Elements in Photography
by Colin Gamez
bass guitar provided by Iain Gordon
Element 1 - LightingI chose to take a deeper look into lighting here because it is often the lighting I find to make or break the picture. It almost singlehandedly controls the mood. Being in different lighting scenarios definitely makes more contrasting shots as compared to the earlier part of this assignment.
So This picture I took miday in my apartment. I've always liked the how the light strains through the blinds in the afternoon time. This particular lighting always makes me want a nap. I figured I'd test what it does for the bass. The striped lines of light really go well with this picture considering the bass itself is made of a striped piece of zebra wood.
This picture was taken in the sanctity of my bathroom where no light enters. I wanted to see the effect a multicolored LED light on this object. Many pictures from this experiement didn't really impress me however the light in this one seems to separate into a green and blue sides, divided only by the instrument. It brings about an interesting mood to see it in this light.
The last photo from this series in my bathroom. I only included it because the light does so much in this print. It obscures the picture to a point where you can't really recognize what the picture is of anymore. Makes it a very ominous photograph. Had I another option though, I would have photographed from farther away and not so much in a cramped space such as my bathroom.Element 2 - Balance
In class, it was explained that balance was a very hard characteristic to achieve. I wanted to try and challenge this aspect to see if I could perhaps come up with some decent pictures. Though I didn't quite achieve perfection, I believe I made a valiant effeort in creating well balanced shots
Much in the same fashion as the last image, I mimicked this image only changing the height of the bass. Placing it on top of a chair, I managed to elevate the bass enough to capture the bulk of the body and it's reflection.
I took an interest in this area of the bass due to it's clover like appearance. After adjusting the tuning of the strings, I believe this is the best example I have to offer of my attempts to achieve balance in the photograph. It has a very pleasing appeal to it resembling a four leaf clover with stings.
Element 3 - Emphasis
The way i interpreted emphasis to be was what your eye was first drawn to. In these next few pictures, I attempted to include the bass , but somehow distract the eye by using familiar shapes, words and symbols so that the focal point of the picture differed from any others in the album.
So here I used a nearby music stand from the school of music to occupy half of the frame. I believe this prescence of lettering in the foreground attracts the eye first, leaving the musical instruments in the backround to be digested last.
An upward pan of the camera here allowed me to include the ceiling which I had previously not noticed. The soundproofing panels and lighting on the ceiling presented easily recognisible geometric shapes to bring the focus toward the top third of the picture. Note: this is my favorite picture of this project.
Though I was getting tired of long shots of the neck at this point, I tried yet one more next to an image of a treble clef and time signature I drew on the classroom's whiteboard. The effectiveness of this picture may not be as well as I hoped, but that could be easily changed perhaps by adjusting the size of the symbol next time.Element 4 - Perspective
Perspective is a relatively easy element to demonstrate but yet very hard to produce quality images with. Maybe due in part to how many images there are out there that employ this technique. It was really easy to come up with ideas for this element, but hard to make those ideas materialize.
The perspective lines provided by the entire room feel like they lead the eye to the piano rather than the bass. I took interest in the taped lines on the classroom floor to do this, but the soundproofing on the walls was purely coincidental.
The piano keys were used here to draw the line all the way to the bass guitar. I would have preffered a stronger image considerng the piano key idea has been overdone too often in photography, but this was the best shots of the many I took like this.
For this last picture, I turned to the whiteboard and its staf lines to aid me in creating a perspective picture. Originally, I had taken pictures with written notes on the staff, but decided against it. Leaving it blank suggests a theme of improvisation which is a much more appealing picture to me.
