Photography 11
Mini Challenges
1. Rule of Thirds – head out with the challenge of shooting with the rule of thirds as your compositional goal. Try simple backgrounds, busy backgrounds, shallow and deep depth of field, getting close to your subject etc….
Reference
“Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll Leading Lines, pg 22
Make sure to be back 15 mins before the end of class to upload and choose the image that you are most proud of to show your class mates.
Sarah Pudritz
2. Depth of Field – head out today using aperture priority. Choose a variety of subjects to focus on and working from the smallest f-stop to the highest f-stop shoot your subject over and over again for the same position.
Explore
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Having your focal point/subject close and far away from you
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Having items overlap your subject in the foreground
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Textured backgrounds
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Simple background
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Viewpoint, get high/get low.
Small f-number = small area of focus, big f-number = big area of focus
Reference
“Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll, pages 42–48
3. Landscape Vs. Portrait Orientation - Horizontal pictures (landscape) encourage our eyes to move from side to side and vertical pictures (portrait) make them move up and down. When considering which to use think about which would best frame your subject. Are the dominate lines for horizontal or vertical? Which would lead itself to the most dramatic effect? Make sure to consider everything within the frame.
Your goal today is to find a variety of subjects and shoot each using both the landscape and portrait orientation. When you come back and upload to can evaluate which orientation best works with the subjects.
Reference
“Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll, pages 12-13.
Make sure to be back 15 mins before the end of class to upload and choose the images that you are most proud of to show your class mates.
4. Framing - draws the attention of the viewer to a particular part of the composition. Look for doorways, windows, any shape generally in the foreground of your composition that you can line up your focal point within. Your challenge today is to go on a scavenger hunt looking for "see throughs"; objects, shapes that you can shoot through that will lead the eye into the picture. Depth of field will be important, in most cases you will want to have as much of the image in focus as possible.
Tara Ward
Reference
“Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll, pages 14-15.
5. Get Closer and then Closer Again - Macro
Get close, I mean REALLY close to your subject. Fill you frame with your subject and you will communicate that single, all important observation that captured your interest in the first place. Try shooting using the whole range of aperture sizes thinking about focal point (don't forget rule of thirds)
Remember - Small f-number = small area of focus, big f-number = big area of focus
Your challenge today will be to practice getting as close as you can to your subject
while maintaining focus - you will have to take many shots and try out different shutter
speeds and aperture sizes to get the desired result. Manually focus to create
desired focal point and don't forget the interrelationship between ISO, aperture size
and shutter speed.
6. Leading Lines - give your composition structure and easily draw the viewer in along the path you have chosen to key elements within your image. Your challenge today is to shoot images with elements that lead you into the image. Fences, railings, shorelines, walkways etc. Work one subject from a variety of different camera angles.
"Good photographers are contortionists. They're the ones hunching, squatting and bending over backwards. They're the ones constantly down on the ground and climbing on benches. Good photographers perform all manner of photography yoga to get the shot." p.110
Reference
“Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll, pages 10-11.
Make sure to be back 15 mins before the end of class to upload and choose the images that you are most proud of to show your class mates.
7. Foreground Interest - offers the viewer a stepping stone into your image and heightens its depth. Think, what is in front of my subject? Is it interesting (colour, texture, reflection etc.)? The use of a large depth of field will be important so make sure you are shooting in aperture priority and you are controlling the area of focus in your composition. Do a little online visual research for ideas before heading out and shooting.
Reference
“Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll, pages 16-17.
Make sure to be back 15 mins before the end of class to upload and choose the images that you are most proud of to show your class mates.
8. Simplicity - Background simplicity does not mean boring! Your can either choose a simple background blur your background using a shallow depth of field. Visual Weight within your composition will be of importance. See page 26, 27 of “Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll.
Alastair Thompson
9. Deconstructed landscapes
Try a new way to explore a landscape by creating a composite of multiple fragments of it that you've taken during a short walk. Go on a 20-minute stroll. Shoot anything that catches your eye on your journey in Aperture Priority mode - maxing out your depth of field. Stick with either landscape or portrait orientation for each shot. When you come back, create a grid in Photoshop, assemble your selection of pictures in layers and manipulate each layer to create a grid pattern. Think about foreground, middle ground and background.
10. Fortunate Unfortunate mergers
The focus of this challenge is to use forced perspective to play tricks on a viewer's perception of the relationship between differently sized objects in a photo. There are lots of ways to approach this challenge, start with a recognizable subject and get them to pretend that they are interacting with a much larger or smaller object in the background. Experiment, be creative - there are many ways to explore this subject. Make sure to choose a small aperture (high f-stop) to provide a large depth of field that will enhance the effect.
11. Light and Shadows
Photographic images are recorded by using light. Photography literally means “drawing with light”. Today's challenge is to make use of light to capture as many different shadows that you can.
Compositional Considerations
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Direction – Where is the light coming from in relationship to your subject? Front, side, back, above, below?
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Pattern and Repetition
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Leading Lines
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Intensity – How bright are the light sources in relationship to your subject?
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Contrast – Are the reflections and shadows bold and strong or are they soft and subtle?
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Hardness – Do the shadows have soft or hard edges?
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Subject - Are you going to include the subject or just the shadow created?
Try shooting in both colour and monochrome.
12. Refections
The wonderful thing about working with capturing reflections is that they can completely alter the image from something fairly straightforward to something abstract and layered with meaning and narrative.
Reflections can be made by anything that is smooth and glasslike: water, glass, windows, puddles, plastic, etc. Look for unlikely sources and different camera angles – get creative. Wander around look for things that reflect.
But – remember to still keep in mind all the things that make a good photo like........
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Composition
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Light and exposure
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Use of Depth of Field
13. Water
The idea behind this challenge is to capture the "splash". Timing the shutter speed is everything. Make sure your shutter speed is fast enough to stop motion and set your camera on continuous shooting mode. Due to the potential for mess this is an outside activity. Remember composition and exposure control.
- background simplicity.
14. Black and White - high contrast - low contrast
How does light affect Black and White photography?
This challenge calls for you to investigate images shot in black and white and how the subtle shades of greys, blacks and whites can be captured. Shoot in monochrome. Look for tonal contrast not colour contrast in your compositions. Shoot in aperture priority and make active decisions about depth of field and composition. Look for textures, shadows, leading lines etc. that will enhance your images.
15.Pattern - Repetition
Filling your frame with a repetitive pattern can give the impression of size and large numbers. The key to this is to attempt to zoom in close enough to the pattern that it fills the frame and makes the repetition seem as though it’s bursting out (even if the repetition stops just outside of your framing).
16.Pattern - Emphasis
The other common use of repetition in photography is to capture the interruption of the flow of a pattern. For example you might photograph hundreds of red M&Ms with one blue one.
Sometimes you’ll find these broken patterns naturally appearing around you and on other occasions you might need to manipulate the situation a little and interrupt a pattern yourself.
Broken repetition might include adding a contrasting object (colour, shape, texture) or removing one of the repeating objects.
Pay particular attention to where in your frame to place the break in the pattern. It might be that the rule of thirds comes in to play here.
17. Scribble Effect
Watch the following tutorial and use this leaning to manipulate one or more of your photographs.
18. Faces in Places
What is due? 10 photos.
Objective: This exercise is to help you see the world a little differently and to also help you to pay attention to details around you.
You need to photograph 10 different faces in places. These need to be naturally occurring in architecture, objects, clothing, or nature. Look at big things or look at really small things. Look at things sideways or upside down to try and find awesome faces.
Edward Burtynsky - Shipyards Series - Inspiration for this challenge.
19. Selective Color
Objective: Learn how layer masks work with adjustment layers.
Part One;
You need to take multiple photos of different subjects with colourful features that could be used as a focal point. The colour detail/s need to be a solid shapes (trees would be very difficult!).
Part Two; - This is often called "selective colouring."
Photoshop Instructions:
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Open the photo in Photoshop.
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Add the Channel mixer adjustment layer - monochrome and adjust channels and contrast if needed.
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With the brush tool, paint black on the layer mask to "cut" a hole in the black and white adjustment layer, which will show the colour of the background layer underneath. If you make a mistake, switch to paint with white to "fill in" the hole.
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Use the appropriate size brush and hardness to do a very good job painting around the edge of the colourful object. Selections could also be used to help with edges.
20. Diptych - What's in Your Bag
Picture Requirements
Bag items
- Bag items arranged nicely on a purposely chosen background.
- You will be cropping your image to 10.5 by 4 inches so keep this in mind when arranging your objects and framing your photograph.
Portrait
- Chose an interesting background that relates/complements the background chosen for your bag items.
- Use a shallow depth of field to blur the background.
- Make sure to leave lots of empty space on both sides of your person because you will be cropping your image to 10.5 by 4 inches.
- For both images pay attention to the direction of light.
Photoshop Steps;
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Open both pictures in Photoshop
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Select the crop tool and then in the options bar change it from Ratio to W x H x Resolution and set the size to 10.5 in by 4 in and 300 px/in.
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Crop both photos.
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Create a new Photoshop document (File > New) that is 10.5 inches wide by 8 inches tall with a resolution of 300 dpi
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Move the two photos into the new document. The photo of the bag's contents on the bottom and the portrait at the top.
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Adjust levels, colour or exposure of specific layers by clipping Adjustment Layers to them.
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Save as a JPG.
21. Photoshop Silhouette
Create an interesting image by combining two photos. Use any method you've learned in Photoshop to create a silhouette of an object or person that shows the second photo. To make it interesting, the silhouette should be an interesting shape and the photo you insert should use juxtaposition. Juxtaposition is when two things are placed close together with contrasting effect. Think of putting opposites next to each other.
Use this method to create a photo essay. WHAT IS A PHOTO ESSAY?
A photo–essay is a set or series of photographs that are made to tell a story or document an event or experience. Photo essays are most successful when the photographer cares about the subject and can elicit emotion in the viewer.
22. Nothingness
Objective: Learn about pre-production work in planning a creative photo shoot, taking the planned photos, and editing them. Also, learn how to use layer masks in Photoshop.
What is due? 1 photo, which is made up of at least two photos (subject and then background).
Set up your camera on a tripod, pose your subject with an environment that will aid in your vision of Nothingness, and focus your camera on the subject. After you focus on the subject, switch the lens to manual focus. You'll take one photo of the subject, then have the subject step out of the shot, and photograph the background without changing any camera settings, ESPECIALLY the focus.
What question is your photograph answering about nothingness?
23. Levitation
Objective: Learn about pre-production work in planning a creative photo shoot, taking the planned photos, and editing them. Also, learn how to use layer masks in Photoshop.
What is due? 1 levitation photo completed in class, which is made up of at least two photos (subject and then background).
A great set of instructions can be found here for taking the photos and editing them. We are doing the levitation photos that involves using a stool or box on which to rest the subject. Use a tripod and manual mode. After you focus on the subject, switch the lens to manual focus. You'll take one photo of the subject resting on the support (i.e. stool), then remove the support and subject and photograph the environment without changing any settings.
The video below shows how to do the Photoshop steps to combine the two images.
24. Reflected Landscapes
Objective: Learn Photoshop selection tools.
Get 4 photos that will show an interesting composition if you make a geometric selection and rotate the selection. Most examples on the internet are landscapes, but photos with buildings, people, cars, etc., can also be interesting.
Photoshop instructions:
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Open the photo in Photoshop.
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Create a selection with either the rectangular or elliptical marquee selection tool. Hold shift to make a perfect square or circle when you create the selection. If you also hold Option on the keyboard, the center of the selection's shape will be where you click and expand out on all sides.
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Press command j to copy the selected pixels on to a new layer.
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With the new layer selected, press command t to rotate the layer. Press enter to accept the transformation.
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Erase parts if you want it to blend in.
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Repeat as desired!
Advanced options:
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Create more advanced geometric shapes by using the Polygonal Lasso Tool.
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Add a slight drop shadow to layer with the shape on it by clicking the FX button on the bottom of the layer panel.
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Erase parts of the new layer to have it blend in.
A more advanced tutorial can be found here.
Another more advanced tutorial can be found here.
