Shapes and Pattern

Another difficult subject! (Anyway, today is Sunday, so I can think harder on what to post and try to tackle subject which is always hard to grasp).

When we learn drawing, we normally start with a pencil, a drawing paper and a cube. We were then asked to re-create the image of the cube on paper. Most of the time we would stare at the subject, then look at the paper, not knowing what to do.

The process of converting an image to paper has difficulty because when we look at the subject, it is a combination of shades, where as the paper is like a glaring light source. The mind has to cover the paper (thus the light) with shapes and shades to recreate the subject on paper - the conversion process is elimination not addition. We are so used to draw something on paper, but have we ever tried to eliminating the light to show the subject. Give it some thought. (Not that I am a good painter or anything, but I once tried this theory on paper and the result was shockingly good, care to try for yourself?) There is a book on "drawing with your left hand upside down" (this is for the right hand user, for the left hand user, it should be named as "drawing with your right hand, but still upside down" or likewise).

How we can use this theory in photo taking. Try to think in terms of light. Light is the number 1 reason of photo taking. Start looking at the scene and ask the first question: How is the light creating the picture? Work hard on it and try asking again and again before just shooting off.

Did I mention that some subject looks difficult but very easy to capture? This subject looks easy, but very difficult to take. I probably took about 6 to come up with the right exposure, right shape, right pattern etc. Is this impressive, you may not think so, but try to enlarge it and imaging this is hung on the wall, I am sure it can attract some attention (haha I am so proud of this weird picture. Now can any one tell me where was it taken?)

To ask the question: What is the light doing here? The light is creating a pattern from the pillar, so I went close to focus on the shapes and shades, the difficult part is how to get both the shadow and highlight with sufficient detail so that neither is blacken or blown out. Ansel Adams is an expert in the zone system, however, in colour, and especially in digital, the exposure latitude is so much narrower, therefore we have to shoot RAW and use software to create the desired result, there is not point and shoot survivability here.

Consider this as an exercise to train your eye to see what the light is doing there. This was taken in national museum of Singapore, this is part of a resting seat. When I saw this, the pattern and light immediately attracts my attention. I shot 2 pictures to exclude some more portion of the seating area. I used software to straighten the vertical line.

After a while, when you encounter a subject like this you will be able to spot it immediately.

Regular reader will now notice that I am quite fond of using colour to represent monochrome, all three pictures here are of only one colour (well almost for the second picture), but with different tone of the same colour. Easy, tough? Neither, as long as we are used to the process of converting 3D image to 2D, eliminate excess light, excess shapes, excess shades, excess subjects, excess composition, excess colour, excess sky, excess ocean. Focus on the subject that you want to tell, shoot with different camera orientation - landscape mode, portrait mode. Keep trying, there is never right or wrong. If in the end, you still struggling, then try to shoot picture of camera like all the hundreds of blog out there which talk about camera but seldom show a picture, even if they show a picture, there was very little discussion on why it was taken, what it tried to tell.

A picture is worth a million words, show a million and one words with 10 pictures, but throw away nine of them. Don't be shy to shoot more, because you may never get the right picture with one shot, unless you are a trained sniper - which I know you did not finish sniper school, so shoot more.