I will make the next post about some rules/guidelines that have been around since before photography, but before I get into that lets just see some shots from you. This is mostly just an assignment with little instruction from me. I want to see what you come up with, the perspective, or pov, on the shot can mean a great shot or a poor shot. Most people see a scene and just snap the shot and think it is good enough. Usually the better shot is the one you have to walk around and find. If you are hiking and come upon a waterfall, how many people do you think have taken that same picture? Probably a lot, so a better shot is probably, not always, somewhere else, from a different angle, or position. So you need to start getting in the habit of looking for a different shot than anybody else has taken. Try to find the one that will capture the most interest.
Okay, the assignment here is to go find a subject, I don't care what it is, and take five different pictures of it. Well, I want you to take a lot more than five, twenty, or even fifty if you want, but I want you to post what you think the five most interesting ones are. So take shots from all sides of the subject, take one from far away, really close up, looking down, looking up, or even just a small part of the subject, get creative. This will get you to start thinking about where the best shot really is. Hey this is the digital era, you can't hurt yourself by taking a lot of pictures, its not like you have to go pay to develop film, so be trigger happy and see what you come up with. I will try and get this assignment done soon so you can see what I have done with it.
Here are my shots, right now at temple square they have some nativities from around the world, so I took a bunch of shots of this particular one. I think I probably took around twenty. Here are the five I like the best. Which one is better? I don't know it depends on what you like, but I'll tell you my favorite definitely wasn't the first shot I took, or the "walk up" shot. I'll also put my exposure values so you can keep getting used to what they are and what they do. I took these all in aperture priority mode and most of them were at an f/11. The one at f/8 I went lower to get a more shallow dof, usually you won't see that shallow of a dof, but I was using a longer lens, we will have to talk about how lenses affect dof later. Also, like I suggested in exposure, I left my ISO at its lowest setting. Since the lighting was pretty much the same, you'll notice all the settings are pretty much the same.
Composition: f/11 1/60 ISO 200
Composition: f/11 1/60 ISO 200
Composition: f/11 1/60 ISO 200
Composition: f/11 1/60 ISO 200
Composition: f/8 1/45 ISO 200
