Exercise 6 - Fitting the Frame to the Subject

I chose a carousel for this exercise as it was housed within a relatively small area within the Trafford Centre which I knew would force me to think more creatively within the frame.

The first picture I took, without considering the composition too much has been photoshopped to improve the colours of the carousel but I think I may have brightened it too much, it was overcast and rainy.

I did however try to crop the image to meet the Golden Section rule.

The image was taken at 400 ISO, due to being overcast and I used an aperture of F7 and a shutter speed of 1/125.

Whilst the composition didn't have much thought put into it, the final photo does show the context of the carousel and it's surrounding area.

For the next image, I moved around the periphery of the carousel a lot changing lenses until I took this picture which I was quite happy with.

This image was taken at F7 and 1/125 with a focal length of 32mm. 

This has created a nice representation of the carousel which fills the frame with detail and colour.

One of the issues with this image is that the over exposed sky which surrounds the carousel takes away some of the impact of the subject.

With the carousel framed like this, it shows a sense of movement, due to the arc of the top and bottom of the carousel which makes the eye move around the image almost simulating movement.

The close up section was a much easier choice. I wanted all of the colours and decoration of the carousel to be the main focus and detail of the photo.

I like this photo as there is a nice sense of motion even though the carousel wasn't moving at the time!

For the final image, I took a number of images from a distance using the wide angle lens. Tow of these images stood out so I decided to crop both of them.

This is the first image which is a traditional wide shot where the carousel is at the centre of a landscape image.

This is a reasonable shot that shows the full context of the carousel. It can be clearly seen housed within the confines of the shopping centre. One of the things that lets this image down is the flat, over exposed sky and the lens distortion at the edges of the image which is highlighted by the palm trees.

The other shot that I took was more carefully framed, and I think was more successful.

This image also shows the context of the carousel but makes it more of a destination for the eye with the lines on the floor and the roof running down towards the carousel.

Whilst this is a more successful image, it is also harder to crop. 

One option for cropping is to remove some of the floor and sky detail. This leaves the crop ratio to be more square which isn't particularly successful as it doesn't leave many areas for the eye to go.

This is a really awkward crop which I didn't really feel would work, and it didn't! This was just experimentation and the image loses any impact or drama when the symmetry is taken away.

One image crop that was quite successful was a square crop of the initial wide angle image.

As the Freedman book had been discussing square crops working with circular subjects, I wondered if it would work with a rounded subject and I think it does to an extent. The trees at the edge of the crop spoil it slightly, I could have cropped the square tighter but then there was too much floor and not enough building to pull the eye to the centre.