Composition

Didn't want to further hijack Larry's thread, so I figured I'd start a new one.

I can see the concepts in most of them (foreground framing, using lines to draw attention, bokeh (sp?) etc) that make them work, I just have trouble applying those to my pictures. Perhaps I've just got unrealistic expectations on what I should be able to do this early on.

Here are some of mine that I think are at least headed in the right direction (i know I still have a Looong way to go). Are they at least on the right track, at least as far as composition?

 

a few more

 

Excellent work, man!

I especially love the shots underneat the pier and of the starling in the water. WELL DONE!

 

These are the best in terms of composition. Maybe Larry or someone else can give you some technical advice for getting the clean, crisp shots he gets. Or maybe it's just the scaling down to post here that makes them a little fuzzy.

The pier - good foreground and background. The offcenter perspective creates tension and draws your eye down the picture to somewhere other than the center.

The bird - Rule of thirds. You've got the bird off-center, with enough room to "move" thru the image and doesn't feel rushed out of the picture.

Girl again pole - even though it's a static image, the pole balances the picture. Rule of thirds again.

One tree hill - You've got the thirds going on both vertically with the tree and horizontally with the water. The other image of this tree fills too much of the frame. There's no tension, no energy. When you frame a picture, keeping the main subject off center like this is really good. This is one of my favorites of the ones you posted.

skateboarder - action shot. Movement felt either from the slight blur or just the fact that you have enough room on the right side of the image for the guy to 'move' into it.

 

The portraits - try to pull back a little. When you get too close, you cut off parts of the person. That's fine if it's your intention, but take more picture than you need and crop it when you get home. Practice with distance shots to figure out what looks best by playing with cropped images.

the girl in the brown shirt - Where's her hand?

the mother and kids - what's the stuff in the background. I want to see a little more of that. Just so I don't sit there trying to figure out what it is.

little girl - don't chop off the top of her head. Try to get entire features in the image.

The dog - not bad, again, back up just a little.

Again, none of these are bad photos. Just a few tweaks here and there can make them really good photos.

 

Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback, and this was exactly what I was looking for. I had to scale them down twice to get them to upload, and they are sharper at full res (still not as sharp or colorful as larry's, but that's something to figure out in another thread).

Thanks again.

 

well don't get discouraged. Hell, I'm sure Larry has a few pictures that don't come out just the way he wanted them. Even Annie Liebowitz said she's thrown away more film than she's published. It takes time and practice to build composition skills. We spent 2 semesters, 3 hours a day, 3 days a week in class on this stuff.

You've got some good stuff up there. It only gets better with time. Get the basics down, then just point and shoot and don't overthink it.

 

Oh, I'm not discouraged. It would be an insult to the people who have been working at this for years for me to think I could just pick up a dSLR and be a pro the next day. I just wanted to make sure I was starting down the right track. I probably get 1 picture I'm proud of out of every 100 I take. I figure in a couple years I'll look back on that 1% and think 95% of it was crap. As of right now I'm just enjoying the process.

 

and of course, there's a ton of subjectivity involved, too. in fact, i think i completely disagree with builder.

i think the dog pic is perfect. the interesting part of the portrait is the "expression" on the dog's face and that's well frames. the close cropping and shallow depth of field keep your interest there. i like the texture of the rug slowly vanishing into the blur of the defocus.

i prefer the single tree to the longer shot of the same scene. sometimes a perfectly framed shot works, and i think the lighting is more of the story than the framing in this one. you've got near solid colors which makes the photo more graphic feeling which lends itself to a more rigid "perfect" composition.

in the girl and post shot i don't like the framing. the problem to me is that the right side of the pole opens back up to the background so you've got a sliver of information that is more confusing than it is useful to your shot. perhaps if it was more out of focus in the background, it wouldn't compete as much with the foreground.

i love the bird shot.

i like the shot of the kid looking up. in fact, the other two shots of the single kids are good as well.

the guy at the piano i like, even tho he's cropped a bit. i think close cropping works well for the photojournalistic style (as does the off kilter framing). it helps the viewer feel like they're a part of the event as opposed to an observer watching from a distance.

i like the stream/canal shot too, tho it'd be nice to not be cropping the trees at the top. you need the hint of sky up there more than you need the fg rocks, so tilting up a bit would be the only change i'd make. maybe shooting from a slightly lower vantage point would be nice, too.

back to the hill with two trees, i think i'd frame the shot to avoid seeing the ground in front of the water. the reflection is an interesting element, so it'd be nice to maximize it. maybe step up a few paces so it fills more of the shot. frame it so it bleeds off the bottom and it'll suddenly be an infinite pool instead of a small pond. plus you'd get to see some sky reflected which would be a nice touch of color. a final nitpick would be the dark shape on the hill that's cropped on the right. that feels a bit distracting to me. i'd suggest you capture it completely or don't capture it at all. it's not the star of the shot, but it's such a contrasty element that you can't help but notice it.

i like the way you captured the bridge. too bad it's out of focus (i'm guessing you don't have a tripod). but the framing is great.

the castle i'm not fond of. i don't think you've got enough room to see the fireworks (which, in my mind, aren't the most interesting fireworks anyway) and so the castle ends up just feeling small for no good reason.

i think the skateboarder would be better as a horizontal shot to help the feeling of lateral motion. i'd like to see where he's been and where he's going.

looking down on the couple, i'd crop to center up their bodies a bit. maybe enough to get rid of his shoes at the bottom and enough on the right so that maybe his nose is centered left/right. maybe if they were on grass or the sand you'd want a lot of the ground to be seen, but not asphalt.

the pier i like, but i think i'd have used a shallower depth of field at this angle. maybe tried to find something a little more fg too, tho i understand a foreground vertical beam would obliterate too much of the structure in the background and you'd miss out on some of the interest. with everything in focus, i'd have shot straight down the center and let the repeating lines of the structure be the whole story. again, it'd be a graphic looking shot and lend itself to that perfect angle thing.

anyway, don't take this as harsh criticism or anything. i'm just trying to apply some thought to what my gut tells me, so i'm probably overthinking things and looking for problems to point out. and also take it all with a grain of salt cuz i'm not pro photographer by any means.

 

Wow, thanks. That certainly was thruough and I appreciate it. This is the kind of feedback I need - and no, I don't take it as harsh at all - the more advice I get, certainly the better it'll do me.

Thanks again to all of you.