street photography

a photo study: composition

The fourth week of this journey exploring a particular element of photography invited me to open my eyes to triangles.  It is easy for the eye to see triangles and they are often created through the use of three prominent points of interest, particularly if they are similar in content and size.

The first time I was introduced to triangles in photography was through the writings of Eric Kim who noted, “Triangles are one of the best compositional techniques you can use in your street photography to fill your frame, add balance, and add movement in your images.”

Within an image, you may notice three variations of triangular compositions: real triangles (actual triangles, triangles formed by perspective, inverted triangles formed by perspective) and implied triangles through the use of people.

triangleweb

Within street photography, implied triangles are often created by the direction of the subjects’ eyes. Within the first image below, both subjects are looking to the left creating a triangle that extends outside the photograph. In the second, the gaze of the father, daughter, and two geese create an implied triangle.

If you wish to join this learning journey at any time, please do so.

Please enjoy this educational video, Composition in Photography (Ted Forbes, The Art of Photography)

tethered

compositionweb

Nikon D750  f/5.6   1/100   62 mm

Sutcliffe rarely left Whitby [a port and resort community on the Yorkshire coast], where his portrait studio kept him busy, and said that he was ‘tethered for the greater part of each year by a chain, at most only a mile or two long.’  To most modern photographers this would seem a crippling restriction, but Sutcliffe gradually realized that it was an asset to him as a photographer since it forced him to concentrate on the transitory effects that could transform familiar scenes. …photographers should always aim for something more than ‘mere postcard records of facts.’ ‘By waiting and watching for accidental effects of fog, sunshine or cloud,’ he advised, ‘it is generally possible to get an original rendering of any place.  If we only get what any one can get at any time, our labour is wasted; a mere record of facts should never satisfy us.’

cited: Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, The History of Photography Series, p 8

a mental image

One of the interesting things about photography is the fact that it’s record of ourselves and our works so often do not correspond to our mental image…  Generally we assume that the difference between our expectation and the camera’s evidence is the result of some kind of photographic aberration.

~Henri Cartier Bresson

citypark2

Nikon D750   f/5.6   1/160s   170 mm   ISO 100