A Sequence of Composition

Yesterday I visited the city of Coventry, and took my camera along intending to make images for the exercise exploring horizontal and vertical frames. Whilst there I also saw the perfect opportunity to complete the exercise 'A Sequence of Composition'. As part of the city's Christmas celebrations they are holding live music events in Precinct Cross in the city centre. As I arrived in the area, by chance a rock 'n' roll band had started performing, and I quickly changed to my Sigma 70-300mm lens.

At first I thought it was a non-starter. Although it was early afternoon, the light is really dull at this time of the year, and even at the smallest focal length on the lens I was unable to get an acceptable shutter-speed for handheld shooting (it has no image stabilisation feature). I increased the ISO one step at a time, and even at the highest of 1600 I was not able to achieve a shutter-speed of 1/focal length; a general guide for the minimum speed for handheld shooting I learnt on the video courses Foundations of Photography by Ben Long.

I was aware that I had bought with me my Nikon 1.8 50mm, a fast prime lens that would deal with the situation with ease, even at an ISO of 200; my problem was that with the fixed focal length of 50mm I was not going to be able to get many good shots compositionally; I simply needed more reach. In the end I kept the telephoto lens on my camera, with the ISO up to 1600. I was fortunate in that I was able to get right up close to the stage, and lean on the metal barrier to make the camera as stable as possible.

On arrival, I took these four test images, seeing how the camera would perform in the available light, and also to become more accustomed with the environment, and who was who. I moved left and right across the front of the stage experimenting with different angles, but my position at the time was causing me problems; I was not close enough to get anything that didn't resemble a snapshot, I had audience member's heads in the way and the metal barrier around the circumference of the stage was also a distraction.

 70mm, f/4, 1/200, ISO 1600

 70mm, f/4, 1/250, ISO 1600

 70mm, f/4, 1/200, ISO 1600

 70mm, f/4, 1/160, ISO 1600

My new closer position at the very edge of the stage solved all of the aforementioned problems, and my first few shots were mainly focused on individual members of the group, utilising a vertical orientation and shot at varying focal lengths:

70mm, f/4, 1/125, ISO 1600

135mm, f/4.5, 1/60, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/50, ISO 1600

I was fortunate in that I was able to move around the entire circumference of the circular stage. This presented many more photographic opportunities than would have been possible with a standard stage setup. Here I began moving behind the performers, looking for interesting new angles and seeing if I were able to include any of the surroundings for context:

70mm, f/4, 1/125, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/160, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/125, ISO 1600

78mm, f/4, 1/100, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/160, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/160, ISO 1600

I then continued to circle the stage, with my next objective being to focus on some more close-up shots, as well as keep my eyes open for any moments that particularly caught my eye. The next image I particularly enjoy; the red bass guitar framed by the speaker stand on the left, and the singer on the right. This particular viewpoint also seems more 'candid' than the others:

78mm, f/4, 1/50, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/125, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/40, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/125, ISO 1600

78mm, f/4, 1/160, ISO 1600

78mm, f/4, 1/160, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/80, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/125, ISO 1600

Whilst capturing the 'action' image, I continued my search for interesting close-ups. I had the idea of focusing on the group's auxiliary equipment in some of my images, such as the amplifiers. I particularly like this next close-up image which feels like it has great intimacy:

170mm, f/4.8, 1/125, ISO 1600

120mm, f/4.2, 1/60, ISO 1600

120mm, f/4.2, 1/50, ISO 1600

120mm, f/4.2, 1/100, ISO 1600

195mm, f/5, 1/125, ISO 1600

135mm, f/4.5, 1/80, ISO 1600

100mm, f/4.2, 1/50, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/125, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/125, ISO 1600

86mm, f/4, 1/100, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/125, ISO 1600

70mm, f/4, 1/160, ISO 1600

This was an interesting and useful exercise for me in many ways. Mostly, it took me out of my comfort zone and into a fast-paced situation to which I was unaccustomed. A live event is different to a static landscape in the fact that it is so dynamic; if you see a particular shot you like you need to take it straight away, otherwise it is gone forever. The process dealt with in this exercise is what photographer Ben Long calls 'working the shot'. It was a valuable tip I picked up from his video courses and something that I've recently been putting into practice. It involves spending time on location trying different angles, viewpoints, subjects etc instead of just taking an image of the first thing you see. While undertaking this exercise I worked the shot, and as a result created many different interesting images. I tried to experiment with different subjects rather than the main focus always being the players.

The ability to circle the entire stage was a huge bonus, and some of my favourite images in the sequence are the ones taken from behind, as these feel more unusual and thus interesting than the standard front-on shots. Having the right gear is always a help, and I wouldn't have been able to capture the images I did without my telephoto lens. This allowed closer, more intimate viewpoints, and allowed me to 'crop' out extraneous and distracting details from the frame. Sometime in the future I'd love to invest in a fast telephoto with image stabilisation which would have allowed me to shoot this sequence much sharper and at a low ISO setting.

Initially I was very concerned with the lack of available light, and the stage having an overhead covering didn't help matters. Previously I wouldn't have dreamed of setting my ISO so high, being concerned with the amount of noise in the image, and probably would have abandoned the shoot altogether. I'm glad I persevered, because the shots turned out quite well. Although not tack-sharp, I did manage to stabilise the camera much better by leaning on the guard rail, and this probably saved some of the images from turning into a blurry mess.

Some of the above images have been treated to a little editing in post-production. One or two are cropped to remove unsightly or out of focus objects, others have had a little noise-reduction applied (especially the ones where the dark jackets are visible), and on others I have lowered the colour temperature to offset the orange stage lighting.

Object in Different Positions in the Frame

A farmer's field in a neighbouring village provided the subject for this exercise. I had planned to visit the field due to it being a large, even background for my photos, but was not entirely sure what my subject would be; I imagined it would probably be a tree. On arrival I found a group of sheep grazing, and in the golden light of the rising sun I took the images required for the exercise.

300mm, f/5.6, 1/500, ISO 200

In this first image, the sheep is dead centre in the frame. The image lacks what Michael Freeman calls 'dynamic tension'; it is too stable and there is no real relationship between the subject and the background.

300mm, f/5.6, 1/160, ISO 200

Here, I have moved the position of the subject to the top and middle of the frame. This certainly feels like an improvement; with more grass at the bottom of the frame the sheep feels more in context, and this particular position gives the effect of 'looking up' at the subject, as if it is elevated from my own position. The left-to-right axis still feels uncomfortable though.

300mm, f/5.6, 1/250, ISO 200

The sheep is still at the top of the frame, but shifted to the right-hand side. There is certainly more 'tension' now that the subject is off-centre on both axis, but there is no real reason for it being there. There is a lot of vacant space behind the sheep which doesn't add to the impact of the image, and there is not enough space in front of the sheep, which gives the feeling that it has nowhere to 'go' as it continues grazing.

300mm, f/5.6, 1/320, ISO 200

Still keeping the sheep at the top of the frame, but moving it to the left hand side results in a more comfortable image than the previous. The sheep, in motion, now has somewhere to go within the frame. Being tucked so far into the corner however leaves the frame with lots of 'empty' space. Looking at the sheep in the corner of the frame makes me feel almost like it's in a physical corner, when it was in fact in a wide-open field.

300mm, f/5.6, 1/200, ISO 200

This final image works the best, and is most comfortable to view. Being near the bottom of the frame, the subject feels 'grounded' under a solid base. It is offset to the right-hand side, but not too much, creating dynamic tension, and there is space in the frame in the direction the subject is looking.

This was an interesting exercise, and placement was something I'd thought about before starting this course; however it gave me the opportunity to think about the concept in more depth.

Fitting the Frame to the Subject

This exercise was a strange case of planning what you are going to shoot, then getting to the location and shooting something completely different. I planned to travel to Birmingham for this exercise and photograph either the Mailbox or the Council House in Victoria Square. Upon arriving in the city, I found that the 'Birmingham Wheel' was in town. I thought this a potentially exciting subject to work with, and refocused my efforts accordingly.

12mm, f/4.5, 1/2, ISO 200

This first image was taken with my wide angle lens, a Sigma 10-20mm. The wheel is prominent in the frame, but the new Central Library also gets some attention.

19mm, f/5, 1/5, ISO 200

The wheel is now the obvious subject of the image, and I chose a conventional straight-on shot for this image. I didn't crop too closely here, as I wanted to keep a little of the surroundings in for context, and to keep from being too similar to the third image. For this, and the following image I needed to change to my 18-55mm kit lens for the desired focal length.

42mm, f/32, 2, ISO 200

In this image I closed in very tightly, cropping off the top and sides of the wheel. I still wanted to keep some of the crowd in the picture, albeit in shadow, for context, but otherwise the wheel is the only subject in the frame, without any reference to the surroundings apart from the red sign of the Symphony Hall that can be seen through the wheel. As this was such a tightly shot image, I wanted to add further interest, so I used a long exposure of two seconds, to blur the motion of the very slowly moving wheel. This gives a very abstract take on what would otherwise be quite an ordinary photograph.

120mm, f/4.2, 1/20, ISO 200

I wanted a very close shot of the wheel for the final image, so I changed to my Sigma 70-300mm telephoto lens. The obvious target for a closeup shot of the wheel would be the carriages; the challenge lay in taking an image that would also convey the surroundings. There was little choice against a dark night sky, but I felt the large, bright sign of The Rep was a good, especially as it also mentions 'Birmingham', instantly giving a location to the wheel. I particularly like how the wheel is balanced by the sign in this image. I deliberately under-exposed the shot (and decreased the exposure further in post-production) in order to lose the outline of the building and keep just the wheel and the sign.

I enjoyed experimenting with placing my subject in the frame in this exercise. Also I would likely have selected the wheel as a subject before I started this course, I may not have thought about shooting the same subject multiple times with variations on its position in the frame. I also spent quite a lot of time 'working the shot' for this exercise, moving around within the environment and experimenting with different vantage points. Of course, only my final selected shots are displayed here.

This final image shows some other possible crops of the original shot:

1. Similar to my second shot above, except with a different perspective. Here, the wheel is not directly facing the viewer.
2. This is potentially a better crop than the original image, as it keeps all of the main interest in the scene, but removes a lot of 'wasted' frame space in the form of the grass in the foreground.
3. I thought this would make a lovely square crop image, where the library is the main subject, with visitors in the foreground, and the Rep Theatre in the background for context. We have omitted the wheel altogether, as well as the dull grass at the very bottom of the frame.

In terms of these new crops, I think that I prefer (2) and (3) over the original image, mostly because they remove a lot of 'negative space' from the scene, which is distracting and unnecessary. This is something I should bear in mind for the future; my Nikon D50 is only a 6-megapixel camera which means I need each and every last pixel if I want to print my images at any respectable size. Having to crop my work later like this wastes pixels and limits the potential printing size of my new image.