Composition Shots

A Picture Says A Thousand Words:

Pictures are often used to depict emotion and relay a message to an audience. In this exercise, I used different composition techniques to bring attention to the pictures, and make them seem like they have more importance than just what is to eye. Whether it be something that we don’t usually see or something we see everyday, there are plenty aspects to photography that bring meaning to a photo.

Symmetry: This photo shows symmetry with a majority of the focal points have something that is the same, but on the opposite of the photo. Although not exactly everything is symmetrical, like the building, the main aspects of the photos show symmetry. The chairs, the lines on the ground, and the fountain all show symmetry in a great way. I knew that this fountain would be one of the best photos to take to show symmetry. 

Lines: At first glance, it seems like the lamp post is the focus of the picture. That is because it actually is. However, the lines provided by the railings help to draw the viewer's attention towards the pole. The use of lines directs the audience's focus to the main point of interest, so that is what I attempted to do with the railing and the lamp post. 

Angles: I took this photo because I felt that it shows angles of the stop sign in a much different way than what we are used to. Typically, no body sees a stop sign from this angle, so I knew that taking this picture would emphasize the fact that angles could affect how someone sees a picture. It is also interesting to see how taking the photo from this angle created a reflection of the street sign within the stop sign. 

Negative Space: I think this is an interesting shot because although the large section of grass emphasizes the negative space shown within the photo, the contrasting colors within the photo really make it cool to look at. Due to the fact that the fire hydrant is purple, the viewers eyes are drawn right to it, even though there is negative space within the photo that denies the hydrant from being in the center. 

Cropping: This last photo was also my favorite photo that I took. I purposefully cropped half of the statue out of the photo in order to include the name plate that reads "George Washington". It brought attention to the statue while also showing the viewers who they are looking at. I felt that this photo was cropped in order to show a nice background, who the statue is, while still giving a good view of the statue itself. 

This activity gave me a better understanding of how certain photos are able to portray certain emotions, just based off of the composition alone. I also enjoyed how it allowed me to be creative and think of ways to incorporate things such as cropping and symmetry into a photo of things that I walk past every day. Focusing on the composition of a shot rather than what the shot is can be so helpful to making the photo look so much better. I took a few different shots of a few different things, but I wanted to make sure that they each not only had a good idea behind them, but also proper composition.