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.
