allowing space     

creating room for improvement

Kat Sloma's 'exploring with a camera' series this month is about 'space' (the separation between objects within the frame) as a visual element, a tool for creating compelling photographs.

I have been browsing through my images from the past few days to find out in which ways i allow space into my photographs and how it affects the impact of my images.

Last wednesday i took a whole bunch of shots of all the airplanes flying over, preparing to land at Schiphol Airport. The sky was a wonderfully clear blue color and i was able to capture a lot of crisp detail in the airplanes.

By letting the airplane fly out of my 'frame', picking it up and refocusing a few seconds later, i managed to keep the crisp detail, while at the same time allowing more distance, more space and more context into the image, which, in my opinion, makes it a lot more interesting

Here three other images i took recently, that have definitely improved by allowing more space into the frame. First the fluffy white seed head of a thistle, surrounded by  green grass and red clover. Second the silhouette of a cormorant, resting upon a light pole alongside the ice rink. Third is a young boy walking away from the mall with a candy bar.

Here is the thistle seed head again, this time it's a close up with a shallow DoF that makes it stand out from the background, emphasizing the details of the seed head, especially the tiny dewdrops clinging to the fluff. Instead of allowing more space by creating distance while maintaining the detail, like i did with the airplane, here i have achieved the same effect by moving closer and enhancing the detail by decreasing the DoF.

Here i allowed more space into the frame by choosing a horizontal perspective, focusing on the cormorant and the top of the light pole, thereby excluding most of the pole itself. By changing my position i managed to include some of the white cloud. Allowing more space around the silhouette increases the contrast, thereby enhancing the impact of the image.

The boy in red walked by while i was standing on a bridge just outside the mall. I first managed to 'capture' him unawares while he was standing still, nibbling on his candy bar. Then he walked on and slowly disappeared into a tunnel. I kept shooting, allowing more and more space into my frame. This shot is the last one before he disappeared completely, and for me it is the most compelling one, precisely because of the amount and the quality of the space around him: the lines and the color of the tunnel wall emphasize the shape and the color of his clothes and allow his shadow to 'follow' him going down into the tunnel. 

including context
stepping out of my comfort zone
this week i have been really challenged by Kat Sloma's 'a sense of place'.... trying to put more 'context' in my images. i tend to zoom in a lot and focus on the details of my subject matter, coaxing them out of their context to emphasize what interests or amazes me. on a photo walk through the city of Leiden i experimented with a different approach....

Here are two shots of a famous historical monument, the Koornbrug, a bridge across the Nieuwe Rijn, right in the middle of the city center. On both sides of the bridge are huge roofs with columns, originally built to protect the merchant's corn from the rain and wind. In the first shot i zoomed in on the ornaments, showing Leiden's city emblem and the date this part of the bridge was built.

The second shot was taken from a different angle, showing some of the roof tiles and parapets, a dark triangle of the other roof-ceiling (which i was standing under taking the shot) and part of the city-hall tower in the background. 

While walking around i also took some shots of people. The one on the left focuses completely on the woman with the torn jeans holding her smartphone, the only contextual information is provided by the pavement, the tiny bit of red bike, the tree and the iron fence around it that she's seated on. Just enough to understand that this is an urban setting.

The second shot focuses more on the giant ice-cream and the green bordered blackboard leaning against it than on the people sitting behind it. Because of the narrow DoF the background is a bit blurry and does not add much context.

These two shots provide a lot more context. The one on the left now shows that the woman is not completely alone in a silent city, there are more people around and they are moving, while she is sitting still, contemplating her phone. There even is a pigeon at her feet!

In the other shot there is also a lot more to discover. The background is sharper and you can see a street with a car driving by and people walking about. The frame now includes a scooter and a bike and some clearly readable shop signs.

Here's another set of people shots. The left one focuses on the facial expressions and interaction of the girls and the color of their clothes. The only context is the water, a small bit of bike and an iron ring implying that you can moor a boat here. 

The other shot is more about the red bike, with the girls in the background. It is obviously a street scene, showing just enough water to imply the street is along a canal.

Here are two shots with hardly any context. I zoomed in on the detail, leaving out most of the visual information that could lead to a 'sense of place'. The first shot contains wooden planks, metal frames and a  worn and torn piece of cloth. It is almost abstract, monochrome,  and deals mainly with lines, shapes, light and shadow. The second shot has a bit more context in the blurry background: stacks of chairs, bicycles, a  canal, a street, a car and some shops. But the dominant feature is a bit of a riddle: a statue of a person, male or female? young or old? holding what exactly? This image is also about lines and shapes and about the texture of the statue.

Here are both places again, this time with context. The planks and frames in the first shot clearly belong to a row of (still?) empty market stalls, and the theme here is the repetition of lines and subject matter. The statue is of a cloth merchant and stands in the middle of a street with shops and bicycles, and the theme is the contrast between texture, color and material: the solid charcoal of the cloth merchant against the bright colored box on the bicycle at his feet.

These last two shots have the same subject: bicycles, but the (lack of) context tells a completely different story. Above shows the way people in Leiden park their bicycles, preferably against trees, and it conveys that some of our bicycles have wonderfully bright colors. It also shows the very Dutch 'habit' of throwing out the bucket of cleaning water after you've mopped the floor of your shop lol, but only people who know about this would notice it.
The second shot also shows how people in Leiden park their bicycles, not only against trees and lampposts but against anything that will support a bicycle, like a bridge railing..... It also shows more colored bicycles. By zooming out and allowing more context into the frame, this image becomes more effective.