Elements of design assignment 2: points in shape

Image 8: Seedlings

Lens 70-200mm at 155mm with close up lens: Iso 400 f10 at 1/3oth (tripod)

I planted some rocket and salad seeds in a seed tray and took some photographs of the seedlings from various viewpoints.

A group of the seedlings had sprouted in this semicircular shape and I took this photograph from above with the camera on a tripod. At f10 the depth of field kept the leaves sharp but the compost below is blurred.

The compositional adjustments I made were to:-

• rotate the picture a few degrees clockwise. In the original photograph the two end leaves were equidistant from the edge of the frame, which made the picture seem quite static.
• crop the top and right hand edge of the frame to exclude some other leaves. Whilst the other leaves had sprouted unusually in a square shape, I thought that a simple composition would be better.

Image 9: Tulips at Castle Gardens

Lens 18-70mm at 70mm: Iso 160 f8 at 1/125th

The tulips were planted in a flower bed on a sloping bank which separates the flowers vertically as well as horizontally. I took a number of photographs in the morning when the sun was behind the plants, the translucent petals and leaves contrasting with the dark ground tone.

This picture was cropped from a larger picture of about seventeen flowers. There were two groupings of blooms which formed definable shapes, this one in an elongated diamond shape stretching from bottom left to top right. The other group were in a square shape with three blooms across the top with two or three flowers vertically below the end blooms. I chose this composition as the eye seems drawn along and around the array of flowers. The square shape did not draw the eye as much and the image had less impact as a result.