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Picture Composition Analysis and Photo Essay

 

GROUP WORK 1: Picture Composition Analysis and Photo Essay

GROUPS WILL BE ASSIGNED DURING CLASS ON THURSDAY SEPT. 6


ENTIRE PROJECT DUE MONDAY NIGHT, SEPT. 17 THE EVENING BEFORE OUR TUESDAY CLASS.

MEET ON TUESDAY, SEPT. 11

PART 1: Picture Composition Analysis

As a group of three*, go through the approximately 9 photos assigned to your team and choose THREE that are best suited for a full composition analysis (one photo for each member of your team). These professional photographs come from the NYTimes photojournalism blog, The Lens.Choose the three photos that will allow your team to talk through as many of the composition tactics we discussed the previous week. All photographs you choose need to be in color. I’m anticipating that this will take you 2 hours–1 hour with the group and 1 hour for your independent write-up.

*One group will have four members, and so you will need to work wtih FOUR photographs

On Tuesday, in Rod Library, after picking your chosen photos, discuss them as a team. After your group discussion, assign one of the photos to each team member: as an individual team member, your task is to write up and hand in the analysis in your own words but reliant on your team’s input. This assignment will be graded individually, independent of your team.

Together, your group goal is to think about ways the images you have chosen are guided by the “principles of composition,” or not. For example, if the rules of thirds are broken, why and to what effect? Was disunity or discomfort intentional? How is depth suggested? How is space arranged on either side of a human subject? How often and how deliberately are people and objects placed at the margins of the picture so you have to imagine what is cut off? WHY were all these choices made by the person who created this picture? How do these aesthetic choices affect the viewer? OVERALL, HOW IS THIS IMAGE CONSTRUCTED?
This exercise is about aesthetics and the power of the photographer to create emotion and meaning through framing choices alone.

Groups, because we don’t want groups to duplicate photos, please analyze photos from a particular week:

Group 1: —Pictures of the Day: Pakistan and Elsewhere
Group 2: —Pictures of the Day: Jerusalem and Elsewhere
Group 3: —The Lens is Standard, the Photos Anything But.
Group 4: —Pictures of the Day: Somalia and Elsewhere
Group 5: —Joao Silva Looking Back Moving Forward
Group 6: — Pictures of the Day: Tunisia and Elsewhere
Group 7: — Pictures of the Day: Syria and Elsewhere
Group 8: — Pictures of the Day: Israel and Elsewhere

THE key to this analysis is to pick good, rich, colorful, artistic pictures or photos to analyze, pictures with lots of stuff going on (lines, angles, objects, people who are positioned interestingly in the frame). At least one of the photojournalism images you choose has to be in color. Take a long time to pick the right photographs to analyze: The Lens is rich and deep. In other words, you’ll want to look for pictures that have many aesthetic components so you can prove to me that you understand all this stuff. Show that you understand the concepts revolving around:

color, form, line, movement, frame magnetism (pulling power), vectors, rule of thirds….

Helpful keywords to think about:

  • Color (red, blue, etc) as an accent point
  • Frame magnetism
  • Rule of Thirds
  • Powerful Shapes (square, rectangle, circle, triangle)
  • Human figures (as forms)
  • Lines (Verticals, Horizontals, Diagonals, Parallel lines)
  • Line direction
  • Vectors (graphic, index, motion)
  • Motion vectors (Convergence, Divergence, Continuous)
  • Depth (angles, foreground, background)
  • Textures
  • Visual Weight
  • Light and shade (something we didn’t quite get to, but obviously this creates depth)
  • High and low angles, foreground vs. background, lines and vectors
  • headroom given above a person
  • talk space / look space
  • Punctum

WHAT NOT  TO DO:

  • Do NOT attempt to tell the story of the picture or explain what the picture means.  Rather, rely on all the things we discussed in class (clarified, perhaps, by the first 10 pages of the article I sent you) to help us understand the craft behind the image’s emotional impact.
  • Do NOT give me a LIST of descriptions…like take the areas I’ve listed above and go through them methodically, recreating that list in a paragraph. That will make my stomach turn reading it. Please write a well-crafted paragraph almost as if you’re an art critic explaining the photograph in The New Yorker.
  • Do NOT have spelling errors or write crappily.

Please write up your analysis in PARAGRAPH form, along with your chosen image (inserted into the document) and hand in via Blackboard/elearning.  If you have a hard time downloading the picture from the screen, do a screen capture (on PC, “Print Screen” button; on Mac, press Command, Shift and 4 at the same time for an immediate screenshot).

It would be a good idea to situate your pictures and paragraphs in a TABLE format within Word or Google Docs.

Points will be deducted for spelling errors and crappy writing.

MEET ON THURSDAY, SEPT. 13

PART 2: Photo Essay

As a group of three*, your task is to take 22 photographs that mindfully construct images that adhere to the principles of composition. Your job is to make this photo essay thoughtful and imaginative and not just a stupid exercise. You should NOT pose and shoot each other, or your friends. You will be fine with your mobile phone camera; but you are also welcome to check out a “better” camera from the Digital Media Hub in Rod Library. WORK TOGETHER. TAKE TURNS. Your goal is to be proud of the images you have compiled. To do this well, I am estimating that this Photo Essay project will take approximately 4 hours. I will show the best photo essays in class.

*One group will have four members.

Construct each image with the following ideas in mind:

  1. A tactical use of the color red.
  2. A tactical use of the color red juxtaposed with blue (the blue can be blue/gray, like the sky, but not limited to the sky)
  3. A form that is inert in the frame—employing the principles of frame magnetism
  4. A form that is framed with energy and tension (the opposite of inert)—employing the principles of frame magnetism
  5. Two forms positioned within the frame to create tension/disharmony between them
  6. Rule of Thirds (a)
  7. Rule of Thirds (b)
  8. Solidity and stability (square)
  9. Fluidity and continuity (circle)
  10. Energy and direction leading one’s eye out of the frame (triangle) (a)
  11. Energy and direction leading one’s eye out of the frame (triangle) (b)
  12. The calm generated by horizontal lines
  13. A sense of energy and thrust generated by vertical lines
  14. The tension and line direction generated by diagonal lines
  15. Competing horizontal and vertical lines
  16. Dutch angle
  17. High angle
  18. Low angle
  19. Foreground/Background
  20. Graphic vector
  21. Index vector
  22. Motion vector

ENTIRE PROJECT DUE MONDAY NIGHT, SEPT. 17 THE EVENING BEFORE OUR TUESDAY CLASS. WHY MONDAY? BETTINA NEEDS TO REVIEW THE PHOTO ESSAYS SO SHE CAN PICK THE BEST ONES TO SHOW IN CLASS