Composition

Theme

For me, deciding on a theme for this assignment was harder than I thought it was going to be. I was never the creative type when I was growing up, so it took some time for me to officially pick my subject.

I decided to go with street signs on campus. Of course, there is no shortage of these on campus, and they are all in different places with different directions and different backgrounds. 

Signs aren't necessarily the most interesting subject, but I think that they are most definitely very common. We see them and use them everyday but don't always acknowledge them other than following their rules.  

I wanted to showcase their importance while also showing how they can make an engaging subject. 

Working the Shot

The first shot I wanted to showcase was a shot with DEPTH.  

I understood depth as showing the subject in the center of the shot, but also showing the background that surrounds it. This sign shows a bright color, so I liked how it stuck out from the other more muted colors around it. 

I wanted to clearly show "objects in the foreground, middle ground and background" (PhotographyMad, ND) so that the viewer would clearly know what composition technique I was trying to use. 

I also liked the pattern on the ground that the bricks make up. You see those small lines that lead your eyes to the main subject, and once you notice the sign, then you look around and see the rest of the shot that surrounds it. 

Another shot I took was showing NEGATIVE SPACE. 

I liked the way that the sky looked when I took these photos, so negative space was a shot that I wanted to get. Given that my subject may not be the most interesting, I wanted to show a negative space because it is "far more dramatic" (Bray, 2011) and if I could make it look dramatic, maybe it would become more interesting. 

This particular sign was difficult to get negative space for because there was so much in the background, so I felt like the only way I could negative space was by getting below the shot and facing up.

Now I understand that there is still intrusions in this photo, so should I take it again I would definitely find a better angle to take this photo that would only show the subject and the sky. 

The final shot that I wanted to show was BALANCING. 

As this sign was up on a post, I thought that it would be cool to balance it with one of the trees in the background that mirrored the look of the sign. I thought that the tree would be the correct "visual weight" (PhotographyMad, ND) that I needed to balance out the sign.

It was sort of against a brown brick wall in the background, and the post of this sign is up against the brown-ish pine needles on the ground.

And also, the top of each subject is up against the sky. The contrast of the brown below and the blue/grey above was interesting and very compelling to me.

I did enjoy taking these photos, and of course there are some aspects of them I wish I could change, like the level-ness of some of the pictures. The cars in the background weren't ideal, but since I'm working with road signs, maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing to include the road and cars. 

Final Three