nolaguy
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
|
 p.2 #5 · Dancer in the studio (added a 2nd image) | |
friscoron wrote:
For me, this shot was driven by composition. It was about empty space occupied by a single subject.
Yep, and then you chose to tackle the one composition wherein very little was going to easily go well and you pulled it off.
friscoron wrote:
I don't know that I'm always making the best compositional decisions. Looking at an e-session shot on Sunday evening, a sunset pic, and I sit here wondering why I didn't have more of the water from Lake Michigan in the shot as the space on land was really pretty boring. I second-guess myself all the time, even though composition is something I'm always considering while shooting portraits.
I find most location shots are something like this: a couple dozen possibilities and 10+ nuances available in each – easily over 200 options …and in few seconds we have to decide which to pursue. Perhaps we only seriously consider a small handful of them because they’re obviously stronger but even then, as our mind settles and we hone in, there are at least 10 or 20 successful opportunities open to us.
Of those, is there one single choice that would be ideal?
Maybe. Probably, maybe… but that question quickly dissolves into an almost psychoanalytical debate and the bottom line is: we compose, we capture and more often than not it works (though as you just described, we may second guess ourselves for days as we muddle through post).
Point being, most situations we face are at least somewhat flexible and forgiving.
And had you chosen an oblique angle in this session (rather than square with the room) it would have still been “empty space occupied by a single subject” and you’d have gotten great shots as you always do. But those compositions would inherently had much more wiggle room. This one didn’t – and to me, that’s what makes it remarkable and worth pondering.
friscoron wrote:
In this case with the dancer. I took a lot into consideration for the composition. How high should the camera be, putting her up against the wall sandwiched between three windows on each side of her? How close should the dancer be to the camera, thus how much space should she take up in the image? This is one of those rare cases where I'm happy with how it turned out, and there's no second-guessing. Your analysis seems to confirm that I did okay with that.
No doubt. Yes. I know. Exactly. You should be. And yes, no second-guessing. THAT, is my thinking. I referred to composition flexibility a couple of times above. This array is closer to black or white, yes or no, on or off, than most of what we do. Pretty much, it was either going to be right, or it was going to be wrong. And chance favored the latter.
So, even as we admired it, some of us at least probably didn’t fully realize how delicate the balance was. Once Evan caused me to return to it – that’s really when the unlikelihood of a successful shot became so interesting to me.
friscoron wrote:
I wish I could say that I looked at the lines on ceiling and saw that they all angled perfectly toward my subject, but I can't take any credit for that.
Unless you had a lot of push pins and twine (a la A Beautiful Mind), I wouldn’t imagine you would give much thought to that. You achieved the same thing via 1) composition choice; 2) geometry and a fairly plumb room; 3) a good eye; and really sound optical and artistic instincts.
friscoron wrote:
Thanks for your cool, in-depth look at my image!
Ron
Thanks for playing, Ron. I know my little exercise has been a bit over the top. I thought the image was a sufficiently challenging and unique success to be worth the case study. I will remember this shot.
And Evan, wherever you are, again, good eye buddy.
Regards,
Chuck
|
