's this very interactive
| | 00:43 | little calculator that can make sizing
questions very easy to understand, as long
| | 00:48 | as you pay attention to what's going on.
| | 00:50 | You want to really pay attention to
this thing here, this thing here, and this
| | 00:55 | state of the Resample Image box.
| | 00:57 | And I think you'll see why as we go along here.
| | 00:59 | I'm going to uncheck Resample
Image so that we start here.
| | 01:03 | Image size is divided into two sections.
| | 01:05 | I have Pixel Dimensions.
| | 01:06 | This is the total number of pixels in my image.
| | 01:09 | I currently have 5166x3744, for a
total image size of 110 Megabytes.
| | 01:15 | My Document Size is how
big this image will print.
| | 01:19 | So right now it will be 21x15 inches
and it has a resolution of 240 pixels/inch.
| | 01:26 | Now unfortunately, the camera industry
has kind of wrecked this word resolution,
| | 01:31 | because vendors will say, well, this
camera has a resolution of 18 mega pixels.
| | 01:37 | Well, 18 mega pixels is
not a measure of resolution.
| | 01:40 | In fact, a camera does
not have a set resolution.
| | 01:44 | Resolution is simply a measure of how
many pixels there are over a given distance.
| | 01:49 | So right now, if I print this image,
so that there are 240 pixels for every
| | 01:56 | linear inch, it will come
out to be 21x15 inches.
| | 02:00 | Now I can pack those pixels closer together.
| | 02:03 | If I go up to say 300, I go
from 21x15 down to 17x12.
| | 02:10 | In other words, increasing the
resolution is going to lower the print size, and
| | 02:14 | that should be fairly intuitive.
| | 02:15 | If the pixels are packed closer together,
they're not going to take up as much space,
| | 02:19 | so the print size is going to go down.
| | 02:22 | And I can see from this thing over here
that these three fields are locked together.
| | 02:27 | I cannot change one without changing the other.
| | 02:30 | If I change Width--let's say that I
know that I want to print this at 24 inches
| | 02:33 | wide, Photoshop automatically
calculates a Height of 17.3 to preserve the
| | 02:38 | image's original aspect ratio.
| | 02:41 | But with 5100x3700 pixels, to go 24x17 is
going to drop my resolution down to 215 pixels/inch.
| | 02:50 | If I spread the image out to be that
big, or if I spread the pixels out to cover
| | 02:54 | this much space, the
resolution is going to drop to 215.
| | 02:57 | Now, notice that these three fields
are editable, as we've been doing, and they
| | 03:02 | are locked together.
I can't change one without changing the other.
| | 03:05 | But these fields are not. I cannot change
the total number of pixels in the image.
| | 03:09 | That's why these three are locked together.
| | 03:11 | If I change resolution, print size
changes because I can't alter the
| | 03:15 | total number of pixels.
| | 03:16 | However, if I check the Resample Image
box, now these fields are editable. And
| | 03:23 | notice there is one of these gizmos over here.
| | 03:25 | Right now, Width and Height are locked together.
| | 03:28 | I can't change one without
changing the other. That's good;
| | 03:30 | it will keep my image from being distorted.
| | 03:32 | If I wanted to, I could turn off
Constrain Proportions and now this lock is
| | 03:37 | gone and this lock is gone. This would allow
me to stretch the image out wider or higher.
| | 03:41 | You'll rarely do that with a photo.
| | 03:43 | I am going to leave that right there.
| | 03:45 | So now, everything is editable.
| | 03:47 | So I have an image that's 21x15.
| | 03:49 | Let's say I wanted that to
print at 300 pixels/inch.
| | 03:53 | I am going to change that to 300, and now
what's happened is my pixel count has gone up.
| | 03:59 | It's now up to 6400x4600.
| | 04:02 | In other words, Photoshop has conjured up new
pixels to allow me to get a Width of 21x15.
| | 04:10 | The way, or the mechanism, the algorithm
that it uses for generating those pixels
| | 04:14 | can be controlled down here.
| | 04:16 | And if you see, there's one that says
that it is best for enlargement, so that
| | 04:20 | would be the interpolation
method that I would want to use.
| | 04:23 | So what's the best resolution to have?
That really depends on your printer.
| | 04:28 | Most inkjet printers will work best at a
resolution of 240 or 300 or sometimes 360.
| | 04:35 | This is a critical piece of information,
and I think that's why you'll find that
| | 04:39 | no printer manual in existence will
tell you the printer's native resolution.
| | 04:45 | In general, you can assume that an Epson
Photo Inkjet printer wants images that
| | 04:50 | are around 300 pixels/inch.
HP printers typically want 240.
| | 04:55 | If you don't plug those numbers in,
it's not the end of the world;
| | 04:57 | it may not make any
difference in final image quality.
| | 05:00 | But working towards your printer's
native resolution is not a bad idea.
| | 05:03 | So let's say I wanted to print
this at an 8x10 at 300 pixels/inch.
| | 05:07 | Set my resolution to 300.
| | 05:09 | I'm going to set my Width to be
10, and it gives me a Height of 7.
| | 05:13 | Now you may think well, I want this to be
8x10, so I am going to put that on 8,
| | 05:16 | but no, now this is at 11.
| | 05:18 | Well, it turns out the aspect
ratio of this image will not work.
| | 05:22 | It does not equate to 8x10.
| | 05:23 | So I am going to put that at 10 and just
accept that I have to have a height of 7.
| | 05:28 | So, at 300 pixels/inch, you can see
that my image has gotten much smaller.
| | 05:33 | It's thrown out a lot of pixels
and gotten me down to 3000x2100.
| | 05:38 | If I want to go bigger, as I
mentioned, I need to change my
| | 05:41 | interpolation method.
| | 05:43 | If I do go bigger, I'm going to
risk an image that's very, very soft.
| | 05:47 | That's why I was saying before,
you've go to be careful with cropping.
| | 05:49 | You don't want to crop down so far
that you don't have enough pixels to print
| | 05:54 | your image without doing interpolation.
| | 05:57 | So it's best to try to keep from
going beyond your original pixel count.
| | 06:02 | But if you have to, it's
not the end of the world.
| | 06:04 | Bear in mind that images that are printed
very large are usually viewed from farther away,
| | 06:08 | so razor sharpness is not so important.
| | 06:11 | What if, though, I really, really wanted
this to be 8x10. I've bought a pre-built
| | 06:16 | 8x10 picture frame and I
really want this to go in there.
| | 06:19 | Well, there's nothing I can do
from the Image Size dialog box.
| | 06:22 | At that point, I would hit OK and I
would go out here to my Crop tool and plug
| | 06:26 | in, up here, a Width of 10 inches by 8
inches at a resolution of 300 pixels/inch.
| | 06:35 | Now my Crop tool will only drag
out an 8x10-aspect-ratio crop.
| | 06:40 | So you can see now I've got to do some
thinking about where I want my crop to be,
| | 06:45 | and now we're back to just what
I was doing when I was shooting.
| | 06:48 | I am going to work with this scene here in
this window and try to find the best composition.
| | 06:54 | I think that I want this tree here.
| | 06:56 | I'm not sure that I need this
part of the bridge over here.
| | 07:00 | On the other hand, what I like about
this part of the bridge is I am kind of
| | 07:03 | getting this convergence of stuff here.
| | 07:05 | So take a look at this.
| | 07:06 | I am going to turn off this Rule of Thirds
grid there so that we can better see the image.
| | 07:12 | So I've got that, or I've
got that. That's a tough call.
| | 07:20 | It's kind of bright over here, and my
eyes are really wandering this way, which
| | 07:23 | may not be such a bad thing, but I
think because of that brightness, I think
| | 07:28 | this feels more balanced to me, because
the darkness here and the darkness here
| | 07:33 | balance each other better than when I
am over here and I introduce this white
| | 07:37 | part of the sidewalk and all this other stuff.
| | 07:40 | So I think I am just going to suffer
the chopped-in-half tree and take that.
| | 07:45 | So that will give me an 8x10
that will fit in my pre-built frame.
| | 07:50 | So, Cropping and Image Size,
they work hand in hand.
| | 07:52 | You may have to move back and forth.
| | 07:54 | But again, the key to
understanding the Image Size dialog box is to
| | 07:58 | understand that when Resample Image is checked,
the number of pixels in your image can change.
| | 08:02 | When it's unchecked, they
cannot and so these three items become
| | 08:07 | linked together.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Tone| 00:01 | Ben: Earlier in this course, we talked
about the idea that you can create balance
| | 00:04 | in an image by playing
different tones against each other.
| | 00:07 | So, you might balance light
against dark, dark against light.
| | 00:11 | You can balance dark parts against each other;
| | 00:13 | you can do the same with light parts.
| | 00:15 | These are all ways that you
can create balance in your image.
| | 00:18 | However, there will be times when you
can't get the tonal balance that you want
| | 00:22 | in camera through exposure adjustment.
| | 00:24 | Sometimes you simply can't capture
the dark blacks or light whites that you
| | 00:28 | need to create the composition that you want.
| | 00:31 | In these instances, you'll need to
expose to capture as much tonal information
| | 00:35 | as you can, with the idea that you will
correct the tones in that image to get
| | 00:40 | the composition that you want.
| | 00:41 | In other words, sometimes you'll need
to darken up blacks or lighten up whites
| | 00:46 | or adjust the grays or colors in your
image to finish it off and get that
| | 00:50 | compositional balance working.
| | 00:52 | Alrighty. We're going to look at three examples
of how I have altered tone in an image to
| | 00:59 | achieve the idea that I had in my
mind's eye while I was shooting.
| | 01:03 | This lesson is going to assume that you
understand the use of adjustment layers
| | 01:07 | and adjustment layer masks in Photoshop.
| | 01:11 | You can see over here that I've got
several adjustment layers on this image:
| | 01:14 | a Black & White adjustment layer,
three levels adjustment layers, and these
| | 01:19 | two have layer masks that I've
carefully painted to constrain the effects of
| | 01:23 | those adjustment layers.
| | 01:24 | If this is all gobbledygook to you,
if you are not comfortable with
| | 01:28 | adjustment layers, or you wish you
knew more about them, take a look at
| | 01:31 | Foundations of Photography:
Black and White course.
| | 01:34 | It's going to walk you through the
things that we're going to be doing here.
| | 01:37 | This is the image as I shot it. You saw
this earlier in the--actually you've
| | 01:41 | seen all three of the images that
we're going to look at here--earlier in the
| | 01:45 | "Tonal Balance" movie.
| | 01:47 | The first thing I did of course was to
convert the image to black and white, and
| | 01:50 | in the process of doing that I
made some choices about tone.
| | 01:54 | I decided that this red up here
should be a very light tone, rather than a
| | 01:59 | darker tone, because I wanted to
balance against this darker stuff.
| | 02:03 | Let me just show you what that would
have looked like if I had chosen instead to
| | 02:10 | do this as a darker tone.
| | 02:11 | I am going to up here and
simply re-tone the reds darker.
| | 02:15 | So, you can see now I'm
creating a very different image.
| | 02:18 | I've got dark over here, dark
over here, and light down here.
| | 02:21 | I wanted to go with something lighter.
| | 02:23 | So, I started with my black-and-white
conversion and that gets me to here, but
| | 02:27 | I'm still not getting the
light-against-dark thing that I was thinking when I
| | 02:30 | was standing there in the image.
| | 02:32 | The next thing I did was hit it with a levels
adjustment and now we are getting somewhere.
| | 02:37 | I've got some nice darkness in here.
| | 02:39 | What I'm not liking here is that this
whole side is just one uniform shade of blah.
| | 02:44 | It's just not that interesting.
| | 02:46 | It's a pretty middle gray.
| | 02:48 | When I print it it's going to
look especially kind of boring.
| | 02:52 | So I created an adjustment layer here
that lightens the image, and I labeled it
| | 02:56 | Lighten just to help me remember what
it's doing. And I painted a mask that
| | 03:00 | constrains the lightening to only this
building, hoping that that's going to
| | 03:05 | break things up a little bit.
| | 03:06 | It gets me some true white in my
image right here, and usually it's better.
| | 03:10 | You get a better sense of contrast
in your image if there is something that's really white in it.
| | 03:14 | The next thing I did was an adjustment
layer that darkens and built a mask that
| | 03:19 | constrains it to there.
| | 03:20 | So now I've really got my
light-against-dark thing.
| | 03:23 | Let's do a little before-and-after thing here.
| | 03:26 | Here is with straight black-and-white
conversion and after my toning, I get this.
| | 03:30 | So, I have really built it up into
what I was thinking when I was standing
| | 03:34 | there at the scene.
| | 03:36 | Let's look at another one here.
| | 03:37 | Again you saw this earlier.
| | 03:39 | My idea when I was shooting
this was a couple of things.
| | 03:42 | I liked the dark down
here and the light up here.
| | 03:45 | I liked the idea that these bright
rocks down here were maybe kind of
| | 03:48 | symmetrical with these darker tones
up here, these trees and this cloud.
| | 03:52 | Let's see what I came up with.
| | 03:54 | I started with a black-and-white
conversion that got me to here.
| | 03:57 | There is not a lot of color in this image.
| | 03:58 | Here is the color version.
| | 03:59 | Here is the black-and-white version.
| | 04:01 | So I didn't have too much toning
that I could do in black and white.
| | 04:04 | Rest of this was pretty simple.
| | 04:05 | I threw in a layer that darkens--
| | 04:08 | this is a levels adjustment layer--
and I used the Gradient tool to make a
| | 04:12 | smooth mask, or a smooth gradient, that
is--that allowed me to here it comes
| | 04:17 | tone adjust the sky.
| | 04:18 | So I've gotten the sky a little bit darker.
| | 04:20 | It's kind of washed out, a little bit boring.
| | 04:22 | I wanted to see more definition
in the clouds, so there we go.
| | 04:25 | You could see my mask is a little
sloppy. It spills over onto these rocks up here.
| | 04:28 | It doesn't matter; it just
looks like shadows on the rocks.
| | 04:30 | The next thing I did was an adjustment
layer that increases contrast and again,
| | 04:34 | I used the Gradient tool to constrain
this contrast adjustment to only affect
| | 04:39 | this part of the image, the lower part of
the image and when I get that, I end up here.
| | 04:44 | So now, I've really exaggerated the
blacks down here, the lighter tones up here,
| | 04:48 | and I am getting that kind of
gradient that I was looking for.
| | 04:51 | However, because of this bright stuff
up in the sky, these blown-out highlights
| | 04:55 | here, the eye tends to wander a
little bit and also, since I usually end up
| | 04:59 | printing my images, it's a problem
having paper-white going all the way to the
| | 05:04 | edge of the frame, because when I
print this, there won't be a clear border.
| | 05:08 | So I added a vignette to this image, and
we discussed how to vignette in another
| | 05:12 | movie, but you can see with a
vignette, I get this. That's before. That's after.
| | 05:17 | It does give me some framing. It focuses my
attention more into the center of the image.
| | 05:21 | Let's look at one more here. Again
another image that you've seen already.
| | 05:26 | Here is my original and as I'm
standing here looking down this sidewalk in
| | 05:30 | Mangum, Konrad is standing down there.
But what I'm seeing is I love this line
| | 05:35 | here that's vanishing to the same
point as this line here and this wonderful
| | 05:40 | tonal balance between these two shades.
| | 05:41 | So of course I started with
a black-and-white adjustment.
| | 05:45 | It didn't do much here in terms of my
toning other than to make sure that my sky
| | 05:49 | was being rendered so that the blues
were pretty dark so that the clouds would
| | 05:52 | stand out a little more.
| | 05:53 | And then I made a whole
bunch of adjustment layers here.
| | 05:56 | And as you can see, I've labeled them
so that I can remember what they do.
| | 05:59 | This one darkens, and it's got a mask
that constrains it to right there, so
| | 06:03 | that I am just darkening up this part of
the sidewalk. And I got a little sloppy there.
| | 06:08 | I got some spill. Keep an eye on this
as I turn that adjustment layer off and
| | 06:12 | you can see that maybe
that's not supposed to be so dark.
| | 06:16 | It doesn't look that weird to me in
this image--maybe I'll go back and patch
| | 06:18 | that up--but it just looks like, I don't
know, there is a stain on the sidewalk or
| | 06:22 | something like that.
| | 06:24 | Here is another adjustment layer that darkens.
| | 06:25 | This one is constrained to here.
| | 06:28 | I threw in basically some more darkness in here.
| | 06:31 | It's almost like a little
bit of manual vignetting.
| | 06:33 | It just looks like a shadow here in the
deep bits up against the wall. It serves to
| | 06:37 | focus attention more into here.
| | 06:39 | The next thing I did was actually
lighten all of this stuff up here.
| | 06:43 | And I did that for a couple of reasons.
| | 06:46 | One, this was just looking a little
blah with all this gray and again, when I go
| | 06:51 | to print this image, with it like
this, there's so much middle gray in it
| | 06:56 | that it becomes the dominant
tone that hits your eye.
| | 06:59 | And it tends to make for an image
that just looks muddy or flat somehow.
| | 07:02 | So the more I can get true white into
the image--if it's appropriate--the more I
| | 07:07 | am going to have an image
that's got nice contrast.
| | 07:09 | So, I thought these nice white
beams were replaced to do that.
| | 07:13 | It's not necessarily an unrealistic
amount of light. If you're going to get
| | 07:16 | picky about the kind of thing, it
could be light reflecting off the sidewalk.
| | 07:19 | I like these bricks lighting up.
| | 07:21 | It also serves to make this bit look
darker by comparison, and that plays up
| | 07:25 | this tonal relationship.
| | 07:27 | This next one is real subtle.
| | 07:28 | You can see that this one is lightened.
| | 07:30 | My mask is completely black and you
should know, if you're comfortable with layer
| | 07:34 | masks, that that means that none of this
effect is getting through to the image.
| | 07:38 | But there is a little teeny-tiny bit.
| | 07:40 | You just can't see it in this
little thumbnail of the mask.
| | 07:42 | If you watch Konrad's head right there
when I turn this on, I just lightened up
| | 07:46 | his face a little bit.
| | 07:48 | At the tiny size you are
looking at this, you may go wow,
| | 07:50 | why bother, but if I print this at
an 8x10, that actually is noticeable.
| | 07:55 | With all that done, I took a look at my
histogram and decided that I just needed
| | 07:59 | an overall contrast boost.
Let's take a look here.
| | 08:01 | You can see, without his
layer on, I'm short on whites.
| | 08:06 | I don't have a lot of really
nice bright white in my image.
| | 08:09 | So hitting this cranks those up,
gets my tones more into place, and this
| | 08:14 | image is ready to go.
| | 08:16 | So those are the types of edits that I am
doing on all of these images that you are seeing.
| | 08:20 | I am really looking for where things
need to be darkened, where things need to
| | 08:25 | be lightened, not just when I'm trying
to balance tones against each other, but
| | 08:29 | by way of controlling the viewer's eye.
| | 08:31 | As you saw down here, I darkened this
to try and lead the viewer into here, and
| | 08:35 | I'm also just thinking about good
overall photo editing practice, which is to
| | 08:40 | have a nice amount of dynamic range
and tones that are going to print well,
| | 08:45 | whites that are truly white, blacks
that are truly black, and midtones that are
| | 08:49 | nice and contrasty, silvery, not too muddy.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Altering the perspective in Photoshop| 00:01 | Perspective is a powerful compositional tool.
| | 00:04 | You can create strong receding lines and
an intense sense of depth in your image
| | 00:09 | when you take advantage of perspective.
| | 00:11 | There are times though, especially
with architecture, when you don't want
| | 00:15 | perspective, when you want
vertical lines to be straight rather than
| | 00:18 | receding into the distance.
| | 00:20 | If you're shooting with a wide-angle
lens, this can be especially problematic.
| | 00:24 | Fortunately, Photoshop has a great
tool for correcting and altering the
| | 00:27 | perspective in an image.
| | 00:30 | Here is a building with a perspective problem.
| | 00:32 | Actually the building was fine; the
problem is that I stood too close to it and
| | 00:36 | shot with a very short focal length,
| | 00:38 | that is, a wide-angle lens.
| | 00:40 | So what I've got now are these
lines all receding upwards to a point, a
| | 00:45 | vanishing point way above the top
of my screen, and I would prefer the
| | 00:48 | building to look square.
| | 00:49 | That's how it looked in real life.
| | 00:51 | There are a number of ways
that I could have dealt with this.
| | 00:53 | If I owned a tilt-shift lens, I could
have tried shooting with that, but they
| | 00:57 | are expensive and heavy, and I don't
do that much architectural photography.
| | 01:01 | A simpler solution would have been
to move further back and zoom in.
| | 01:05 | Well, there are times when you may
not be able to do that. If there is a lot
| | 01:08 | of traffic out on the street or if
it would have changed the relationship
| | 01:12 | between the building and the tree
behind it, because the depth in the scene
| | 01:16 | would have been compressed,
| | 01:17 | then maybe this was the only way to
get that relationship that you wanted.
| | 01:22 | Either way, it doesn't matter.
| | 01:23 | I can fix it now by going to the
Filter menu and choosing Lens Correction.
| | 01:28 | Lens Correction is a very powerful
Photoshop feature that gives me a lot of
| | 01:32 | handy correction tools.
| | 01:33 | When you come into the Lens Correction
filter you will be in the Auto Correction pane.
| | 01:38 | I would recommend turning off all of this stuff.
| | 01:40 | These features work by reading
profile information for your lens, profile
| | 01:45 | information that's built into Photoshop, and
trying to automatically correct some problems.
| | 01:49 | Instead, come over here to the Custom tab,
and here we get a lot of different things.
| | 01:53 | I can correct barrel and pincushion
distortion, if my lens has that trouble.
| | 01:57 | I can correct chromatic aberration,
which are purple or red fringes that you
| | 02:01 | might see on high-contrast lines.
| | 02:03 | As we'll see later, I can manipulate vignettes.
| | 02:05 | What I want to do is Transform.
| | 02:08 | These two sliders effectively map the
image onto a three-dimensional plane and
| | 02:12 | then allow me to rotate that plane.
| | 02:14 | And if I take here the Vertical
Perspective slider and slide it to the left, you
| | 02:20 | can see that I am able to rotate the
image up until the perspective is correct.
| | 02:26 | Now what I am watching here are
these lines on the edge of the building.
| | 02:30 | I want them to be vertical.
| | 02:31 | If I am having trouble eyeballing that,
I can turn on this grid here, which will
| | 02:35 | serve as a nice reference.
And that's pretty close.
| | 02:38 | I think that may be about all
that I am going to do to this.
| | 02:41 | I might be able to get a little bit
of leeway on my vertical perspective
| | 02:46 | correction by altering the
horizontal perspective correction.
| | 02:51 | But in general, just eyeballing it and
simply getting it to look closer to true is going to be good enough.
| | 02:56 | No one is probably going to sit around and
actually start measuring things in your image.
| | 02:59 | I think actually that
might be a little aggressive.
| | 03:01 | I am going to back off on that a little bit.
| | 03:03 | We are of course used to
seeing buildings recede a little bit.
| | 03:07 | Now, I am going to hit OK,
and it's going to process.
| | 03:11 | Again, as we saw in the cropping
tutorial, I have been asking you to shoot in
| | 03:15 | black and white, and yet
here I have a color image.
| | 03:17 | That's because perspective
correction requires a crop when you're done.
| | 03:21 | You can see that after tilting the image,
I have got this extra space in my scene.
| | 03:25 | So, I am going to take my Crop tool.
| | 03:28 | Right now, it's set to crop to a square.
| | 03:30 | I want to clear that out by pressing
the Clear button right here. And I am just
| | 03:33 | going to crop out this extra space.
| | 03:36 | So again, this is why I am working on
a color image, because correcting the
| | 03:41 | perspective is going to involve a
crop and I always want to do cropping
| | 03:45 | before any other edits, because if
this perspective correction and crop
| | 03:49 | doesn't work out, then I am not
going to bother doing any black-and-white
| | 03:52 | conversion or any other adjustments.
| | 03:55 | So take the crop and there we go.
| | 03:57 | Let's take a look at a before and after.
| | 03:58 | I am going to use Photoshop's History
palette to go back to the image's original
| | 04:02 | state and after adjustment and cropping.
| | 04:07 | So the building is squared up and I
have--I haven't recomposed the image, but
| | 04:12 | I have changed the composition of this
scene, and what I mean by that--or the
| | 04:16 | reason I feel that--is because before
these lines, these diagonal lines, were
| | 04:21 | guiding my eye in a particular direction.
| | 04:23 | They were affecting the way
that I was reading the image.
| | 04:26 | By cropping it to a square, my eye stays
more in the frame, right here in the center.
| | 04:31 | So this can be a handy tool for any
time you need to alter perspective to keep
| | 04:35 | the viewer's eye under control.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Changing composition through retouching| 00:00 | Your image editor is capable of
dramatic retouchings of course, and very
| | 00:05 | often when you're retouching you are
mostly worried about making an edit that
| | 00:09 | isn't noticeable. But you also want to
think about the effect or impact on your
| | 00:14 | composition of any retouching
efforts that you might have.
| | 00:18 | Take a look at this image.
| | 00:19 | I have of course the tree backlit.
| | 00:21 | It's built largely
around this great shadow here.
| | 00:25 | But there is a lot of balance happening here.
| | 00:26 | I have got the tree and I have got this
cart, or some kind of vehicle full of hay I
| | 00:31 | think, and I have got this
telephone pole over here.
| | 00:34 | I can't tell if the telephone
pole is balancing this thing or not.
| | 00:38 | It's--if it isn't just a
distraction, because it's a big dark line.
| | 00:42 | So I am going to take it out and to be
honest, I have not actually tried this
| | 00:46 | edit before making this video.
| | 00:48 | So it will be interesting to see.
| | 00:50 | I'm as much at a loss here as you are.
| | 00:53 | The important thing is as I am doing
this, I want to keep track of what it
| | 00:57 | does to my composition.
| | 00:58 | There are a lot of different ways of
making this edit on an edit like this.
| | 01:02 | The thing I am mostly going to
be concerned about is the sky.
| | 01:06 | The sky is a very subtle gradient moving on
a couple of different axes at the same time,
| | 01:10 | so it could be very
difficult to get this pole removed.
| | 01:14 | I am going to start by
selecting this layer here.
| | 01:18 | This has my vignette on it. And I am
going to try doing something that's only
| | 01:23 | possible in Photoshop CS5 or later,
and that's to use Content-Aware Fill.
| | 01:30 | I am going to just select this part of the pole.
| | 01:32 | We will see if this works.
| | 01:33 | I am going to go up here
to Edit and choose Fill.
| | 01:36 | I could also hit Shift+F5. And I am
going to set Contents to Content-Aware.
| | 01:42 | Hit OK and Photoshop is going
to do some thinking. And boy,
| | 01:46 | it did a pretty good job.
| | 01:48 | What I want to do is assess.
| | 01:51 | Yeah, this sky looks very good in here.
| | 01:53 | There is a little bit of a blob here
that I can probably fix when I take out the
| | 01:57 | wire, but I think that's going to work.
| | 01:58 | I am going to keep that
edit and keep going here.
| | 02:01 | I did just a part because I am
figuring that this part against empty sky is
| | 02:05 | going to be a different operation than
this part against the branches. Those are
| | 02:09 | two very different problems for the
computer to solve. Shift+F5 and we'll see.
| | 02:17 | That did pretty well.
| | 02:19 | I am going to have to
decide what to do down here.
| | 02:20 | I may just leave that there, because it
will just look like a chopped-off post
| | 02:24 | in this scene, and that
might be completely believable.
| | 02:27 | Let's see how Content-
Aware Fill does with this bit.
| | 02:32 | Shift+F5 to get the Fill dialog.
| | 02:34 | It's still set on Content-Aware.
| | 02:35 | Of course, it always remembers the
last thing that I did, so I don't have
| | 02:39 | to keep doing that.
| | 02:40 | This one didn't work quite so well.
| | 02:41 | I got some breaks in the branches here, but it
got the sky all really nice in the background.
| | 02:46 | So I think what I will do is keep that and
then try and repair the break in the branches.
| | 02:51 | I have got my Clone tool here.
| | 02:54 | I am going to make the brush smaller by
using the left bracket key, and I am just
| | 02:59 | going to do to some cloning in here.
| | 03:02 | One thing about making adjustments to
something that's kind of a fractally
| | 03:08 | random texture like this is I can just
cheat like crazy and for the most part no
| | 03:12 | one is ever going to know.
| | 03:14 | What I may do with some of
these is just delete them.
| | 03:17 | It's going to be difficult to get all of
the stuff connected back up just perfectly.
| | 03:24 | So obviously I am looking for
anything that's a conspicuous, obvious break.
| | 03:29 | This is going to be tough.
| | 03:31 | This twig here is going to--suddenly going to bend.
| | 03:36 | And some of these fine details, I
don't need to worry about them too much
| | 03:40 | because when it's printed, if they are
small enough, no one is going to notice.
| | 03:44 | And I am going to just cheat that
up there and so on and so forth.
| | 03:49 | Now this could take a while to work out here.
| | 03:53 | It's obvious to me that I could get
all these reconnected and refilled and
| | 03:57 | again, I think what I will do is just
take these little bits and simply fill
| | 04:03 | them away. Just get rid of them all together.
| | 04:09 | And I am using Content-Aware Fill for
that so that the sky will look okay. And
| | 04:14 | that's working pretty well.
| | 04:15 | But using these different techniques, I could
go through and clean up all these branches.
| | 04:20 | Let's just assume that I am able to do that.
| | 04:23 | Now let's go think about this
bottom part of the post here.
| | 04:26 | It actually looks okay chopped off.
| | 04:31 | It's still kind of a heavy element.
| | 04:32 | So let's zoom back out.
| | 04:34 | So, now that's not nearly as noticeable.
| | 04:37 | I need to get rid of the telephone line.
| | 04:39 | That's a pretty easy edit to make.
| | 04:41 | And actually I am liking this post being
the same height as this thing over here.
| | 04:45 | I think there is still a little bit of a
balance to be had here, but it's not as
| | 04:49 | distracting as having that whole line.
| | 04:51 | I am going to hide this layer that we were
working on and you'll see the post come back.
| | 04:56 | Obviously, I was wrong.
This was not a vignette layer.
| | 04:57 | It was just a duplicate.
| | 04:58 | So this gives me a chance
to do a before-and-after.
| | 05:01 | Here is with the post. Here is without.
| | 05:03 | If you are not clear on what's
happening, it's that I've got two
| | 05:06 | identical layers here.
| | 05:07 | The background one has the
post and the upper one doesn't.
| | 05:10 | So I can easily see a before-and-after.
| | 05:12 | So, before I have got this
kind of heavy graphic element.
| | 05:15 | Well, I don't know I like it, but I do
think this makes it a little more about
| | 05:20 | the tree. It gives it a little more center weight.
| | 05:22 | Once I get those telephone wires out of
there, I think I am going to be in good shape.
| | 05:26 | Again, the point here is to pay attention
to composition as you make edits, if your
| | 05:31 | edits are changing the content of
your scene. Even if you are making tonal
| | 05:35 | adjustments, you may be creating
weight more in one place or another.
| | 05:40 | So in addition to trying to make this
look like a real edit by getting all
| | 05:43 | the branches working and making sure
the gradient in the sky is okay, what's
| | 05:47 | going to be the critical decision
here is how does the edit affect the
| | 05:51 | composition? And in this case, I
think getting rid of the post, or whittling
| | 05:55 | it down to fence-post size, gives me
a more balanced image than when it's
| | 06:00 | sticking up there like that.
| | 06:01 | So again, as you're making alterations
to your image, you want to be thinking
| | 06:06 | about composition in just the same
way that you would when you're shooting.
| | 06:09 | Am I simplifying the image, am I
creating balance? All of those issues come into
| | 06:13 | play when I am retouching.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Vignetting to drive attention| 00:01 | A vignette is a darkening
in the corners of your image.
| | 00:03 | It's caused by your lens, and one of the
marks has a good lens is a lack of vignetting.
| | 00:08 | You will most often find vignetting
when shooting in extremely wide angles.
| | 00:12 | If you have vignetting throughout
the zoom range on your camera then you
| | 00:16 | probably need to think about a lens upgrade.
| | 00:18 | That said, there are times
when you want vignetting.
| | 00:21 | A vignette can drive attention to the center
of your image and help control the viewer's eye.
| | 00:27 | The thing is, you want
control of when a vignette happens.
| | 00:30 | This is why you don't want a lens with a
vignette problem; instead, you want the
| | 00:34 | ability to shoot clean images because
you can add any vignetting that you want
| | 00:38 | later using Photoshop.
| | 00:40 | Here is an image you saw before.
| | 00:42 | This is what we used as our vignette-
correction example. And here you can see
| | 00:46 | that I have gone through and done my
black-and-white correction, some tonal
| | 00:49 | adjustments, and I have got my
image coming along pretty well here.
| | 00:52 | But still, my eye tends to
wander. There's something.
| | 00:56 | I need the viewer's eye more in the center here,
| | 00:59 | so I am going to add a vignette.
| | 01:01 | Photoshop does not have a way of
nondestructively adding a vignette, meaning if
| | 01:06 | I had darken the corners of this
image, they are going to stay dark.
| | 01:09 | If I print it and find that the corners
are too dark, there's nothing I can do
| | 01:12 | to go back and change them.
| | 01:15 | So I'm going to perform my
vignette on a copy of my image layer.
| | 01:20 | Right here I have layer 0.
| | 01:22 | This is the Background
layer that contains my image.
| | 01:25 | In your file it may say Background.
| | 01:27 | I floated this layer at
some point. It doesn't matter.
| | 01:30 | I am going to duplicate it by picking
it up and dropping it on the New Layer
| | 01:34 | button right here at the
bottom of Layers palette.
| | 01:37 | Now you can see I have my
original layer and a copy.
| | 01:41 | These are identical.
| | 01:42 | If I hide this one, nothing in the
image changes, because all I am doing is
| | 01:45 | revealing the identical copy down below.
| | 01:48 | So I am going to add my vignette to this copy.
| | 01:51 | This way if I later decide I don't
like the vignette or need to change the
| | 01:54 | vignette, I can simply delete this layer,
reduplicate my original, and reapply my vignette.
| | 02:00 | Vignetting is easily done using the
Lens Correction filter, which you saw
| | 02:05 | earlier when we were correcting perspective.
| | 02:07 | Now notice the preview is in color.
| | 02:09 | That's because lens correction
operates on the layer that I selected. And my
| | 02:14 | black-and-white conversion and a lot
of other edits were being performed by
| | 02:18 | adjustment layers above that layer.
| | 02:20 | So I cannot actually see my vignette being
applied along with all of my other adjustments.
| | 02:27 | I am going to go over here to the Custom
tab and right here I see Vignette controls:
| | 02:31 | Amount, I can darken to the left,
lighten to the right and Midpoint, which will
| | 02:35 | control the size of the vignette.
| | 02:37 | By lightening I can correct any
vignette problems that my image may have.
| | 02:42 | I can also create a burning-in effect.
| | 02:44 | Obviously, that's not what we want.
We want to darken the corners.
| | 02:49 | So I am going to just pull this to
the left and now I have this nice
| | 02:52 | vignetting in my corners.
| | 02:54 | If I would like the darkness to pull
in a little closer, like maybe closer to
| | 02:57 | that tree, I will simply
drag the Midpoint to the left.
| | 03:01 | Then that changes the size of this
overall circle of brightness in the middle.
| | 03:05 | It's making it a little bit smaller.
| | 03:07 | Now again, because I can't see the
effects of my adjustment layers, some of
| | 03:12 | which are causing parts
of the image to get darker,
| | 03:14 | I don't know how dark the
vignette's ultimately going to be.
| | 03:17 | This is another reason to work
nondestructively, as we are by duplicating the layer.
| | 03:22 | If I get this wrong, I can
throw it out later and refine it.
| | 03:26 | I am going to go to about there and
hit OK and let it process the vignette.
| | 03:30 | It does some thinking and when it's
done, I now have a layer on top of my
| | 03:35 | original layer, that is, the vignette layer.
| | 03:37 | If I hide it, you can see there's my
original layer down below, the vignette up above.
| | 03:42 | In fact, I am just going to double-
click right here and label this Vignette.
| | 03:46 | Now I know what this layer is doing.
| | 03:48 | I am not sure.
The corners might be a little dark.
| | 03:51 | There are a couple things
I can do to attenuate that.
| | 03:53 | I can drag my Opacity slider for this
layer to the left to lower the opacity.
| | 03:59 | That lightens things up a bit.
| | 04:01 | I could also edit the corners
individually by adding a layer mask to this layer.
| | 04:07 | Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All.
| | 04:10 | If you are not clear about masking,
that's covered in lots of other places
| | 04:14 | in the lynda library,
| | 04:15 | so I am going to just go
through this pretty quickly.
| | 04:17 | I have added a mask to this layer.
| | 04:19 | Where the mask is white, those parts
of this layer are visible; where it's
| | 04:25 | black, the underlying layers will be visible.
| | 04:27 | Right now, there is no black.
| | 04:29 | It's only white, so my
entire vignetted layer is showing.
| | 04:34 | If I take some black paint, click on
this layer, grab a paintbrush, and paint
| | 04:39 | into the corners, I am
effectively erasing the vignette.
| | 04:42 | That lets you see how far
the vignette goes there.
| | 04:46 | When I release the mouse button, you
can see there's now black in this corner.
| | 04:49 | That's blocking this part of this layer.
| | 04:53 | I am going to undo that, because
what I would like to do is actually
| | 04:56 | lighten this corner up.
| | 04:57 | So rather than paint with black, I am
going to paint with a shade of gray.
| | 05:02 | That gives me a semi-opaque mask.
| | 05:06 | If I just paint that out there and let
go, you can see that now I have got gray
| | 05:09 | here in this corner.
| | 05:10 | This is revealing a little bit
of this layer, but not all of it.
| | 05:13 | So in this way I can go in and
manually control each corner.
| | 05:17 | Take a quick look at a couple of
other vignetting examples here.
| | 05:21 | Here is the case where I
was looking into the sun.
| | 05:23 | I like the silhouette of the trees, I
like the shadow, but still my eye was
| | 05:26 | wandering off the edges.
| | 05:27 | Some simple vignetting in the corners
brings my attention back here into the center.
| | 05:33 | Here is a very extreme example of vignetting.
| | 05:35 | Again, my eyes were wandering away.
| | 05:37 | These are pretty black, and they may
print even blacker, so I don't know.
| | 05:40 | I may back off on those.
| | 05:41 | At the same time this is kind of a weird,
almost surreally kind of landscape here.
| | 05:48 | I like the sense of maybe I am looking
through this lens that's too small for my camera.
| | 05:52 | So vignette is a very simple
technique to apply, thanks to Photoshop's Lens
| | 05:57 | Correction filter, and it's also a
great way to control the viewer's eye.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
14. Workshop Exhibition and Wrap-UpWorkshop wrap-up and exhibition| 00:00 | Ben Long: It's the last day of the workshop.
We are all done. The images have been printed.
| | 00:04 | They are on display. Students are
walking from studio to studio looking at
| | 00:07 | each other's work.
| | 00:08 | Connie, you've done these
exercises a lot in a lot of workshops.
| | 00:12 | They've done some great work here this weekend.
| | 00:14 | Is this typically what you
find from these exercises?
| | 00:17 | Connie Imboden: When I have students who are really
excited about what they're doing, are
| | 00:22 | really committed, yes.
| | 00:25 | But often I don't have students that
are as committed as these students have
| | 00:29 | been, and I think this work
has really just been marvelous.
| | 00:32 | Ben: They are very, very simple exercises.
| | 00:34 | It's interesting, we did them with the
students this summer, and it's amazing
| | 00:38 | how the same exercises,
| | 00:39 | it just seems you put them in front of
anybody and it really does change the
| | 00:42 | way they see.
| | 00:43 | Connie: Right! Well, we're used to composing
around subjects and the light assignment
| | 00:49 | especially forces you to compose around
what you're looking at and seeing in a
| | 00:54 | much more graphic way than a subject-oriented way.
| | 00:57 | Ben: So, are there problems that you
see regularly with these exercises?
| | 01:05 | Connie: Yeah, people get very angry and frustrated--
| | 01:08 | Ben: So aside from the personal threat,
| | 01:10 | are there--what's the thing that
they don't get or that they struggle with the most?
| | 01:14 | Connie: Well, the one assignment of
seeing spatially is difficult for people,
| | 01:18 | because they want to think their way
through it, and you can't think your way through this.
| | 01:23 | It's really a very visual issue that I'm
asking them to deal with. And as soon as
| | 01:28 | you start off with a thought, you are
in a place that's very, very limited.
| | 01:34 | But if you can use that thought as a
starting point and then really push
| | 01:38 | yourself seeing and explore the
spatial relationships and the spatial issues,
| | 01:43 | you can really get someplace.
| | 01:44 | And we saw that. I saw a lot of
students with thoughts in the beginning and as
| | 01:50 | soon as they stayed with it, as you've
talked about all weekend, pushing the shot,
| | 01:54 | really making the shot work, then they
would come up with something that worked.
| | 01:59 | Ben: It's also interesting to see that
even within the bounds of this exercise,
| | 02:04 | there's still all the basic
compositional stuff they're having to remember.
| | 02:07 | They're still simplifying, guiding the
viewer's eye. All of that stuff is still
| | 02:11 | in there, that those basics never go away.
| | 02:12 | Connie: Right! They never go away, no.
Ben: You always worked on them.
| | 02:16 | Connie: And the more you work on them the
more they become a part of you, and it's
| | 02:19 | almost like muscle memory for an athlete.
| | 02:22 | The more you work on these issues
the more they just become part of your
| | 02:27 | intuitive experience.
| | 02:28 | Ben: Do you return to these exercises?
| | 02:30 | Connie: I do.
Ben: You do.
| | 02:32 | Connie: I do.
| | 02:32 | Ben: Even after all this time.
| | 02:34 | Connie: After all this time, yeah.
| | 02:35 | If I get stuck, or I get frustrated
with where I am working, that's the first
| | 02:41 | thing I do is I start to work with that
spatial issue, because it forces you out
| | 02:46 | of your head, and it forces
you to really follow your eyes.
| | 02:50 | Ben: So, there you go! I think that's maybe one of the
biggest pushes we can give you to try these
| | 02:55 | exercises, not as something to complete
and mark off the lessons and done with
| | 02:58 | that, but to start thinking of these
ideas as a discipline, as something that you
| | 03:02 | need to return to
throughout your photographic life.
| | 03:05 | Connie, thanks a lot.
It's always incredible to teach with you.
| | 03:08 | Connie: Thank you!
It's incredible to teach with you.
| | 03:11 | Ben: No, no really, with you.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Workshop students' final thoughts| 00:00 | Abe Lopez: My name is Abe Lopez, and I'm a
middle school art teacher, and this is my
| | 00:04 | Abe: wife Olivia.
Olivia: And I teach high school art.
| | 00:07 | Abe And we've been making art together
since college and along with teaching art,
| | 00:14 | we also continue to make art, and going
to workshops has been very helpful to us
| | 00:18 | in keeping up with what's current in
the art world, and also being able to work
| | 00:24 | with other artists who have perfected
their craft and continue to work and
| | 00:31 | developing new ideas.
| | 00:33 | So we've been very blessed to be here
with Connie and Ben Long in this workshop.
| | 00:38 | Some of the ideas that they have given
us were learning how to see things in a
| | 00:43 | new way, familiar sites that we're with.
| | 00:47 | So when we look at our familiar
surroundings, you know, how can you see that
| | 00:50 | differently? And being that we're working
in photography, being able to manipulate
| | 00:55 | light and to look at
light has been very important.
| | 00:58 | So, some of the challenges that she
gave us was how do you take a portrait of
| | 01:02 | light and not what light
does, but what light is.
| | 01:06 | So that's been a very fun challenge for
us to tackle. And then she also talked to
| | 01:10 | us about the depth and relationships
between items in a foreground as opposed to
| | 01:15 | items in the background and how
they relate to each other and how they
| | 01:20 | communicate with each
other to make a strong image.
| | 01:22 | So, that's been two of our challenges
that we've had this year, which is being
| | 01:26 | great to see, because as we are
challenged as teachers, we can take those same
| | 01:29 | ideas back into a classroom and relate
some of those same challenges back to
| | 01:33 | our students and hopefully they'll
grow as well with some of the work that they've done.
| | 01:36 | Olivia: One of the things I discovered
this weekend was the fact that I know
| | 01:42 | the composition. I know how to paint. I'm a painter.
| | 01:44 | Now only an art teacher, I'm a
professional painter, and I had to really look at
| | 01:49 | the objects and subject
matter a little bit differently.
| | 01:52 | It really challenged me mentally.
| | 01:54 | I felt exhausted at the end of the day.
| | 01:55 | It was like, okay, did I do right?
Did I even meet the challenge? What was
| | 02:00 | the assignment again?
| | 02:01 | So, it really made me think as
an artist and a photographer.
| | 02:05 | I had to think about lines, composition,
contrast, but I also had to think what
| | 02:08 | was the most important thing of
this specific assignment she gave us.
| | 02:11 | For example, the first one was about light.
| | 02:14 | I don't even think I captured light.
I captured shadows.
| | 02:18 | The second one was about playing with
the foreground and the background and
| | 02:21 | I discovered that
| | 02:22 | that was very difficult to do, because
I thought it will just happen, you know,
| | 02:27 | just go out there look, and voila, it happened.
| | 02:30 | But it didn't. So I had to do some
planning, do some adjustment in my thinking.
| | 02:35 | So, it left me exhausted. But I was
pleased with the end results, because I
| | 02:40 | thought outside the box.
| | 02:42 | It wasn't ordinary and I'm not a
perfectionist, but when I do my work, I
| | 02:46 | intend it to be good.
| | 02:47 | It just can't be mediocre.
| | 02:49 | Abe: And there were two phrases that
they continued to say over and over again.
| | 02:51 | I think they were very, very important.
| | 02:53 | One of them was simplifying your images.
| | 02:56 | When you immediately or initially see
an image of an idea or thought that's
| | 02:59 | captivating, you see something that
sparks your interest, but when you
| | 03:04 | continue to shoot it and you hone in
on the closer images and the essence of
| | 03:09 | what it is and simplifying the forms,
all of a sudden it begins to take on a
| | 03:13 | different connotation.
| | 03:14 | So simplifying the forms, making the
images more complete, but still being able
| | 03:21 | to tell the story was very important.
And the other thing that they talked about
| | 03:26 | was just working your shot.
| | 03:28 | Shooting a hundred shots of the same
image from different angles, different
| | 03:32 | views, different formats using zooming
in, zooming out to bring the foreground
| | 03:39 | in and out, and just really talked to
us about how do you development an idea,
| | 03:43 | how do you work in image or a scene or
light, and that was very helpful to our
| | 03:49 | work and what we were able to do.
| | 03:51 | Olivia: Yes. And one of the things that we can take
back to our students is maybe a deeper
| | 03:55 | understanding that it's
just not about composition;
| | 03:58 | it's about thinking outside the box.
| | 04:00 | Looking at objects and subject
matter a little bit differently.
| | 04:03 | Abe: And about just how you see the world,
because we know that a tree is a tree
| | 04:07 | and a building is a building and light
is light, but how do you take an image or
| | 04:11 | capture an image and let it
speak for itself in a different way.
| | 04:15 | That's the most challenging thing
that we were able to really try to come
| | 04:17 | across with and work.
| | 04:19 | Being that my wife and I are both painters,
you can manipulate paint and layers and
| | 04:24 | the way the paint goes on, but when you
try to take an image and try to capture
| | 04:28 | something that speaks for itself
without a whole lot manipulation, the
| | 04:31 | integrity of photography,
| | 04:33 | that was the best challenge for
us that we've really enjoyed doing.
| | 04:37 | Olivia: I think it gave me satisfaction to
know that I didn't have to go and do a
| | 04:40 | lot of adjustments.
| | 04:42 | I could just take the photograph and it was ready.
| | 04:43 | Abe: So, can we show some of
the photographs that we've done?
| | 04:48 | These photographs that we took were
some of the images and examples that we
| | 04:52 | took on light and how we captured light,
and two of my favorite ones were these
| | 04:57 | two right here.
| | 04:58 | This one was the reflection of a part
of a vehicle on the road, and I just loved
| | 05:04 | the way the light danced across this
diagonal line coming this direction.
| | 05:09 | So seeing two cars parked side by side
is something that we normally saw, but as
| | 05:14 | I looked closer and saw the way the
light danced on the asphalt across this
| | 05:18 | diagonal line, it really captured my eye.
| | 05:20 | Again, I took probably about sixty shots
of this from the back side and the
| | 05:24 | front side and just learning to
see how the light spoke to me.
| | 05:30 | The way I was able to
capture this was really important.
| | 05:33 | Ben Long also talked to me about the
aperture and things that could be more
| | 05:39 | in focus closer to us.
| | 05:40 | So, he gave us a little bit critique
that was helpful about making this area
| | 05:43 | little bit more focused.
| | 05:45 | Shooting the aperture and focusing
on the foreground, middle ground, and
| | 05:48 | background, and the pulling those images
together and trying to figure out which
| | 05:51 | one worked the best and which one
could be modified to be a finished item.
| | 05:55 | So that was really helpful.
| | 05:56 | Olivia: I think one of my favorites wasn't
even in the assignment. It was the first day.
| | 06:02 | I saw colors and I like the way the
colors were playing off each other.
| | 06:06 | But I think I met the
criteria with the egg and the feet.
| | 06:09 | This is the one where the foreground
and the background play with each other,
| | 06:13 | and this one had more to do with I
guess the same thing, that it looks more like
| | 06:19 | the light assignment.
| | 06:20 | And this one is just my favorite.
| | 06:22 | I love it because it's very pleasing.
| | 06:23 | I put the apples in the middle
of the staircase and I just liked
| | 06:28 | the composition.
| | 06:29 | Abe: This one that she did, this one is
one my favorite ones, because an egg is
| | 06:34 | so delicate and then the way this was
like it's floating away from the edge, not
| | 06:38 | forming a harsh shadow was a great idea
to put on there, and she captured that
| | 06:42 | just by laying it on glass and
photographing it straight down where it did not
| | 06:45 | have the reflection,
which really worked out well.
| | 06:48 | I thought she did a good job
with that particular image.
| | 06:49 | But we've been very grateful to work
with Connie Imboden and Ben Long.
| | 06:54 | They've been both fantastic with
their critiques and their thoughts on our
| | 06:58 | work and just being very helpful with
their ideas that they were able to share with us.
| | 07:03 | So, we've been thankful for that.
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ConclusionFinal thoughts| 00:00 | We've reached the end of this course,
but you are far from the end of your
| | 00:04 | education and understanding of composition.
| | 00:07 | That will continue for as
long as you keep shooting.
| | 00:10 | These compositional building blocks
that we've been working with, you will
| | 00:13 | continue to find new depths to those and
new ways of combining and working with those.
| | 00:18 | I would also like you to think
about the exercises we've done, not as
| | 00:21 | something that you have completed, but as
something that you can return to, for two reasons.
| | 00:25 | One, there're still more to
learn from those exercises.
| | 00:28 | You can always go back to them and
plum the depths a little bit deeper.
| | 00:32 | But you can also use those exercises
for times when you're feeling stuck.
| | 00:35 | If you're bored with what you are
shooting, if you're feeling like you're not
| | 00:38 | seeing anything, if you're feeling like
you always compose things the same way,
| | 00:42 | go back to these very basic
exercises and work through them again.
| | 00:45 | They may get your sense of seeing going
and help you to explore some new ideas
| | 00:49 | that you haven't yet discovered.
| | 00:52 | Most important though, you've got to be
out there with your camera practicing,
| | 00:55 | so I would encourage you to turn off
your computer now and get out there and
| | 00:58 | do some shooting.
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