lighting, composition and other musings.

I have been thinking and musing on assignment 5 and trying some techniques of lighting and composition that I have read about and seen. I am keeping my options open on the subject but am leaning towards something close to home and convenient. When I say convenient I mean a subject that I do not have to spend all of my time traveling to and from a location before dawn to shoot it. I want a simple subject that will allow me to experiment with the lessons covered on colour, composition and lighting.

So it was with this in mind that I have begun to look around my own home and garden. I have been reading on strobist.com about balancing natural and artificial light and for a while now I have wanted to try photo with the sun behind the main subject and an off camera flash as a fill. Last night as the sun began to disappear I asked my wife to pose for a quick portrait. I used a flash with a sto-fen omni bounce flash diffuser on a light stand as a fill light. I shot some test shots to get the exposure and balance I wanted and when I was happy I shot a few photos which you can see below. I was really struck by the difference between the first and second and how much I prefer the second because of that little extra space on the right of the frame where she is looking.

The second eureka moment I had to was today as I continued to shoot for the assignment. It is funny how a small change in the framing can make a difference to a photo. I have recently read

Scott Kelby's book The Digital Photography Book Part 1. You can find it here; .

One of the things he speaks about is shooting trees in a forest and how excluding the bottom of the forest can make for a better shot because there is less clutter to confuse the viewer. In the following two photos you can see this clearly I think.