Sunday, December 28, 2008

The Whole... or a Part of the Whole?

Back in a "travel" mode for a few days...
It's tempting when you're dealing with a large subject or a big scene, to try to get it all in the frame at once. Nothing wrong with that if you just want to record the view in a very casual way, or if you're doing classic scenics, as long as you make the effort to consider all the compositional elements of the scene. When done well, it looks easy, which is why most people try it almost by default. If you want to go beyond snapshots, to create an image that someone who wasn't actually there can appreciate, you'll often get a better photograph and be able to capture what it is about the subject that caught your interest in the first place by concentrating on just a certain part of the scene. As an example, here is a night shot of the inner workings of the Eiffel Tower utilizing the iconic structural elements, multicolored lighting and the motion of some giant elevator pulleys, turning the whole shot into a colorful abstract, yet still keeping a sense of the original subject.

"Eiffel Elements"-Paris, 2008

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