1. Rule of Thirds – head out with the challenge of shooting with the rule of thirds as your compositional goal. Try simple backgrounds, busy backgrounds, shallow and deep depth of field, getting close to your subject etc…. Reference “Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll Leading Lines, pg 22
2. Landscape Vs. Portrait Orientation - Horizontal pictures (landscape) encourage our eyes to move from side to side and vertical pictures (portrait) make them move up and down. When considering which to use think about which would best frame your subject. Are the dominate lines for horizontal or vertical? Which would lead itself to the most dramatic effect? Make sure to consider everything within the frame. Your goal today is to find a variety of subjects and shoot each using both the landscape and portrait orientation. When you come back and upload to can evaluate which orientation best works with the subjects. Reference “Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll, pages 12-13.
3. Framing - draws the attention of the viewer to a particular part of the composition. Look for doorways, windows, any shape generally in the foreground of your composition that you can line up your focal point within. Your challenge today is to go on a scavenger hunt looking for "see throughs"; objects, shapes that you can shoot through that will lead the eye into the picture. Depth of field will be important, in most cases you will want to have as much of the image in focus as possible.
Reference “Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll, pages 14-15.
4. Leading Lines - Give your composition structure and easily draw the viewer in along the path you have chosen to key elements within your image. Your challenge today is to shoot images with elements that lead you into the image. Fences, railings, shorelines, walkways etc. Work one subject from a variety of different camera angles.
"Good photographers are contortionists. They're the ones hunching, squatting and bending over backwards. They're the ones constantly down on the ground and climbing on benches. Good photographers perform all manner of photography yoga to get the shot." p.110 Reference “Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll, pages 10-11.
5. Foreground Interest - Offers the viewer a stepping stone into your image and heightens its depth. Think, what is in front of my subject? Is it interesting (colour, texture, reflection etc.)? The use of a large depth of field will be important so make sure you are shooting in aperture priority and you are controlling the area of focus in your composition. Do a little online visual research for ideas before heading out and shooting. Reference “Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll, pages 16-17.
6. Simplicity - Background simplicity does not mean boring! Your can either choose a simple background blur your background using a shallow depth of field. Visual Weight within your composition will be of importance.
See page 26, 27 of “Read this if you want to take great photographs” by Henry Carroll.
7. Deconstructed landscapes Try a new way to explore a landscape by creating a composite of multiple fragments of it that you've taken during a short walk. Go on a 20-minute stroll. Shoot anything that catches your eye on your journey in Aperture Priority mode - maxing out your depth of field. Stick with either landscape or portrait orientation for each shot. When you come back, create a grid in Photoshop, assemble your selection of pictures in layers and manipulate each layer to create a grid pattern. Think about foreground, middle ground and background.
8. Fortunate Unfortunate mergers The focus of this challenge is to use forced perspective to play tricks on a viewer's perception of the relationship between differently sized objects in a photo. There are lots of ways to approach this challenge, start with a recognizable subject and get them to pretend that they are interacting with a much larger or smaller object in the background. Experiment, be creative - there are many ways to explore this subject. Make sure to choose a small aperture (high f-stop) to provide a large depth of field that will enhance the effect.
9. Light and Shadows Photographic images are recorded by using light. Photography literally means “drawing with light”. Today's challenge is to make use of light to capture as many different shadows that you can. Compositional Considerations
Direction – Where is the light coming from in relationship to your subject? Front, side, back, above, below?
Pattern and Repetition
Leading Lines
Intensity – How bright are the light sources in relationship to your subject?
Contrast – Are the reflections and shadows bold and strong or are they soft and subtle?
Hardness – Do the shadows have soft or hard edges?
Subject - Are you going to include the subject or just the shadow created?
Try shooting in both colour and monochrome.
10. Refections The wonderful thing about working with capturing reflections is that they can completely alter the image from something fairly straightforward to something abstract and layered with meaning and narrative. Reflections can be made by anything that is smooth and glasslike: water, glass, windows, puddles, plastic, etc. Look for unlikely sources and different camera angles – get creative. Wander around look for things that reflect.
But – remember to still keep in mind all the things that make a good photo like........
Composition
Light and exposure
Use of Depth of Field
11. Pattern - Repetition Filling your frame with a repetitive pattern can give the impression of size and large numbers. The key to this is to attempt to zoom in close enough to the pattern that it fills the frame and makes the repetition seem as though it’s bursting out (even if the repetition stops just outside of your framing).
12. Pattern - Emphasis The other common use of repetition in photography is to capture the interruption of the flow of a pattern. For example you might photograph hundreds of red M&Ms with one blue one. Sometimes you’ll find these broken patterns naturally appearing around you and on other occasions you might need to manipulate the situation a little and interrupt a pattern yourself. Broken repetition might include adding a contrasting object (colour, shape, texture) or removing one of the repeating objects. Pay particular attention to where in your frame to place the break in the pattern. It might be that the rule of thirds comes in to play here.