Relationship between points - library photographs

I have two library photographs that I wanted to revisit in relation to this exercise.

Image 1: Desert survival

In October last year, I entered this picture into a Guildford Photosoc internal competition. The judge of the competition commented that he thought that the picture should be cropped to include only the area around the green plant.

I think that I now understand better why he made this comment. The plant shadows in the sand are too many and too random to make a pleasing pattern. Also, the horizontal frame does not accentuate the top to bottom ripples in the sand. I have accordingly tried cropping this photograph to create a stronger and more interesting image.

Desert survival - revised

The reasons for this selection were as follows:

- I chose to place the green plant in the top right of the frame so that its shadow stretches towards the far corner.

- I cropped the frame to a more vertical shape to accentuate the ripples in the sand.

- I retained two of the other plant shadows but placed these at a similar distance from the edge of the picture at the top and bottom.

I debated whether to include one or two more plant clumps to create a square or polygonal shape, but I decided to stick to the triangular spots.

Image 2: Masked face

I took this photograph at an short photography course at West Dean College which included two sessions with a model to gain familiarity with the camera controls. I had not looked at the print of this photograph since then, so it was interesting to view this again. The print is cropped just below the nose and it is true that the photograph is difficult to look at close to. The eye moves back and forth from one eye hole to the other.