Exercise 1: Positioning a point

The point of focus being the dog, cropping the picture to position him in the lower right part of the frame, with the rule of thirds in mind gives some sense of speed. As most people scan a picture from left to right it increases the notion of movement and speed

Placing the single point of focus at the bottom right delays the sight of the mahjong cube, as above the eye looks quickly at the top then goes down to the center of focus.

Having the cube on the opposite side gives an uneasy feeling of instability, as though the cube was about to fall.

The decision of positioning a single point varies from subject to subject. Regardless of the subject, the placement of the single point can change the picture dramatically. 

Assignment 1: Contrast

For this assignment I have chosen photographs that sometimes show the contrast subject individually and other times by comparing pairs. I'll describe briefly for each image why I chose it for its contrast meaning.

Light/Dark

light

This is a picture I have taken while in Budapest. Many parts of this city are not well lit at night, apart from the touristic or shopping area. Light is what makes this landscape come alive. The light on the Buda castle, light trails by cars on the road, light on the bridge at the back. This was shot handheld (with support from a fence) with an 8 second exposure to make this picture come alive.

Dark


This was shot from a hill in Lausanne late at night. Even with a 30 seconds exposure the landscape is very dark. However, it is still possible to view the landscape through its darkness. Comapred to the image above in budapest this one comes out as dark. 

High/Low

High


The mountains being the highest point human beings can imagine reaching with no flying objects, being above the clouds, having shot this from a plane this really does the trick at meaning High.

Low


On a walk in the forrest I was amazed how high were the trees surrounding me and how small I felt looking at the sky. I tried to increase the effect by using a wide angle lens at a focal lenght of 10mm.

Moving/Still

Moving


This was taken at the triathlon event in Lausanne. Using the panning technique at 1/25 second made the background blurr while keeping most part of the upper body of the racer sharp. 

Still


While driving to the country side I found this very original setting of a human like doll posing under a giant mushroom. At first glance it wasn't obvious whether it was human or not. My aim in this picture was not to make it obvious right away why it is linked to the subject "still". I think this pictures works well in keeping a part of mystery. I have cloned out a few objects in this picture that were not adding anything to the scene. the original can be seen in the vertical/horizontal exercise.

Diagonal/Rounded

These two pictures were taken in Valencia, Spain, at the city of Arts and Sciences. These buildings were design by Valencian  architect Santiago Calatrava. The design of the city is amazing, all the buildings are unusual to the eye and undeniably attractive. It uses the reflection of the sun as part of it design and at night, the reflection in the pool surrounding the city makes the whole set look like a giant fish.

Diagonal

When I saw this it screamed diagonal to me. I decided to keep the sun flare in this picture as the sun is to me a major player in modifying how  the whole building looks like.

Rounded

The round shape of this building is so unusual that rounded is what first comes to mind.






Smooth/Rough

Smooth


I chose this picture for its smooth appeal. When taking the picture I used an ND400 Hoya filter of 9 stops which acts like sunglasses for taking long exposures. A 30 seconds exposure smoothed out the lake of the Vallée de Joux and gives a very peaceful effect to the image. The movement of the clouds in the sky were smoothed out through the same process.

Rough


Although it doesn't work quite well as a pair with the "smooth" image I think it does when thinking of rough. Everything is rough in a crocodile, his skin, his look, its colours, the way it moves, attacks and eats. This was shot at the zoo of Servion, outside of Lausanne.

Heavy/Light

Heavy


Heavy is what came to mind when I saw this kid struggling to lift his sail. It reminded me of my first attempt at windsurfing and it is indeed quite heavy when you haven't yet mastered the technique.

Light


I thought of light when I first caught sight of something blue flying around bushes. When I got closer I saw this beautiful tiny insect, which looks like a dragonfly, hanging on a leave. I had to zoom in at a focal length of 190 mm and used manual focus as my lens could not focus properly on such a small subject. The picture was then cropped to get a closer look.

Thin/Thick

Thin


Although I'm not a smart phone addict (it will probably take me another 10 years before getting one) it is undeniably thin. How much can be stored in such a small container amazes me. 

thick

I thought this would make a nice pair with the previous picture. An oversized match boxed has been used to emphasize the thickness of it.




Continuous/Intermittent

Continous


For this shot I thought this continuous row of windows on a building built in the 60's would cover this theme well. I deliberately cropped it in a non symmetric or linear way. I think this way it gives less information on how big the building is and whether or not it is a building.

Intermittent


This could have been continuous but the presence of the pigeons makes it intermittent to me. I have also left the top of the frame to make it look less continous.

White/Black

I have decided a picture of my electronic piano would be perfect to have a pair of contrast in one. We always associate a piano or a keyboard with white and black keys. I ahve used a wide angle to give it a fresh look and composed it with a diagonal direction across the frame from the bottom left to the top right.

Exercise: Focal Length and angle of view

Color Space and Profiles.

I have noticed a big difference on the images I have uploaded to the web and the ones I view on photoshop. Furthermore, the pictures are not displayed the same when using Firefox or Internet explorer. I believe there would be differences with other browsers too.
Of course, if on top of that the screen you're using hasn't been calibrated then it will add up to the changes.

After investigating why this happens I found out it is mostly due to the color profile used. When saving to the web or exporting from photoshop a color profile is embedded. The most widely spread on the internet is sRGB.
 Many online printing services also use sRGB color space. What I have been using sofar is Adobe RGB (aRGB).

After analysing prints I have ordered from images converted to the sRGB and aRGB color space, comparing them with my calibrated screen, I have decided to use sRGB color space from now on.

Using a wider gammut would only benefit my pictures if I upgraded my monitor, would buy a printer with the wider gammut color space and then view the prints offline on paper that takes advantage of this wider gammut.

At this point of the course the investment is not worth it and I simply can't afford it. 90 percent of people will view my pictures on the web with an uncalibrated monitor and a browser aimed at an sRGB color space. If one day I want to use a wider gammut such as Photo pro or Adobe RGB I can always go back to my original RAW file which contains all the information needed.

When I used to work in sound engineering one of the tricks we used to test the quality of a track was to listen to it on a very basic and cheap hi-fi stereo with limited frequency range. If it sounded acceptable then it would sure sound good on better equipment with a wider frequency range. Most of all, it would sound acceptable on most people's hi-fi systems.  I believe the same can be said with color space.

The bottom line is if a picture looks good with an sRGB color space it will look good on a wider color space. However, the same can be said for a bad picture, no matter what color space is used it will still look bad.