Project 7 - objects in different positions in the frame

This project is about where to place the subject in the frame, and this first was the "baseline" pic - putting the subject bang in the middle with little thought for the ugly buildings or other activity going on on the beach. This next isn't much different but I did compose the shot to lose the buildings. I don't really like this partly because of the distracting person in the background but also because the mast pretty much cuts the image in half.

This is my favourite by a long way - no people, just different shapes and colours. On straightening the horizon I did unfortunately lose some of the top of the mast which crowds the boat more than I would have liked - but I think better that than tipping off the edge of the world!

Project 6 - fitting the frame to the subject

This project shows some of the different ways of locating the subject in the frame, both while composing the image and by cropping afterwards.

This was my first image which was the baseline - not very imaginative, with the shelter right in the middle of the frame, the image halved by the central horizon.

In the next image I positioned the shelter at the bottom of the frame. This was largely because the sky provided a plain context rather than the flats and other unattractive buildings which would have been included if I'd gone horizontal.

A more interesting sky would probably have livened this up a little but I'm most concerned about the couple in the background - that red top stands out too much for my liking. Post production was a little cropping to ensure the shelter was in the bottom third of the pic, and I also took some off the right hand side so that the subject was off to the side a little.

I can see now that I probably should have straightened it as well as the sea looks slightly tilted.

This is my favourite of all the images. I'm so pleased with the colours that I didn't alter in any way at all - the complementary blue and yellow work really well here and I love simple shots which focus in on details that you wouldn't usually notice. I wish that I had used a smaller aperture however, to ensure that all the spheres were in focus rather than just the central one.

I do quite like this as well, again because of the simplicity of the colours and the interesting structure, and the lines that the roof makes. In fact, I'd be quite happy to try a version which chops off everything from sea level down and just make this an image of the top half.

The shape of the shelter meant that it didn't completely fill the frame horizontally, so post-production I cut off excess from both sides. Somehow the bottom half feels more crowded to me than the top half - possibly that is because I appear to have got in a little too close and lost some low down detail.

Project 5 - panning with different shutter speeds

A quick post, this, to comment that "swing the camera so that the moving subject stays in the middle of the frame. This comes naturally as a technique to most people" is nowhere near as easy as it sounds. The results I had from this exercise were simply appalling as the subject certainly didn't remain still (doubtless because I was moving the camera around), and again at the slower shutter speeds the whole image was completely burnt out. I include just this one image taken with a 1/6 sec shutter to show that I did at least try!