NEW Basic Assignment #1: Rule of Thirds and Golden Mean

Hello, my attempts are from Friday - I tried to use snowy areas (as it was falling much more than I can ever remember) to help the geometry of pictures and, of course, to get the main subject in the right point... Thanks for your opinions... And one more thanks for your work on assignments!
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2/

(second one was cropped to 4/3 from its right side)

Just very simple ones..






A700 v. Minolta 28-75/f2.8

Edited by jkp1 - 10 January 2010 at 23:32

@ kubuthor: Both pictures are ROT, but your second one is getting you the "pass" Simple lines and placement of the cat, not alot of further distractions. The first is a bit more messy with too many different subjects and lines (windows/trees/guy shoveling snow to outside the frame,...). As general C&C I find your B&W conversions a bit grey and drab. I think they need a bit more true black for punch and then a curve to lift midtones to create a bit more "luminosity" in them.

@ pcarmalt: For you also the second one gets you the pass, very simple and effective using 1 ROT line and two points (top and bottom of the icicle). The first has the same intentions but I find the composition too messy, especially the stands at the mid-bottom on your driveway are quite a distraction and kind of destroy the clear ROT character.

@ jkp1: you say very simple ones, I say it doesn't have to be any more for a pass, well spotted and I like both variants. Placement of subjects and lines is well done.

@goldsmid: also a pass for you, nice composition, headlamp well placed so it gets the attention you want to draw to it. Also like the "warm" tone you got in the picture and the detail and texture you managed to maintain in the dark parts of the smokebox.

@goldsmid - I like that photo a lot, I agree that the golden glow is very nice, but to my eye the headlamp is too close to the edge of the frame. The bulb itself is right at the ROT intersection, but I think the whole lamp needs to be considered the subject. Also, the other light that is cut off by the edge of the frame is a little distracting.

I'm only mentioning because I think the photo is worthy of a print. Before that though, I would clone out the second light, and re-crop (if possible) to bring the headlamp a little more central. That would also give the engine a little more space to "look" into.

Welcome to Dyxum.

Well, maybe he can crop a little off the opposite corner. I saw the second light right away because there is a leading line in the reflector on the headlamp that point right at it. It's interesting how differently the same photo can be experienced by different people.

I like this second one better. I would still clone out the second line as it creates a leading line out of the frame. I also might take some off of the bottom. I don't know why but it just feels a little too tall.

If we continue this, we should probably take it to a new thread instead of cluttering up this assignment thread.

@ goldsmid... I like the new one better. I think it is much stronger like that!. It's exactly what I thought of when I first saw the original. For me, the light is providing me with a leading point out of the picture to your name... but pegelli is generally more perceptive at these things than me - and he's a choo-choo fan and there may be something I don;t see. Plus, you asked him.


Pieter, I can see you are busy so please feel free to take your time responding or just say "pass" or "fail" - I am unlikely to move on to #2 until next weekend. This is really good fun; and good discipline, which I really need.

I decided not to put the horizon on the third line because uncropped it would be too much uninteresting sky and I liked the water hyacinth to break up the foreground. However, I think the third line is fairly well marked and keeps our eyes in the more interesting part of the picture.



This time the third runs through the bird lighted by the setting sun, the head is off the third but I think that helps to pull us across to the other bird and therefore it is a good example. I won't change now, but the question is, should the imaginary third line have run through the tail, or would that (as I thought) leave too much dead space behind the bird? And of course there is a just too much space on the left to allow a pass. Oh... might I fail?



Edited by maewpa - 11 January 2010 at 16:13