Composition - Cropping and Framing

The next photowalk is coming up this weekend. Seeing in Detail, and will include some surprise discussion of Composition and Framing, which can be carried out in the field, but Cropping, an underutilized photo editing tool, can also help in seeing more detail, but after the fact in post-processing.

In a photowalk a couple of years ago we tried out hand-held viewfinders to select the best composition before we took our photos. John Noble had made some wonderful adjustable viewfinders from matte board that could be adjusted to some common aspect ratios.

These aspect ratios become very important when it comes to composition because it is the frame that naturally constrains our vision and brain. It is seldom discussed in photographic compositional rules yet it is the most fundamental aspect of how the composition is perceived. These four boundary lines (I'm assuming for now the frame isn't oval or circular, and that introduces different compositional considerations) change the width and height as the aspect ratio is changed, Each proportion affects the dynamics of what is happening inside that frame.

ratio	common applications
1:1	Square eg Instagram
1:2	Panoramic
2:3	most Digital Cameras & some phones
3:4	Micro Four Thirds Cameras
4:5	Once favoured for Portraits eg 10" by 8"
9:16	Wide Screen TV, phones
10:16	Newer Wide Screen Monitors & TVs

As an exercise, mainly to convince yourself that the frame is the most important compositional aspect (and the cropping tool is one of the best ways to improve your photo). Find a photo you have taken, and then create a series of sub-photos from it but cropping to a few if not all the common ratios shown in the table above.

Photowalking on Sunday

Next Photowalk seeing in Detail

The first photowalk has come to an end, with only a few participants showing up. Thanks to those that came But don't worry, we'll make sure to notify you of the next one well in advance. In fact, it's already scheduled on the MGA events calendar!

During this Photowalk, we explored the concept of seeing by chance, inspired by Freeman Patterson's idea of thinking sideways. I’ve provided a short PDF (optimized for phone or iPad) that outlined the tasks for the day. seeing by chance. Firstly, we asked participants to capture three different themes or hashtags. Secondly, we encouraged them to periodically throw a dice and either choose the number of subjects in a photo or the direction they must photograph.

Our objective was to challenge participants to move beyond taking a simple snapshot. With modern cameras and phones, it's easy to obtain well-focused and well-exposed photos. Instead, our random tasks were designed to distract the photowalkers and encourage them to look for different things. By taking numerous photos, participants had the opportunity to review their work later, to see what they captured and saw and how they managed to capture it.

Here are some of my results

#Tranguil, #shadows

#flowers #curve

Six Dots on the Dice

Five Dots

Straight Ahead

Small aside, I forgot to pick up my dice when I took this, but later I was  able to retrace where I took this shot from this photo and there was my dice on the ground!

 

#sculpture #sky

Start planning for the next photowalk, hope to see you there 

Seeing Colour :: Where to begin

How we see colour is definitely a complex subject. There is more than the relatively straight forward physics of light at various frequencies. Much of the so-called Colour Science is focussed on this, and is about matching colour (specifically the Hue). However there is a lot more to understand how Human Vision works, and what we call colour. This itself has two components a Physiology (to do with the vision apparatus, eg retina, rods,cones) and the Cognitive Psychology (to do with how the brain creates our concepts of colour)

I was fascinated that Tony Northrup was so surprised by his own user blind poll of the colour quality of various camera and Lenses. He compares their user ratings with a “colour science” study of the cameras using colour calibration charts. This evaluation really covers the transmission of light through the lens and onto the sensor, comparing known colour charts. This is all good science but that’s as far as the study goes, from the subject through the lens and onto the sensor. Yet Tony’s subject where looking at photo of common snapshot style subjects, and their vision was adding a lot to how colour was perceived, including their personal biases (including brand loyalty.

Thus I will begin a series of blog post about seeing colour, armed with the schematic hand drawn diagrams above and some context from Tony’s “Best Colour Science” You Tube Video. I trust that as I developed the discussion of seeing colour you too will understand why peoples’ perception of colour quality often differs from the “Colour Science”

Watch for Tony’s great quote “Colour is like Wine”

David Hockney’s thoughts on the Art of Seeing

Those coming to the next Sketch Crawl, Sunday 18th November (there is still time to register at eventbrite) might like to view this BBC documentary which covers much of David Hockneys views on photography and the important Art of Seeing. The documentary does run for almost an hour and mainly covers Hockney’s revised inspirations from landscapes and lead up to Hockney’s Bigger Picture series of landscapes. The PhotoWalk/SketchCrawl is based around many of the same issues. So this You Tube is not only a very interesting in itself, it is also great context for the walk.

The harder to look the more you see.

My Camera Bag Diet

I’m not obsessive about my gear, but I do like it to be safely stowed, I have been very happy with my thinktank bag I bought last year for my trip to Canada. Even though its a Mirrorless Mover 30i it has plenty of room for my bulky Pentax K20 with my big tamron zoom and a 300mm zoom sigma lens, also on the large size. However I have been slowly trimming the ancillary stuff to give plenty of room for my sketcking gear. I have the mandatory clean small towels (aka face washers). I also have two lens cleaners, an old fashion blower brush and a lens pen. There is also a polarizing filter and a case for SD cards. I am rotating the SD cards, so there is a temporary backup of photos there as well as on the two external backup drive (back at my accommodation). I also have an old HTC phone that has no sim card but it has a good gps receiver so I just need to turn it on, start My Tracks and put it back in the camera bag to get a continuous wayfile. I also have my trusty but redesigned string monopod.

Art gear wise I still carry an A5 sketchbook, and a couple of pencils and/or pens, often a water brush style pen. And of course my small Cotman sketcher box. I am now even move convinced a sketckbook is a great camera accessory (for seeing).

Seeing inside the frame

I’ve happened upon on a couple of simple tools to really help you see the important aspects of tonal balance and composition. This approach is specifically for the analysis your existing photos, but the insight gained from using them to prepare some composition sketches is very enlightening and of majour benefit for your future photography. There may be some one click filters that undertake similar methods, but it is the act of doing these steps yourself that will not only improve your observational skills but with make looking for tonal balance an automatic habit.

The first step is too find a software tool, a simple photo editor, that will allow you to do the basic editing like lightening, darkening, [cropping]. It should also let you make a black and white version and possibly posterized versions. It is important that it can display the photo full screen (or as close to full screen as possible). In this case I am using Paint.net, which is a great little user supported editor. Once you understand what’s going on the process, I suggest you migrate to a non-destructive editor. I  played around in Luminar & Polarr , they are also easy to use and do the job required beautifully. Picasa, if you still have a copy, is also perfect and with the added advantage of scrolling through your collection and also rating the photos you like. Lightroom or AfterShot pro could even be used here, if you are already familiar with them (don’t get them just to do these steps, eperiment with something free to start).

Load up a photo you the are interested in analysing, I’m using the Day 5 photo from last week a Foggy Afternoon in Olinda. The next step is to make it black and white. I prefer to just remove all saturation, but any convert to black and white approach is fine. The next step is to have close your eyes and look for the shapes in just 5 tones. You can lighten or darken the image to get the balance better. Only use the contrast if you must. Controls that let you adjust the highlights or shadows independently are preferable to just altering overall contrast. Now display that image full screen. Only save this version if you want to and be careful to give it a different name if you are not using a non-destructive editor.

The second tool is a neat little sketching program, called mischief, which allows you to draw over the photo, as if on a light table. There are several expensive graphics programs that allow you do something similar to this via layers but they are complex to use and set up. Mischief by comparison is really intuitive to use,  infinitely scalable and is no more complex than putting a piece of tracing paper over your photo and grabbing a pencil.   So I strongly recommend you try these steps with it. Looking on the mischief web site you will see a free and a paid version, you only need the free version to follow my method. Mischief starts full screen and there are a few controls you need to become familiar with so I have already made an Anatomy of Mischief post back a bit in the blog. Next change the window background opacity (you can use the Ctrl+W keyboard shortcut or the toolbar). I find it helpful to make a little Notan legend of 4 greyscales tones somewhere on the edge. You can later use the eye dropper to pick these shades later as you work on your “tracing”. Using the marker brush (its the bottom brush in the free version brush palette) and make it fairly thick and 100% on the opacity slider. Now start colouring over all parts of you photo that have the same tone. This is a lot easier than you might think. If you paint over something and you can not really see where you painted you have got it right. If you can clearly see where you have made brush marks, its time to back off, erase those marks, or use the undo tool (CrtlZ)  Think of yourself as doodling in the shades. It doesn’t have to be perfect it is about training your hand eye coordination to almost do it in autopilot. Turning off and on the background transparency now and again lets you check your progress. You should avoid getting too detail but you need to cover the main tonal regions (and arrive at something like the sketch on the right.

Now is the time for the most interesting steps. First look for the main positive and/or negative shapes (pick a colour to outline them and outline simple geometric shapes). In this case the subjects (the positive shapes, my dotted light blue outlines) are the dark shadowy trees and the negative space is the central column of light. The four dark positive shapes are a little asymmetrically balanced either side of that. This is a great start.

Next look for the high contrast edges (and lines). A viewers eyes will involuntarily flow along these high contrast paths paths, because that's what our vision does and our brains use this information to make sense of the image. The direction of the eye will usually be from less contrast towards more contrast along these edges/lines. Also the eye & brain love to play the lost and found found game (lost and found lines and edges is one of a painters secret tools). It is best if these paths can converge on a “sweat spot” or lead onto another path. It is very important that they don’t lead the viewer off the edge of the photo, particular at the corners of the image. If that happens you risk the viewer moving on, scrolling down or turning the page.

Study your tonal doodles and compositional squiggles with squinted eyes. Then close your eye for about 30 seconds and half open them again but follow a different path or focus on an alternate center of interest. Close and half open your eyes a few times until you are following the same paths to the same sweat spots.

Are these what you wanted to show when you took your photo?

You really don’t have to save any of this activity. Its more important that you do it, Doing it as if sketching develops your skill to accurately observe tone and understand composition at an innate level as opposed to following sets of rules. You will be starting to see with an artists eye.

If you have been using a non destructive editor, bring up the colour saturation again (close to the normal mid slider setting) leaving your tonal adjustments. You will probably be amazed, the photo is likely to look less washed out and the colours look more natural (closer to what you remembered when you took the photo).

PhotoProject :: Seeing more with your photos

I have become convinced that there are two opposing objectives when you are collecting photographic reference material for creating art works. Firstly the documentary aspects, the objective recording of important visual details, form, shape, lighting etc. An aide-memorie. Such tasks are really performed well with a digital camera or smart phone. However there is a second subjective/expressive side of how you feel about the scene, the atmosphere or your connection to the place. Single photographs will seldom capture these things. Whereas a sketch or small plein-air painting probably will.

I suspect ignoring the second component when painting from a single photo is why they so often look bland and lifeless.

I had already come to recommend to artist wishing to collect photographic reference that they should make at least an tonal/compositional sketch in the fields and take at least 5 photos to support it. Actually it’s better to take 10. By coincidence this ties in nicely with capturing both the objective and subjective aspects. A great metaphor is to use your hands to remember what to photograph.

Documentary

Taking an Objective View (Detailed left Brain Stuff)

1. Take the obvious snap shot.
2. What is the main subject, get as much detail as possible.
3. Take a wider view.
4. Evaluated the tonal balance.
5. Textures and surfaces

Its quiet normal to pick a snapshot type view of any new vista, It might actually be what you are going to paint to take the shot, get it out of the way. It could also be the scene you sketch, that’s fine you’ve already got a photo to copy. However now you need to look for a bit more detail of the scene. In particular detail of the main subject could really help future drawing or painting back in the studio. Therefore zoom in on the important subject details, or walk up and take some closer photos. Similarly it is wise to take a wider view, zoom out or walk back, or use a wide angle lens. Even take a few over lapping images to stitch or cut an past together. This will help you understand what part of the scene makes the best framing and composition. The last two items have a lot to do with the quality of the light. The tonal aspect are a very important in realistic art as they help the eyes more that any other visual features understand the three dimensionally of what we see. This is a bigger topic than I can even begin to cover here in a single blog post but you want to avoid just have one photo with a bleached out sky (or other highlights) and solid black shadows. It might be best to take one exposure of the sky and another of the shadows (or use HDR style exposure bracketing) or even take one photo without and with a flash providing fill light of any close subject. Perhaps you might look at using black & white to better understand the tones. The eye is also interested in edges, texture and the small detail of surfaces that help our brain identify an object, However it often ignores other information once its has found itself a satisfactory explanation. so it is a wise option to get some documentation of the dominant textures usually requires very close up detailed photo(s).

Expressive

Finding a Subjective View (big picture right brain stuff)

1. Include a photo your plein air work
2. What interests you most in the scene.
3. Look for main abstract shapes .
4. Main colours and mood
5. Atmosphere

If you have not made a sketch you won’t be able to photograph it. However a photo of your work in position with the scene in the background can be a great help in putting your sketch and colours in context, this cross reference will be a big help back in the studio. It is also a wonderful way to establish provenance, works in progress posted on social media are a better way to promote your work than yet another selfie. The next two items to attempt to photography are similar to items 2 & 3 in the documentary set but know you need to focus on what interested you the most. It may not the the old house but the path disappearing behind it. To the tree but the show it cast across the path beside it. Take you time to understand what attract your view don’t just assume it was the subject you first choose in the snapshot. Next you should look for the larger abstract shapes , They are probably defined tonally and the small composition sketch many art make are perfect here, another well established trick is to squint. However a camera can be a great help here. Deliberately put your camera out of focus. The main shapes of dark and light design will jump out at you. The final items are also related to the quality of the light but you need to consider how they affect you and what mood they invoke. Despite all the colour matching and calibration technology perception of colour can be a very personal thing and strongly connected to emotions. This is a bigger issue is not just white balance and colour temperature, but extends to colour harmony and compliments (classic colour theory). Another important aspect to remember is few experienced master painter fill there creations with endless detail a lot of the images was left with a suggestive colour, tone, texture and our eyes filling in what it thought it saw, where as way to many photographer's are obsessed with tack sharp focus and copying such photos doesn’t excite our eyes and brains so take a few photos of the distant mist, the heat haze or sun glare. 

Seeing :: The Essence of a Tree

As an exercise in Seeing, suitable for a PhotoWalk style session, I figured the ideal subject might be a tree. So first you need to make a sketch of an idealized tree (could be a line drawing, a rough tonal sketch, or even coloured in). This exercise works well in a group so let the other photowalkers see it but then put the sketch away. The challenge is to find and photograph a tree that most closely resembles you tree. It might be harder than you think. Especially if you don’t keep checking your sketch.

What is going on here. Well you are doing three things

1. Previsualising the image
2. Learn to see a photo before you take it
3. Framing your photo to match your expected view

These are three skills to expand your seeing good photograph beyond just looking in the viewfinder or phone screen.

Photographers using a Sketch Book

The idea of a photographer using a sketch book is not new. There is a wonderful scene in Alain de Botton’s documentary about his book “The Art of Travel” (this sequence starts at 40:30 in) where he takes a bus load of Japanese tourists to a quaint English village and then takes their cameras away and gives them sketchbooks!

 

This video link above expands on his inspiration for this actions,  based on the writings of John Ruskin

PhotoProject :: Seeing By Chance II

Still looking at the issues of seeing a photograph BEFORE you take it, Again I’m working through a Freeman Patterson’s exercises.

Have Somebody --- anybody but yourself --- choose three seemingly unrelated objects for you to photograph together … Don’t expect masterpieces, expect a struggle. Minimum requirement 20 photos

My wife choose for me some orchids flowering at the moment, a piece of blowup exercise equipment called a peanut (her’s is bright green) and a small metal sculpture of a cockatoo. Her logic was the colour combinations might be interesting. Other than that I can not see anything that might even remotely connect these thre things I need to photograph. I added for myself the burden of trying to photograph with three different cameras (My android phone, My Canon & My Pentax.)

To be honest this was a lot harder than I imagined

PhotoProject :: Seeing by Moving Sideway

This is another photo project inspired by Freeman Patterson’s book Photography and the Art of Seeing. This time I’m doing my thinking sideways deliberately breaking a rule.

 

Rule : For slow shitter speeds (less than 1/60 sec) secure your camera on a tripod.

Sideways: Why not see what happens if I move the camera!

I have had a homemade string monopod for sometime now. Its really easy to operate, I just  screw in the connector to the tripod socket, let the cord dangle to the ground, then step on it and pull the camera up a little till the chord is tight.  On my recent trip to Canada although i had taken a travel tripod I mainly used this simple homemade device to stabiles my photos, because it is fast to set up and simply rolls up so it is always in my camera bag. It is also teriffic for macro work in the field where you can arc into the best position to focus and keep the camera stable.

My idea was the photograph some flowers from above with the camera swinging back and forth. Really easy to do I set the camera to a very slow shutter (1/8 sec) low ISO (100 ASA) and higher Fstop because it was daytime. Then I set the camera time for a delay, and my canon has the ability to then take a number of photos about 2 seconds apart. I stood on my front deck and dangled my camera over the flowers below and like a apprentice puppeteer, tried to swing the camera back and forth then let it spiral down. Ten shots is not many but that's all I took. AND I was amazed with what I had shot. There are only 2 photos here (and certainly I enhanced them in Nik’s software) but more than half the photos were pretty decent.

 

As Freeman warns this approach may be a bit formulaic and should be used with constraint BUT moving the camera can work really well.

PhotoProject :: Seeing by thinking sideways

The lighting was not so perfect this afternoon, so I had decided to try another seeing exercise from Freeman Patterson. This time I’m looking at the idea of thinking sideways, looking at something familiar, but not normally photographed. However thee trick here s to think of a reason you don’t take the photo and instead look for something to become a photo. Freeman’s suggest trying to break a rule, like not photography into the sun or avoiding balanced and cantered compositions. On the way to my favourite spots on the far side of jells park lake to capture the setting or late afternoon I have to walk along bush tracks. I have seldom photographed them so next I look to break a rule of too.

On my way out I turned and looking back towards the sun (and yes damn there is sun flare). I also took a bracketed set of exposures so I could play with the tonal aspects. I then processed HDR versions in two different applications (firstly on the right using Aftershot HDR merge and secondly of the left Nik’s HDR Efex Pro 2)

I treated the Aftershot Pro merge as I normally do (without  using a presets) and adjusting the tonal sliders myself to match the scene I remember. The HDR Efex software is still a bit new to me so I choose to use their Soft Landscape preset.

On the way back further back along the track the sun broke through the clouds for a few moments and Looking Straight Back down the track, with the classic composition you are supposed to avoid. I took another bracketed set of photos. However the cross lighting and shadows in the distance do attract the eye and make the composition appear more interesting. Again I created two HDR versions.

Of these images I do like the bottom left one, it has stronger contrast (because I created it that way) and perhaps fits more closely with what I remember of the lighting at the time. I’m glad I spent some time thinking sideways and looked at these tracks a fresh.