R. Doug Wicker — Author

Today concludes our Seven for Seven series with the final seven photographs presented below.  No lectures this time.  Put to use what you’ve learned and tell me which of the following photographs work and why, and which in your opinion do not work.  Feel free to post your comments.  I promise I will not be offended if you think any of the following such worse than an antique Hoover.

Trevi Turbulence

Call Waiting

The Guiding Tug

Istanbul Wedding Boat

Dinan Dynamics

Purple on Blue

The Devil is in the Details

Were rapidly closing in on the end of the Seven for Seven series.  Only one more entry to go after today, with the series concluding on Monday.

I haven’t presented any panoramic shots yet, so today I’m going to throw in two (for the price of one, so you’ll still get six other shots).  Panorama shots are made by taking overlapping photographs and stitching them together during post processing.  If your camera has a panorama assist mode, then by all means use it — that mode will guide you in the overlap, and will control the aperture and shutter speeds to keep from having different exposure settings during the shot sequence.  If, however, you either do not have this mode or the panorama will have a wide dynamic range (going from sun on one end of the panorama to shade on the other, for instance), then you’ll have to switch to manual control and put your experience to work.

The first panorama is of Katakolon, Greece.  Other than the actual digital stitching, not much more was done to otherwise enhance this particular shot.  The second panorama — of the tops of the Grand Place Guildhalls in Brussels — was “boosted” using Picasa’s “boost” tool, which enhances both color and contrast to ridiculous levels.  I specifically went for this effect to emulate the look of the postcards of the ’50s and ’60s.  Kind of a fun effect, don’t you think?

Katakolon Kolors — Panorama

Postcard from the ’60s — Effect made using Picasa’s “Boost” tool

These next four shots primarily reflect proper use of the Rule of Thirds.

Mont St. Michel — Rule of Thirds

Statuesque Lisbon — Rule of Thirds; Use of Negative Space framing

Bruges Beauty — Focusing on architectural detail; Rule of Thirds from both left and right sides

Overlooking the Thera Caldera — Rule of Thirds

This next photograph is of the Temple of Poseidon near Sounion, Greece, just outside Athens.  The rule demonstrated here is perspective, as the upper and lower lines formed by the columns serve to draw your eye into the scene.

Poseidon’s Perch — Use of Perspective

And, finally for today, some pictures just beg to be snapped regardless of the rules.  I guess one could argue that the horizon is somewhat near a Rule of Thirds placement, but that’s not what makes the shot work.

The Fortress at Dinan — Not all compositions follow some hard-and-fast rule; this one is just interesting

Time for seven more of my favorite photographs in this, Part 5 of my seven-part series.  There is no set theme for today’s shots.  Most of the compositional rules have been previously covered.  So, today, I want you to take a look at the following photographs and determine two things:

1. What is the primary subject of the photograph?
2. Where would you have placed that subject in the overall composition had you been taking the shot?

Near the end we’ll switch to some compositions requiring a bit more thought, such as zoom/cropping and perspective.

A Student of History — Rule of Thirds; Use of environment to supply context; Human interest

Somebody Missed the Boat — Rule of Thirds placement; Whimsy; Dramatic backdrop

Call Forwarding — Rule of Thirds; Use of dramatic color; Nostalgia

Here’s an example of creative zooming/cropping.  In the following photograph, most people would zoom out to capture the entire vessel.  But in so doing they would be losing the most important aspect of the scene — the drama of the yacht cleaving through the blue Caribbean waters off the island of St. Barts.  The colorful sails are indeed a nice addition, but they are secondary to the statement of composition, and there’s still enough of the sails in the frame to make use of the added interest supplied by their unexpected color.

Yacht to Have Been There — Rule of Thirds; Secondary use of color; Action

This next whimsical shot makes use of context (the store front) and negative space framing (the surrounding blank white walls and neutral gray of the walkway).

Discussing the Latest in Men’s Fashiion — Whimsy; Negative space framing

The amount of texture evidenced in this next photograph might entice you to explore the use of Black & White conversion, but then you’d lose those marvelous greens highlighted against that neutral, tannish façade (but hold that thought; we’ll get back to that with another demonstration of color filtering for B&W at the end).  Also not that I resisted the urge to line up straight-on to the subject.  That would have been B-O-R-I-N-G.  Instead, you get an off-angle view that uses lines of perspective to draw your attention across the frame from left to right.

Enjoying the Balcony Seats — Use of perspective lines, color, and texture

Our seventh and final shot for today is a black-and-white conversion of a color photograph taken of the old river section of Bruges.  If this case, B&W just seemed to enhance the shot on several levels.  First, the scene was loaded with texture, and stripping away color makes texture the star.  Second is the nostalgia aspect of the scene — quaint, centuries-old buildings alongside a gently flowing river populated by a single swan.  And lastly there’s the loss of time aspect of this scene — was it taken recently, or closer to the early to mid 20th Century?  You simply cannot tell looking at the clues afforded to you in this shot, but color would definitely take it into the modern era unless you attempted some creative color effects to mimic the flaws of the films of old.

Bruges in Black and White — Use of B&W to highlight textures and enhance a feeling of nostalgia and sense of historical perspective

Now, back for a moment to that scene of the balcony-laden façade taken in Malta. — the green-dominated photograph above on which I remarked that its texture-heavy subject might make you want to consider conversion to black and white.  I’ve covered color filtering of B&W conversions several times before, but this particular scene presents an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the dramatic effects of red and green filtering on green subjects (the balconies) and warm colors (in this case the brown background).  Below are two B&W conversions of the same scene.  The one on the left utilized red filtering before conversion, which had the effect of darkening the greens and the blue of the sky while lightening the stone façade from which the colored balconies protrude.  To the right is the same image now filtered for green.  In this instance, the façade is darkened and the greens of the balconies and the blue of the sky are greatly brightened.  Click on one of them to bring up a gallery so that you can better view these critically important effects.

The lesson here:  If you’re just converting to B&W, then you’re missing a lot of drama in your converted photograph.  Learn how to filter colors before you make that conversion to get the most out of your image.