Contrasts - part 5

For the "few" characteristic, I was looking for a small number of items in a large empty space. I envisaged a wide angle shot to emphasize the empty space. I was thinking of almost deserted streets, an empty beach or a marina. Following some stormy weather, the beach was quiet. It was the tracks of footprints which seemed to epitomize the emptiness:-

I moved my vantage point from side to side to place the footprints on a left to right diagonal and a right to left diagonal. However, I preferred the vantage point in between the tracks of the footprints. Also, the sun came out to darken the shadows in the footprints so that they were more clearly defined. I thought it was necessary to include the headland and building at the far end of the beach as a point of interest where the footprints converged. There are also a couple of tiny figures on the beach in the distance.

I had thought of using plants blowing in the wind as a possible subject to show "moving" character. Just before we left there were some decorative grasses in the gardens which were being blown around backlit by the sun. I had hoped to find a vantage point with a plain background but was unsuccessful in this. The best I could find was a position where the background buildings were relatively dark. I took a sequence of photographs at different speeds. The one I preferred had some grasses reasonably sharp whereas others are blurred:-

In Abu Dhabi our friends lived in a bungalow at a marina. The area was full of boats and boat yards. On the first evening, I found that they were building a traditional wooden sailing boat in a boat yard nearby. The wooden hull was held in place by wooden props. Getting close with the lens at wide angle gave some reasonably dramatic pictures:-

The vertical frame appeared to me first and I moved from side to side so that the props were located as prominent upward diagonals in the frame. The standard photo frame appears to be taller than usual. Possibly, this is because the boats hull only just fits within the confines of the standard frame.

I was aiming for a similar effect with a horizontal frame shape. The impact of the diagonals is less dramatic, but the impact of the lines and shapes remains strong.

Just around the corner there was a small team working underneath an enormous Arab Dhow. I was looking for something "large" whose size could be gauged by some point of reference in the frame. The light clothes of the workmen against the dark underside of the boat provided such a reference:-

The boats hull is covered in scaffolding which I thought initially would detract from the subject of the picture However, I think that the complexity of this framework that conceals the boat underneath allows the viewer to puzzle over what exactly is under there and also invites the viewer to linger on the details.