Was just looking through some of my past photographs from numerous trips to Cotswold Wildlife Park and Snelsmore and Greenham commons, and I couldn't help but notice that some of the best shots were those which were of just a few details, not the entire subject (for example, a leaf rather than the whole tree). And so, I thought I'd just share a few of these with y'all and say why I think they're better than a full shot might have been :) there's also a few where I'll show you how details can add interest to a set of images.
Quite a long post this one :L so, as always, thanks for reading my tiresome ramblings!!
On my right, a close-up of a leaf from some type of palm, on my left... well, obviously shattered glass, actually this was from when my dad decided to smash a brand-new French window (the lawnmower threw a stone at it while he was cutting the grass - :L). Anyway, again these are just simple close-ups, with very little editing done - I upped the contrast on the glass to highlight all the lovely lines in it and made the leaf more vibrant :). I think the yellow speckling on the leaves looks really good, something that would have been lost if I'd shot the whole leaf. Also, the paving behind the glass gives a nice little bit of background variation - again, something I would have lost with a wider shot.
Here, I just stuffed my favourite handbag with all the pencils and pens I could find and took a few snaps. This was actually for one of my GCSE projects and I needed something a little unconventional - my other idea was putting my teddy in the dishwasher and flowers in my saxophone :L. This needed very little just tweaking the colours and contrast. I cannot remember where I took the right image, but I thought the stone mini totem-poles were rather amusing. A close-up shot adds detail here - to fit them all in would require quite a distance and you wouldn't be able to pick out the different expressions as well.
Another GCSE project here. Borrowed my mother's vast collection of Prinknash Pottery and arranged them. The left shows pots which are the same - by zoming in this detail can be shown less obviously which in many cases is more interesting. Anyhow, one of them had £££ (ok, 1p, 2p and 5p coins) in it, so the right is my results! I think it's better when photographing things like money to be able to see the different values - easy solution? Zoom in!!!!
The swirly black ridges (top left) are shot through glass at the Natural History Museum in London, it's a coal formation. Pretty cool! Shooting through glass is often troublesome because of reflections, lights, fingerprints etc etc. Getting as close to the glass as possible is a good way to avoid much of these problems, as is avoiding flash wherever possible. I like the stark contrast here - I made it black and white as it was slightly brownish and I wanted to enhance the contrast as much as I could. Top right and bottom left are the parts of flowers that hang over the edges of the pot - this can sometimes work as you see what it is but avoid the boring just-another-flower-in-a-pot type picture, so your work is more original - always a plus!! As I mentioned above, one of my ideas for my GCSE project was putting flowers n my saxophone - and here is one of the images!! The flowers dominate and create a really colourful image, but you can still see the saxophone so it's nice and quirky once you work out what it is :) it's not my best, but there you go. You can't always be perfect!. For these three I just made it a bit brighter and a tad more saturated so the colours stood out but weren't glaring. Another thing about close-ups - the camera will often automatically focus on the details, or you can manually adjust them with the depth of field and macro settings. This gives your image a clear subject and also can blur out any unwantd background, i.e. making a stray piece of litter unrecognisable.
Three guesses what this is. Some of my friends suggested scaffolding, a crane, and one of those geo-mag thingies. All wrong. It's the Eiffel Tower. If you want to make a pic more abstract, zooming in until it's almost impossible to tell what it is is one way around it. However, I wouldn't do it to the point where it is completely non-discernible (as some of my friends found this one) because you lose the point. I didn't edit this one but I think it doesn't need much anyway to be honest.
Sorry for boring you all to death with this :L any ideas for a photo-shoot project? The weather's warming up enough now for me to go out without gloves on so let's have your suggestions!!
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