Sunday, 20 March 2011

Contrasts

I have started on the first assignment - choosing some of the images that I think embody contrast well. This has been much more difficult than I expected, I keep thinking of one of a pair and the struggling to get the other. This has not been helped by the very annoying weather we have been having, its lovely whenever I am at work, and raining when I am at home. If things do not improve I am going to have to work on my still life (not a strong point).

I have approached this by thinking about contrasts since I started Part 1 of this course. This is an interesting exercise and teaches you a lot about seeing what is really shown in the images. Often I have found that a pair of images have more than one contrast between them.

Curved and Straight.

 IOS 160, 28mm, f/5.1, 1/50sec
These pomegranates are round and glossy and look very tempting. They also remind me of the story of Persephone in the Underworld, who could only leave for 6 months of the year because she ate 6 seeds of a pomegranate and so we have summer and winter.

I originally wanted to contrast alive (or at least 'of nature') with man-made, as you get few straight lines in nature and more in the built world.  However when I was out walking to get an old brick building I came across this:

 
ISO 400, 51mm, f/4, 1/60sec
It is a dead stem of a giant hogweed and is about 4 inches in circumference. Now we have contrasts of:
  1. curved and straight
  2. life and death
  3. edible and poisonous
  4. summer and winter


No comments:

Post a Comment