So I started another course at Metro. This course is entitled Creative Design in Photography and covers various elements of design as they apply to photography. Our first assignment was to produce 3 images that show strong use of lines. There are many different types of lines - straight, diagonal, parallel, horizontal, spiral, convergent, etc. Each type of line can convey different feelings or emotions depending on how they are arranged. I had several ideas for this assignment and of course as soon as you start to look for lines you start to see them everywhere. I finally decided on the following three images:
The first image I took in the River Valley near the Valley zoo. It was a birch tree that had a very interesting pattern and an almost perfectly straight line running across it. There were also lines in the dark part of the bark as well as lines created by the shadows of the trees behind me.
The second image was a still life entitled "Bachelor Fine Dining" I played around with this one quite a bit but finally settled on this one because I felt that I was able to capture the correct color without blowing out the hilites on the fork and knife.
The third image happened accidentally. I had actually been shooting three books stacked one on another. As I was putting the books back on the shelf, I happened to flip over this copy of East of Eden and realized that the pages of the book formed some very interesting lines as they were rough cut instead of the nice smooth edge you normally found on a book. I flipped the book on edge and snapped away resulting in the third image.
Based on feedback I received in class, my instructor thought that the image of the book would have been just a bit stronger if it had been turned forward slightly so that you could see the back of the book. Anytime you have text the eye is drawn to it and the view wants to see more. The shadow cast on the bottom bothered me at first but some people found that it added another great line to the image and gave a sense of depth. Another comment from Chantal was that she would have liked to seen more separation between the book and the background as it tends to just look like a book floating in space. If I had added some light or overexposed the shot by a about a 1/2 stop, I probably could have revealed more of the background.
Overall it was a great exercise and now I can't stop looking at lines everywhere I go. Next assignment - color.
