FRAME DYNAMICS:



FRAME DYNAMICS:

The setting for the image is the picture frame.

How does the eye move around inside the frame of a photo?

One usual path is:  The eye goes to the middle. Then drifts up and left. Then back down and right. At some point in the visual process the eyes register the corners of the photo frame.

Why is this important?

Knowing how the eye moves can help you when deciding where to place the main subject of your image to get the most impact.

 

DIAGONAL LINES:

Diagonal lines interact strongly with the frame. Diagonal lines that touches the edge of the frame create strong, dynamic, visual tension.

 

FRAME SHAPE:

The shape of the viewfinder frame and LCD screen has a HUGE influence on the form the image takes.

The majority of low to middle end digital cameras have a “natural” 4:3 camera frame format, the width to height ratio. 

The classic ratio of a 3:2 frame is still found on digital SLR cameras, the type where you can change the lens.  This format is good for shots where people are standing or other vertical subjects.

 

Images are more often composed horizontally. Why?

1. The camera’s design makes it easier to hold  the camera

horizontally.

2. Humans have binocular vision, which means we see

horizontally.

3. The vertical format is often seen as too elongated

or stretched for portraits. 

POSITIONING SUBJECTS FOR VERTICAL SHOTS:

The eye doesn't naturally scan up and down when looking at a picture. This is one reason that photographers put subjects BELOW the center when composing a VERTICAL shot. 

Subjects that are good for vertical shots: standing humans, tall buildings, trees, many plants, bottles, drinking glasses, doorways, arches, to name a few.

SQUARE FORMAT:

A few cameras have square formats. Very few subjects look good when in a square format.

Why?

Most things are longer in one direction than another. The square format is not the best to capture such things.

The equal sides of the square draw our eye right away to the center of the picture. This tends to make images look too rigidly boxed in and static.

Sometimes you can position a subject to the far right or left of a square and leave space on the side of a square to avoid a static image.

PANORAMAS

You may have a newer digital camera that lets you see how to align multiple shots across a long horizontal area to create a giant panorama. Using image editing software you can then align all these horizontal shots, "stitching" them together to create one very long horizontal picture. 

A panorama is so long your eye is forced to consider only one part of the image at a time. This is exactly what our eye naturally does when we look at a real scene. This makes panorama photographs fun and refreshing to view. 

CROPPING

Cropping is an editing skill done after you take a photo. You basically are cutting out a portion of an image. 

It is best to get in the habit of composing your picture with the best possible design BEFORE taking the shot. Cropping can help correct SOME design flaws SOMETIMES — but not always. 

Cropping REDUCES the size of your original image. And since you will be cutting out a portion of your image when you crop and then enlarging the remaining part to 3x5, 4x5, 8x10 inches, etc., you need to have a HIGH RESOLUTION picture to work with when you crop. If not, when you crop and enlarge, the low resolution image will look very pixelated, with lots of grainy dots. 

FILLING THE FRAME

When composing an image, you have two choices:

1. Close right in so that the subject fills up the picture frame  (filling the frame)

OR

2. Pull back so that we can see something of the surroundings behind your subject.

How do you decide which to do?

Take a look at what you are taking a photo of...the information content. The larger the subject, the more detail of the subject that can be shown.

a. If your subject is interesting and unusual, maybe you want to show more of it.

b. If your subject is very familiar, you may not need to show us a lot of the subject. For example, if you are taking a picture of a rare animal, you may want to show us all of it, or as much as possible. A close-up of worn shoelaces in a pair of shoes is enough information for us to identify the subject and so you can fill the frame and still tell the story.

PLACEMENT

As soon as you allow free space around a subject, then deciding where to place your subject becomes an issue.

Logically, it may seem that placing your subject in the middle of the frame with equal space around it is the natural choice. And sometimes it is a good choice.

But, often times it is simply a boring choice. It has no dynamic tension.

Yet, when deciding to place a subject anywhere else but in the middle, you need to think WHY you are positioning your subject in a particular spot in the frame.

Generally, subjects that “face” in one direction also often fit more comfortably if they are offset, so that some of the direction they “see” is in the frame.

However, a lot depends on your intention. Do you want to startle a viewer with an unusual perspective? What is the purpose of your placement?

Freeman gives an example that if you are taking a picture of houses surrounded by ocean because it is unusual to see houses in the middle of the water, setting the houses below center and off to the left side helps your eye move around the frame more than if you had placed the houses dead center. See page 24.

And of course, leaving water around the houses in the background, makes more sense than filling the frame with houses since you want to tell a story about the isolation of houses surrounded by water!

DIVIDING THE FRAME

During the Renaissance, painters discovered that dividing a canvas in a particular mathematical way and placing your subjects along these “golden” intersection of lines of division, created more visually pleasing compositions.

There are many, many ways to divide a frame. But two of these famous mathematical divisions are:

1. Rule of Thirds

2. Golden Mean or Golden Ratio

Please read your blog entries for information on the Rule of Thirds, Golden Spirals, Ratio and Triangles.

Please check your camera manual now. Some of you may have rule of third and/or golden mean/ration screens that you can turn on. You then can see these pale grid lines on your LCD screen or viewfinder, making it easy to line up your subjects along the division lines. Experiment taking a picture using the grid lines as a tool for composition. Eventually, with practice, you will be able to “see” the lines in your mind whenever you compose a photo, even without turning on your camera option or using an older camera that does not have this digital aid.

HORIZON

Probably the most common photographic situation is deciding where to divide the frame when taking a picture of a landscape horizon. How much land do you show? How much sky?

Dividing it equally between land and sky again can be a boring choice. When the landscape is more visually interesting than a plain sky, then the choice is compose your shot showing more land and less sky…the horizon is in a HIGH position.

And if there is a beautiful sunset or wonderful clouds, then you want the horizon line in a LOW position so you can show more of the sky.

There is no perfect placement. Just experiment! Try different camera angles, horizontal, vertical, change your position physically, stand, get flat on the ground…move around and shoot from different distances and angles.

FRAMES WITHIN FRAMES

Here is something to try—a frame within a frame!

What does that mean?

Frames come in all types and sizes. Using objects, either natural (such as tree branches as on page 30 or manmade such as a bridge tower on pg. 31)..or even the circle sculpture outside our classroom, you surround or “frame” your subject entirely or partially (on a side, bottom, or top).

This is an effective composition often because the internal frame draws our eye right to the subject.

If you only have a little space between the natural/manmade frame and the object you are framing, the graphic relationship between the two is strongest.

Always keep a close eye on the positive and negative spaces created when framing within the frame. How much “open space” is there around the subject? Is there a strong contrast between light and dark so that you can visually separate the frame from the main subject.

 

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