For the course, I've moved onto Part Two: Elements Of Design and have been working slowly through the unit completing the projects as I go. This log is an update of where I have got to so far.
The first project was around Points and positioning a point. I took three photographs of a derelict building on the South Downs and not too far from our home. The first picture was taken with the building in the top right corner - this felt the most natural place to include the point as the foreground of grass and field seemed to lead up to the building. I also wanted to try the building in the centre of the frame - partly because everything says 'don't!' and I wanted to see what it would look like. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't that particularly interesting! My third image was taken with the building intersecting on the bottom and central third on the left hand side using the 'rule of thirds'. This feels very unsatisfactory and almost uninteresting especially when I compare it back with the first.
As always, my photographs can be viewed on my flikr page.
The second exercise was around the relationship between points. I've had some difficulty in trying to identify 'two normally occurring situations' and rather than hold up the rest of my unit, I have continued on. I dully understand the principle which I hope is demonstrated in the multiple point exercise but, not being one to give up, will continue to look for a decent example over the coming weeks as I progress through the unit.
However, I have taken the third photograph in the exercise which was of a pair of eyes.
The third exercise was multiple points - a walk through a field with a horse chestnut tree at one edge gave me the idea of using conkers and their shells for this exercise. I had some difficulty in selecting a suitable background to start with and aborted two or three attempts as it either looked too busy or was unnatural. My final selection was using dried leaves that were falling in our garden and setting up the still life on the ground underneath the tree where the leaves were falling. I placed the seed shells around to add some interest and then proceeded to place each conker in a row with two conkers off-set to add additional shapes and lines to the final composition. I was very happy with the result which, when I added a series of lines that related the objects, highlighted a series of triangles. The final picture complete with drawn on lines is below:
The next exercise progressed into horizontal and vertical lines - this is one of the reasons why the unit has taken longer as I wanted to identify potential images from a variety of sources including from the Cotswolds where I was staying a few weeks ago. I found vertical lines easier to identify and photograph although there was no shortage of examples of horizontal lines. My vertical lines included a large mural beneath a bridge in London, a series of trees on the Downs, some panelling and metal bars making up a fence. I also had other examples including the way in which a field had been ploughed leaving vertical lines in the soil and a path across the Downs (although I was able to re-use the ploughed field again a little later as part of the diagonal exercise (see below).
For the horizontal lines, I found these more evident in nature and/or where man was working with nature. For example, hedging was an obvious example and I used this across a field. I also noticed lines created by the way that soil had been moved by weather and erosion down the side of a hill. Another example was the way that sheep stood in a particular field (although I confess, on reflection, this is less obvious for this exercise!).
The next exercise was to look at diagonals - again I found this more difficult to identify diagonal lines but, as mentioned before, was able to use a photograph of a ploughed field. Perspective also creates diagonals and the line of a metal fence on the Downs was something that I had spotted as a potential diagonal and I returned to photograph this. My third diagonal photograph was made up of the lines of metal supporting for Hungerford Bridge over the Thames in London which has a number of steel struts.
The curves exercise was simpler and actually more fun to do - as the text of the course suggests, there is a sense of movement in a curve and I found this especially in the photographs of the winding road that I took as well as the top of metal fencing. The eye seems to naturally follow the fencing around from the front of the photograph to the back. Whilst we all know that the London Eye does go round - albeit slowly - the photograph of this even though it looks stationery still presents a sense of movement. The final photograph in this set was of rows of houses as they sweep round and again give a sense of movement if not at least for the observer who follows the houses around.
As with previous work on the course so far, I am finding these exercises really useful in the way that I observe and look at the world around me, whether through the viewer of the camera or just as I go about each day.
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