Exercise–Fitting the frame to the subject.

The object of this exercise is to explore how objects fit within a frame and to take  a variety of views of the object including a distance shot, a frame filling shot and a close up and then to compare them and consider the possibility of further cropping to make an improved picture.

I had several different attempts at this exercise as it was interesting to try different types of situations this way.

Example 1. – The Student and the Cat

This was taken in our living room and shows my son attempting to study while being distracted by his pet.

                                                           This was the original unconsidered shot.
                                             A tightly framed shot with the couch angled to allow close framing.
                                                                 A close up (son by now totally distracted).
                                                      Distance shot to show context (untidy living room).

I then tried various crops of all the pictures and decided this one told the story best of all the possibilities, although it is noticeable that the small crop from the large original means a limited size of enlargement  before loss of quality of the image. It would have been preferable to take this as a tighter framing in the  original place, which would have allowed a much greater detail preservation.

Example 2. - A Vase of Flowers.
This is a still life of spring flowers. The yellow tulips and the purple hyacinth are placed in a dark blue vase against a purple background. The colours of the flowers are complementary and evenly balanced in the whole picture.
                                                                        Whole vase against background.
                                                          Tightly framed shot concentrating on the flowers.
Close up of the tulips, cropped to square and taken with a very small depth of field to give an almost abstract effect.
                                             Close up of the hyacinth with the background completely blurred.

Following the lesson learned in the previous example rather than cropping an already taken picture I concentrated on framing the close up shots in camera. This meant I was able to print them both out at A3 size with good detail and no loss of clarity.

Lessons learned:
1. Think about what you want to capture and frame accordingly
2. If a detail is what is required try to compose ‘in camera’ rather than crop afterwards as the results are much better.
3. Remember to consider taking the picture in the background to show context.