Change your viewpoint

Smokin

Last week I wrote a post about, “the rule of thirds” and it’s rule of photographic composition.  There are many rules to basic composition, but one of my favorites has to be, “changing your viewpoint”.   Changing your viewpoint can make an ordinary photo interesting.  One of the assignments I give to my online students is taking a photo of  still object from different points of view.  The purpose of the assignment is to demonstrate how something as simple as a statue can all of the sudden become much more interesting just by changing the viewpoint.  Point of view can be changed simply by shooting from below or above,  closer or farther, or by changing your lens (possibly a wide angle).   Keep in mind when you’re changing your point of view that’s it’s key to remember the relationship the subject has to the frame.  In the picture above, our eyes are first drawn to the end of the cigar in bottom left corner and then we follow it back into the store as our eyes drift back and to the right.   Changing your viewpoint can be a very effective composition tool in creating a more compelling photo.  Michael Freeman, wrote a wonderful book named, “The Photograher’s Eye”.  I strongly recommed it for those of you looking to hone your photography skills.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 5:00 am. It is filed under Classes, composition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.