Fitting the frame to the subject

This exercise is to investigate the many variations that can exist when photographing an object and fitting it within the frame of the photograph.

The course makes reference to the fact that we stop seeing things around us because we are used to them.  And so for this exercise I decided to photograph something that is right outside my front window.  A boat in the Palm Jumeirah Marina.  The boat that I have photographed is the largest in the Marina as the photographs show.

The first picture I snapped the moment that I walked out of the front door, putting no effort into composition, where the light was coming from etc.

 

No effort in composition

The picture shows the boat OK but given the direction of the light, it is dark and background is too bright. You get some appreciation of its size compared to the boats around it but not fully.  It is the kind of picture that I would delete!

The second picture is taken face on to the object and scaled to fit the boat exactly in the frame as tightly as possible.  The exposure and lighting is better this time because I re-positioned myself so that I was not shooting directly into the direct sunlight.  The picture is a good shot if you want to understand exactly what the boat looks like from the side but it is not a picture that is particularly interesting if that is not your goal.  As the boat is very long, I actually adjusted the proportions of the photograph to be slightly panoramic as otherwise there is an even more excessive amount of sea and sky with no content to it. 

Object tight in frame

The third shot is zoomed in to a specific part of the shot.  Whilst taking the pictures above, I kept noticing the flag fluttering in the breeze and I really liked it.  As I was walking around the boat and got to where this picture was taken, the sunlight also shone through the flag making it even nicer to look at.  I took my first picture zoomed in so that only the flag was in shot.  It was a nice shot but was to isolated from the boat – it could have been a flag anywhere.  I zoomed out so that more boat was visible but then the focus moved away from the flag.  The shot below was the best balance I could find between keeping the flag as the clear  subject whilst retaining the fact it is part of the boat.

Close Up on Flag

The final shot is composed to show the surroundings.  It is similar to the first but better exposed as I moved to get a better angle and I specifically wanted to show how big this boat is compared to the others in the marina.  I think that this is shown clearly in the picture.  Again I adjusted the proportions of the shot to a slightly panoramic one but there is still too much sky and sea for my liking but if I zoomed in any closer it would take away from showing this big boat in the context of all the smaller ones.

 

Object in Context