This exercise required me to photograph a subject and fit that subject into the frame in various different ways. I decided to photograph a bowl of pasta on a table; I thought this would be compact enough to be easy to work around whilst also giving different shooting possibilities.
The exercise asked for me to take four photographs:
Shot One – photograph the entire subject as you normally would, without taking too much time to consider the composition.
Shot Two – taking more care, move in and around to make the subject fit the frame as tightly as possible.
Shot Three – close in so that none of the edges of the subject can be seen.
Shot Four – move right back until the subject occupies only a small part of the fame, a quarter or less, and do your best to make a composition that stresses the surroundings.
Once I have taken the images the exercise has asked me to print the images and, using a pair of cropping L’s, to find different crops within each image.
I think the intention of this exercise is to encourage us to work around our subject and to look for different images available. Working around the subject allows for a greater variety and potentially a greater range of images other than the standard. Also the exercise is to make me look at my images in post processing and to see if there are other images or crops within the original.
Shot One
50mm, f2.8, 1/200sec, ISO200
This is an overview of the bowl and food; I added the knife and fork for some context and to bring some detail into what could have been a very plain the background. I took very little time in composing and framing this image using only a basic rule of thirds composition. Bringing the point of focus to the bottom right thirds intersection and the cross of the knife and fork to the bottom left thirds intersection.
Shot Two
50mm, f2.8, 1/200sec, ISO200
This second image in the series is very similar to the first however with a slight change of perspective. The perspective change gives the feel of the diner’s viewpoint as though they were about to start eating. It also brings the knife and fork underneath the bowl slightly to compress both aspects of the image into a smaller area.
The brief asked for the second image to be much tighter than the first, so I cropped in camera as close to the edges of the bowl as possible without losing any of it. Due to the nature of the bowl being round however, there is space to the left and right of the frame. I feel that this negative space draws more attention to the contents of the bowl with the cutlery reinforcing the food theme.
Shot Three
105mm, f3.3, 1/160sec, ISO200
The brief for shot three was to close right in on the subject so that none of the edges could be seen. I cropped (zoomed) right into the centre of the bowl showing only the contents for this image. The textures and shapes are what really make this image for me, the rounded tubes of the pasta against the harsh straight lines of the bacon with the natural variation in the broccoli. Having such a small colour pallet also means that there are no distractions; but the vibrant green of the broccoli adds just enough interest to really bring the image up.
Shot Four
60mm, f5.6, 1/40sec, ISO200
Shot four asked for a much looser crop, allowing the main subject to take over only about a quarter of the overall image. I decided to move down and slightly round for this image to capture the bowl in its setting and having the cookery books and part of the chair in the background added to the food theme of the image. The books in the background definitely add to the overall composition, had they not have been there I think the bowl and cutlery would have look a little bit lost in a large open space. I also moved the knife and fork to the other side of the bowl to pull the viewer more into the image; had the cutlery have been in its original position I don’t think it would have made as much of an impact as it currently does.
Overall I definitely think that shots two, three and four are a very strong set of images when presented together. However shot one does nothing for the series, with its close similarities to shot two I think it could easily be taken out without losing any of the feel of the presentation. I think the series (minus shot one) could easily be seen in a cookery book to demonstrate a recipe, and having looked through my cook books at home have found it to have similarities to Lord David Loftus’s work in Jamie Oliver’s book ‘Save with Jamie’.
Cropping
The second part of the exercise was to produce prints of the images and then, using cropping L’s, create different crops from the current images. However due to my current lack of a printer, I am going to crop the images in Photoshop and post the new crops as individual images.
Shot One – A slightly tighter crop, removing the right and top edges of the bowl.
Shot Two – An extremely tight panoramic crop, removing all but the central strip of the image.
Shot Three – Another panoramic, cropping out everything but the central portion of the image.
Shot Four – Crop One – A tight crop on the bowl and cutlery, leaving some space around the edge.
Shot Four – Crop Two – A portrait crop, retaining some of the background but removing most of the right of the image.
Outcome
This exercise has shown me how to work around a subject to try and get the most from it but also that even after capture, there are different image possibilities images available.
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