Beginner Practice Framing Shots

Forkbeard

Forkbeard

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Jim
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I'm trying to get out of the habit of going out and taking a 100 shots of nothing with a wide angle lens and hoping some are OK. So instead I'm concentrating on getting a few that I like, that I've thought about a bit more. Yesterday I went out an took six shots, the weather was rubbish but I thought I did a better job at framing the few I took. The one below is my favourite. Opinions appreciated.

P1100057
 
Good that you are trying, I have to say that often find myself in a similar position, i.e. I've gone out to take photos and I am going to come back with some. Anyway it's always hard to know what level of crit people are expecting but the obvious things in the photo above are the bush sticking in from the right and the cropped off tree on the left. My assumption is that you were going for the stand of pines with the open ground to the left of them leading into the distance?
 
sirch said:
Good that you are trying, I have to say that often find myself in a similar position, i.e. I've gone out to take photos and I am going to come back with some. Anyway it's always hard to know what level of crit people are expecting but the obvious things in the photo above are the bush sticking in from the right and the cropped off tree on the left. My assumption is that you were going for the stand of pines with the open ground to the left of them leading into the distance?
Click to expand...


Yes. If I'd have got the full tree on the frame on the left, there would've been too much sky (which wasn't very interesting, pretty much greyed out mist) and the other trees would've been too far away and I'd have lost the perspective I was aiming for.
 
If it was me i would have had the tree on the left tight to the left side frame, and on the right side i would have framed or cropped it later just to the left of the farthest pine tree on the right hand side.
So you are using the shapes of the trees as a natural border of the photo.
If that makes sense.

That`s how i see if if i hold a piece of paper up to my screen to see how it looks.
Hope that helps
 
I would say that if possible always go a bit wider than needed, you can aways crop some off later.
On the image above, i would crop the bush on the rhs off, i don't mind the trees on the left (maybe crop a fraction, just to get the tree nearest to the edge on the edge).
I like the composition of the near and far trees and the space in between, but there doesn't seem to be a focal point, nothing that draws my attention. A dog, person or some sort of wildlife in the open space would have been great.
 
There were some sheep knocking about, but they're very skittish and decided to leg it so no luck for one in the foreground. I have another picture with a randon gold retriever in the foreground, but the rest of the picture didn't really work.

I cropped the picture and slightly desaturated it:

P1100057cr
 
Was there a wall/fence stopping you getting closer??? I like the set of trees in the mid ground and I am assuming that some of those foreground rocks might have moss/lichen on them. It would make a nice shot if you shot it vertical. But I don't know if there were barriers' stopping you walking in further.

If I find myself in a rutt,(which happens often) I challenge myself to specific subjects. i.e. Boats. Lone tree. etc. Then I head off with that in mind,what it does,it helps you "plan" where and what you want to achieve and this will stay with you,through your whole photography hobby.

Also I find a bland sky,is really a black and white day,so ruins,trees in fog or mist would work nicely.

Hope that helps.
 
Slightly better framing, you can go a little tighter on the left side, on the right hand side i would crop until just before the straight vertical tree so its shape creates a natural border.
so you loose the crooked shape of the tree on the very far right.
 
WA or UWA is a speciality lens and needs careful composition. You need to be sure of what you want the viewer to see. Most of the time in UWA composition perspective is the wow factor and to show the wide angle perspective you need strong foreground with equally interesting background.
 
steelydan said:
Was there a wall/fence stopping you getting closer??? I like the set of trees in the mid ground and I am assuming that some of those foreground rocks might have moss/lichen on them. It would make a nice shot if you shot it vertical. But I don't know if there were barriers' stopping you walking in further.

If I find myself in a rutt,(which happens often) I challenge myself to specific subjects. i.e. Boats. Lone tree. etc. Then I head off with that in mind,what it does,it helps you "plan" where and what you want to achieve and this will stay with you,through your whole photography hobby.

Also I find a bland sky,is really a black and white day,so ruins,trees in fog or mist would work nicely.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

There wasn't much of a barrier really, so i could've got closer. Also it never occurred to me to take a vertical shot. I suppose I'm still thinking 'get it all in' to a certain extent. I need to ween myself off the wide angle way of thinking. Especially seeing as I can't actually use one to any great effect! I tried the shot in question in b&w, but I don't think it has enough interesting content to remove the colour.
 
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I'm afraid that the desaturated crop looks - well, cropped. Uncomfortably. In particular the tree on the left is too prominent an element in the picture space to be so near to the edge.
 
droj said:
I'm afraid that the desaturated crop looks - well, cropped. Uncomfortably. In particular the tree on the left is too prominent an element in the picture space to be so near to the edge.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree, I've done another one in between the two.
 
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