Going for Gold

Here's a cool little image of a few medals of mine which I arranged into a composition. The three medals are the focus, given the white background. I arranged them in this manner to create balance (instead of a random placement) in a diagonal line that also creates a vanishing point. The gold, silver, and bronze colors as well as the blue, red, and white create nice contrasts as well as establish a sense of hierarchy of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.
I added the black and white image to show that the color image holds the most clear meaning and is thus a stronger composition than the B&W. This image would read more like gold was in the center, the silver at far right, and bronze in the foreground on the left... not the intended imagery.

A Japanese Still-life Landscape

In this first image, I attempted to create a composition that reflected the Japanese traditional style of scroll art works. The image is well balanced with white and light brown both at the top and bottom. While the biggest object is the giant rock, there's various points of interest due to color, line, and placement. For example, the tree (which I made from wire) negates what would have been a solely vertical image as well as accentuate and suggest landscape with its flowing 'motion.'


In these next two images I wanted to show the differentiantion of color vs greys and see if one can be more successful than the other. Both are nice in their own way, but what I found interesting was the 'emotion' each conveys. The color image feels lively and peaceful. The black & white feels more dramatic due to the contrasts in shadows, especially in the face of the figure on the left who appears sterner here than in the color image. I, personally, like the B&W image more than the color.

Lunar Eclipse

So I figure this is going to be a subject some people are likely to post, so I decided to try my hand at it myself. First of all, I wish I had a better lense and megapixel capacity but I make due with what I have. In order to capture this image with enough detail, I propped my camera on top of a table in my backyard and I then extended the exposure time (by reducing shutter speed)... actually, I took pictures under different ISOs and settings so I'm not totally sure which combination led to this one. All I know is that I clicked to take the picture. This was one of two or three successful images because, needless to say, there were many failures.

The first picture is the original and is quite simple in that the subject is at the very center. If you click on the smaller image to get a larger view you can make out the earth's shadow better, see the two bright figures of the planet Saturn and the star Regulus in the constellation of Leo, as well as get a glimpse of a few stars.

The second image uses more of the rule of thirds, with the moon (the primary subject) being at the lower right hand side. I chose this composition because I felt that there were 3 important figures I wanted to show: the moon (in more detail), Saturn (one of the brighter spots) and Regulus (the other bright spot). The layout I chose allowed for me to show all three without excess, unnecessary material around them. While not a perfect shot, I like it because some of the craters are visible on the shadowed side of the moon as well as having captured other stars that fill in what would've been a vast black space. By far, my best celestial photograph EVER!

The Pryz #2

Here's a different angle of the pryz, this time working more with framing as well as light. The main subject remains the Pryz becuase of the abundance of light, which is then framed on three sides by the night sky, the evergreen tree, and the grass in the foreground.
The color picture wasn't too great considering we're in winter and the color of the grass is faded to an off-green hue and the variety of colors found within the pryz were too distracting, so I decided to play with the grayscales. I overlayed different shades of the same image using layer masking to come to this composite, and I like the resulting composition.

The Pryz

The example pulled from my CF card in class was poor, in my opinion. This is one picture from our little outing that I feel works a lot better .I played with it in photoshop as a RAW image dealing with with Black & White and came to this.

I feel like this is a strong composition because of the persepective shown, the lines that are part of the architecture, and the use of light. It captures the essential characteristics of the Pryz: its 'flowing' nature, its openness and thus interplay with light, and the lines which its structure creates.

Charge!

My subject this time is an old, tiny action figure of what appears to be a Japanese soldier judging from the uniform and cap. The first one I like because it shows the figure entering from the left and gives room for its movement through to the right.
The second is a lot alike to the first, but with the flash. To me, it gives it a more warlike appearance as if a bomb just went off nearby and the scene was suddenly flooded with light.

The third is a further play with light in the same manner but zoomed away. I like the interplay between the extreme light and the shadow, as well as the partial view of the subject due to the extreme light. It follows the same idea of entering from the left and allowing room of movement through to the right. I like the angle of the shot too, almost film like... which really enhances the idea of a wartime picture in which a soldier is charging with a massive bomb having gone off nearby.

Monsterflick

As ridiculous as this image may appear content-wise, I think it's fitting as an example of splitting the image into thirds (horizontally in this one). I've been attempting to get down field-of-depth, to no avail, hence why only the foreground subjects are visible. But it still works, becaase in this image the most important matter would be the soldiers running off to attack this huge dinosaur creature. The blurred image of the dinosaur isn't detailed, but can still be made out so it works... plus, the red spots were actually hearts and I didn't think that was becoming of a monsterous dinosaur; it'd make the people look bad for attacking a creature with heart patterning.

Guinea Pigs

Same idea as the last post, just different subject matter from a local pet store in my neighborhood. I thought it was a neat composition. You get a frenzy of color in the normal picture, and an array of grays in the latter two. I think that if the two grayed pictures were to be combined on photoshop using layer Masking, it'd make for a better picture.

Mr Crabs

So while out there at the beach, I went for one of my long walks looking for conch shells and came across this little guy. I managed to snap a good color picture, actually I think it's a great picture in of itself. I decided I would play around with the B.W. on Photoshop since the color picture was good to begin with. So the second image is the simple Grayscale, and the third is made with the Shadow/Highlight and Gradient Map features. I thought it'd be fun to have three ways of seeing one thing. Not to mention a change in the point of view.

Art's Gotten Boring, I Wanna Go Outside!

I took a color picture and grayscaled it on photoshop, then played around with copies and the RGB scales. Using the Layer Mask, I managed to combine the grayscale and the blue RGB image to create this eerie composition... I was just messing around with photoshop and thought it'd be cool to post this.

Non-Blur Shutter Speed 4

As much as the colors come out to be some-what uninteresting, I think this picture is great A) compositionally and B) in capturing motion. I spotted this dog out on the Outer Banks here in MD, and I thought it'd be cool to capture a dog out on the beach. Luckily, the shot came out without the motion blur and yet you can still make out the dog's walking... pretty good for a non SLR, huh?

Non-Blur Shutter Speed 3

More shutter speed exploration, this time I was aiming to cancel out the action blur and truly capture motion. Still using a point-and-shoot non SLR, this time using the sport action function on the camera.
I think the capture of the running dog and of my brother walking came out relatively well. I wish I could have gotten the ball in the shot as well, that would have been 3 moving objects travelling at different speeds caught in one shot... guess I'll settle for 2.

Second Shutter Speed

This is my second photograph dealing with shutter speed and trying to capture motion. I was still trying exploring space and depth at the Renwick Gallery, but I was also trying to capture someone in motion... this time, the motion came out as a blur again. I'm not using an SLR camera, just a regular point-and-shoot so the quality and actual manipulation of shutter speed isn't as available as on an SLR.

First Shutter Speed

This is my first photograph dealing with shutter speed and trying to capture motion. While exploring space and depth, I was also trying to capture someone in motion... this time, the motion came out as a blur.