Feeling Photography - 3.0 Composition

So what do you think when someone says 'Composition'?
Do you think of the old masters paintings like the Mona Lisa, do you think of stories, writing types or something completely different?

As a photographer, I think of the 'rules'. There are so many rules, do this, don't do that, turn around three times with a spoon in your ear. For new photographers and artists, the rules can be a huge stumbling block to creativity, on the other hand they can be liberating, freeing the newbie from having the stress of failed pictures due to a poor composition.

There are roughly two main compositional rules.

1. The Rule of Thirds.
   
2. The Golden Spiral.

The rule of thirds is pretty much the easiest rule to grasp for the new photographer and we'll discuss this in the next post, the golden spiral rule it similar to the rule of thirds but is a little more esoteric and takes a lot longer to grasp fully.
There is one other rule, but it is for landscape photographers mainly. It is called the rule of fifths, we will touch on that later on in this particular series subsection.

So what exactly is composition?

Composition
Com`po*si"tion\, n. [F. composition, fr. L. compositio.]
1. The act or art of composing, or forming a whole or integral, by placing together and uniting different things, parts, or ingredients. In specific uses: (a) The invention or combination of the parts of any literary work or discourse, or of a work of art; as, the composition of a poem or a piece of music. "The constant habit of elaborate composition." --Macaulay. (b) (Fine Arts) The art or practice of so combining the different parts of a work of art as to produce a harmonious whole; also, a work of art considered as such. See 4, below. (c) The act of writing for practice in a language, as English, Latin, German, etc. (d) (Print.) The setting up of type and arranging it for printing.

- Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

So according to the source above (The art or practice of so combining the different parts of a work of art as to produce a harmonious whole) composition is the best way of making or enhancing your message, your point. (I'll cover the difference between a photograph and a snapshot later on. I want to keep this short.)

In painting & drawing it's all good. It's easy to move a building in a scene two meters to the left and get rid of the tree right in the way. Photography is waaay harder, unless you have a gazillion pounds, moving buildings trees or whatever is pretty impossible. What you can do is move yourself, although moving yourself can throw up new and interesting problems...

Sure you can take a series of photographs and then spend hours in Photoshop combing and layering but while I think for certain things, I'm a firm believer in getting it right in camera as much as possible.

Photographers work with what's there, it's a dance between your vision and the reality. The great photographers go it nailed, but you can bet they sucked at first, but you never get to see those pics.

So next time I'll chat about the rule of thirds. Take care for now!

Cookin' Oatcakes!

I love getting out into the woods, sleeping in a hammock under the stars, man you have never seen anything so beautiful as stars at midnight twinkling through the leaves above your head as you gently rock to sleep... sigh. The problem with Winter is that it makes your nose cold, other body parts getting cold, not a problem but can I fall asleep with a cold nose, not if my life depended on it. I don't sleep out during Winter and I miss it.

In March / April (I think) this year I went out with a few good friends to spend a weekend in the woods, one of them, Bodge, who hails from Staffordshire brought some really yummy pancakes things with him for breakfast, he called them oatcakes and proceeded to fill them with bacon, fried mushroom and cheese, wrapping them up like a tortilla and then baking them for a few min's on a skillet to crisp up the outside and melt the cheese!.
WOW you have never tasted anything so divine in your life. They were food of the gods.  Once I got home and went shopping, the oatcakes that were for sale were hard, gritty things that tasted little better than cardboard. All of us from the meet were pestering Bodge for a recipe but apparently the various recipes are particularly guarded and steeped in secrecy.  However a few months of almost consistent pestering he relented with a generic recipe!

I just had to make some, like I said the ones around here are NOT real oatcakes at all!

I've labeled the picture for your health. They are just like making pancakes.
Yes, I do light my Kitchen with a candle. The main light has been repaired over and over again and it keeps blowing the circuit. I use a candle now :)

 

MY OATCAKE RECIPE (Original thread on BCUK)

10oz Medium Coarse Oatmeal
6oz Plain Flour
2tsp Dried Yeast
1tp Sugar
½pt Full Fat (blue top) Milk
1pt Warm water

Mix all of the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl (sift the flour). Make a well in the center and add the milk and water to make a thin batter. If you need to add more water, making sure it is warm. Once the mixture is the consistency of thin cream cover the bowl with a damp tea towel and put it into the airing cupboard or a warm place for about an hour and a half.

Once the time is up, take the bowl out and mix it again. If it has thickened up, add more milk (not water, the water will cause the oatcake to stick while cooking. The fat in the milk helps prevent this) until the thin cream consistency has been re-achieved!

Make an oil pad from a dish of oil, kitchen towel and a pair of tongs. Get a frying pan or a skillet, make sure it is non-stick. Heat it on the cooker until it is nice and hot, swish the oil pad around a couple of times and add about a ¼ of a cup of batter mix, you will have to experiment with quantities, but you are looking for a oatcake that's about a millimeter thick with holes coming through it.

Cook it on one side until the crackling noise stops then flip it over, pancake style or by using a spatula.
Once you have it cooked, put on a cooling rack to cool, try not to over lap hot ones, they stick together >.<

 

Make as many as you can, fry some bacon and mushrooms, slice a thin bit of cheese wrap it up in an oatcake, tortilla style and then cook for a couple of min's on the frying pan or under the grill... Enjoy!

Feeling Photography :: Update

Thank you to everyone who emailed me, wondering why the series had stopped... I've been busy. Not much of a reason but the only one I have.

Due to my workload I'm going to re-start doing the series but instead of once a week, it will now be once a month(ish)

 

So bookmark this site and visit often, you can subscribe using the links to the left and the bookmark link below this post.

 

See you soon!

What Happened to Winter?

When I was a kid, I can remember being dragged to school on an old tin tray about this time of year. I absolutely loved it, sliding along, being only one of four kids in class, mucking about with your coat on indoors!

Now, all we seem to get is drizzle and if we are lucky a bit of slush that doesn't stick at all!

I miss winter.

Julian Clary at Ludlow Assembly Rooms

1pm, the phone rings, it's Hannah from the journal ringing to see if I can get down town for 3:15, Julian Clary is arriving for his stand up performance later on that evening.

"Sure" I say, "I should be finished by then."

Ring ring... it's Hannah again, "Julian has a puncture and is stuck between here and Leominster, give it an extra hour be at the AR (Assembly rooms) for four fifteen"

I leave at about four-ish to go and get a parking space in the castle car park (old kwicksave's). It's a Thursday night and a big star is coming to town, parking is gonna be tight.

Luckily I get a spot and then I realise I only have enough change for one hour of parking!

I get to the AR hoping to betsy that he hasn't turned up yet

He Hasn't. Neither as Hannah.

I'm early! In the rush to get there on time, I've overshot myself.

Hannah turns up, as do the Shropshire star reporter with James (photographer) and another reporter from the Hereford time/Advertiser.

We hang around, waiting for Julian to arrive, thanks to the RAC he's another 45 mins late :(
I'm panicking by this point, my parking ticket is about to run out, I have college in a half hour and poor Julian looks as if he needs a kip or some cake!

Myself and James worked out who was going to shoot where, but that went out of the window, Julian wanted to put some make-up on before the photographs and I was going to stand on the stairs and use the lobby carpet as a background, bounce the flash into a handy doorway and be back for breakfast! But ass all good plans, it was inherently flawed... I'd not counted on one simple thing... Time.

My bad.

We ended up shooting on stage, I used some flimsy material thingies as a background, shooting into the stage lights, which made them glow a bit and get some nice hair-light for Julian.

James took him down, into the seats and got a wicked shot with sparkly lights in the background, look for the Shropshire star, either the 14.11.08 or the 15.11.08 for his pic.

Julian was great, he put up with my lunatic mutterings and prayer's to the god (Bitmorelightplz!) of flashes.
I was shooting in a cave, the walls were red, and on three sides of me were black curtains and I had wisely (?!?) decided to shoot into the available light.

Did you know you can get fluffy black curtains to bounce light if you pump enough into it :)

It was such a rush job, I'm ashamed to say. Although the pics turned out rather well don't you think?

I know they're in black and white, but they looked better that way, more atmosphere and drama I think, if you want to see them in colour, you are just going to have to buy the South Shropshire Journal, out Fridays.

I did a bit of re-con before this shoot, I had a look through Julian's Site to see what kind of pics he has already had taken of him, they seemed to be very mid-key, or even high-key which is nice, but you know me, I'm not a fan of 'nice' let's go a bit goth baby!

Rock on!