Moon Goddess Dance, Chinatown, San Francisco, California

Just a quick note this time. I spoke before a little bit about using the longest lengths of your frame to contain your picture. This is an example of composing your shot to use that long diagonal length. Some people turn their camera diagonally to introduce diagonal lines for more drama. While that is true and works (i.e. a man standing straight will look more dramatic, and exciting if you turn the camera slightly to make him diagonal), it isn't something that should be done a lot in the same photo sequence. You end up making the viewer dizzy as they constantly have to turn their head to comprehend the picture.

In this photo, the body of the dancer is just slightly off the vertical. It still looks normal and adds a bit of stability to the picture. That's good cause everything else is slanted. Thankfully, the ribbons that she is twirling are large, bright, colorful, and takes your eyes away from the rest. I could have zoomed out and used the horizontal orientation of the frame to contain the entire photo, but that would have introduced lots of negative space. You wouldn't be able to see the detail in the dancer's costume. And much of the real estate would have been wasted space. Turning the frame diagonal let me really zoom in there and still be able to get the entirety of the ribbon.

Keep your photos clean and tight, that's my motto.

The Embarcadero, San Francisco, California

Contrast in photography is not just about differences in color or light vs dark. The definition of contrast is the dissimilarity or difference between things. To balance a photo, you should have opposing contrasts in your frame. It makes the viewer uncomfortable if your photo is unbalanced. Sometimes they won't be able to tell what is out of place, but believe me they can feel it. Of course, you might be going for that particular affect, but in this post let's just examine the photo above and try to balance it out.

The first and obvious contrast to see are the differences in height of the two men. One really tall and the other really short. Now, it might not have been enough of a contrast if I were to have cut the lower bodies and the ground around them out. Being able to see the ground and the lower portion of the ground next to them gives perspective as to how tall they really are. Then you can see that the man on the right is empirically short and the man on the left is empirically tall. Another contrast to detect is the colorful shirts that they are wearing vs the monotone of the building on the other half of the frame. You could say another contrast would be the two men and their rounder, curved shape vs the squares and rectangles of the building.

That's the thing about contrasts. They make photos interesting because of their content. Here is a list that I started with to practice on:

• Highlights vs Shadows
  
• Tall vs Short
  
• Thick vs Thin
  
• Many vs One (or None)
• Hot vs Cold
• Old vs New
• Circular vs Square

There are obviously very, very many comparisons that you can make. Once you start training your eye to see them and force those comparisons, you start to see more stories evolve in your photos.

Rule of Thirds

It occurred to me recently that I never talked about one of the most basic compositional rules of thumb. The Rule of Thirds is a guideline in composition to help with making your photos more interesting. While the concept is simple, the possibilities are great. If you imagine that your frame has a tic-tac-toe board overlaid on top of it, the lines are where you should be placing your subjects. In other words, your frame is split into 9 equal sections and important compositional elements are placed on these lines or points where the lines intersect. The points themselves are considered power points, meaning that they carry more weight than other parts of the photo.

The facing of your subject will also add to the story you are trying to tell. For instance, if you place a man running on the left third of the frame and he is facing left, then it gives the feeling that he is running away from something. If he is facing right, he is running to something. You can then place other elements on the other side of the frame to support this feeling. You are leading the viewer's eyes either to or from the other side of the frame. Similarly, a bench can be on the left side of the frame and facing to the right to be seen as inviting. If the bench was facing left, it would look more abandoned. You could also give the feeling of something heading away from you (subject back to you and is at the top third of the frame) to the feeling of something heading to you. There are many possibilities from just using the Rule of Thirds and facing.

In the photo above, I wanted to give the sense that the subject was in deep thought. The facing towards the long side of the frame gave me the feeling of being receptive of thoughts or waiting for enlightenment. The people in the background suggested she was in a cafe of sorts. But the noise did not bother her, as per her expression. But if they were actually behind her, the context of the picture changes. It would suggest that the noise did bother her and that she put her back to them so that she can think. It's still the exact same scene, just photographed differently.