Guiding the eye

Here are a couple of photographs taken by one of my students, Phil Hallam. Phil came to me for just a one day a couple of weeks ago. I saw this lovely shot as I was looking through some of his photographs – something I always like to do before I start working with a new client so that I know where to start the tuition and coaching. Phil obviously has a good eye for a picture, but he was fairly new to photography and needed guidance. I think this lovely shot shows that he can see a good picture when it presents itself.

I have posted Phil’s original picture as he sent it to me above. But I have just tweaked and cropped a little for the picture below. I just felt that the blank whiteness of all that sky was leading my eye into nothing at the top of the picture, so I have cut it down and darkened some areas a little using the ‘burn’ tool in Photoshop.

The human eye acts very much like a moth – it tends to seek out the light and go to the lighter areas of a composition. This can be very useful once you know how to use it because you can at least try to train your viewer’s eye to explore the areas of the composition you feel are most valuable and relevant to the message you want to convey.

Photograph by Phil Hallam

Cropping for more impact

In my last post I mentioned that I took a student who was with me for one-to-one tuition, down to my favourite cove on the seashore near my home - I posted a photograph of him down on the beach. Well, this morning I got a lovely email from Phil Hallam, who has put up some of the pictures he took on a webpage... it's worth taking a look..

www.picasaweb.google.com/hallamphoto

Phil started taking photographs only ten months ago, so I think the results he produced during his day with me are all the more remarkable.

As I am never loathe to print a favourable comment, this is what Phil said about his day here in Galloway...

"Just a quick word to say thank you for an amazing day. I learnt more in one day with you than I have reading books or instruction manuals over the last 10 months."

Anyway, I introduced Phil to the idea of Photoshop and explained that many of the adjustments that can be made to a photograph after it has been taken are perfectly legitimate - cropping and darkening a foreground or sky, for instance. This is not 'cheating' in any way and it's not new. It's just a matter of using the old skills and modern tools that are available - the Victorian photographers were masters of re-touching and adjustment of an image in the darkroom, so Photoshop - or post processing with any imaging programme- is only a modern way of doing what is really very old hat.

When I was working full time using black and white film, I knew exactly what I was going to do to a photograph when I put the negative in the enlarger. I knew this at the time of taking the photograph - when the button was pressed. Now, when I work with digital cameras, I have a fair idea of what I am going to do to a photograph when I get it onto the computer. This 'post processing' is, to me, all part of the normal way of producing the picture as I envisage it in the real world.

Above I have posted one of Phil's super shots he took during his time on the coast with me. This is the way Phil saw it and took it and posted it on his web page. It has not been cropped, or changed it in any way.

Below is the same photograph. However - hope you don't mind, Phil - this time I have cropped it a little and used the burning in tool and dodging tool to emphasize the dark storm clouds and waves. I would have done exactly the same sort of cropping, darkening and lightening if I had had this photograph in the darkroom. The idea is to maximise the impact of the photograph and to attempt to guide the viewer's eye to the most important elements of the composition. Notice that I have cropped a lot off the right hand side of the composition, but very little off the left hand side. This has put the waves more to the right so that the eye follows their movement to the left and brightest side of the picture. I agree that my crop has put the horizon pretty near the centre of the frame, but I think this is a price worth paying to get more visual impact from the movement of the waves.

Maybe you prefer this version, well that's fine, but I think you will have to agree that the cropped version does have more impact.

Hope to see you again soon, Phil.