Letter to the Past

Dear past self,

You're about to take photography. Walking into this class, you've had no experience with photoshop, compositional structures, or taking conceptual images. The good news is, within just a couple weeks, you'll have a good idea on how to use these tools to get very improved photo compositions. You will want to manage your time wisely, so you should allow yourself time to come up with unique ideas and get started on them early enough to complete a project to its full potential. Experiment with and take advantage of the different features of photoshop to edit during class time. If you are stuck on ideas for an assignment, just take pictures of one idea to start off and then let that transform into something different. There are many resources in class and there are subjects all around to use for your photography, just keep your eyes open to them.

The composition below is a triptych. The requirements for this assignment were to place three separate yet related images together into one. As you can see, the three images were taken at the same place and all include orange pumpkins and corn stalks. In the middle is the odd image out, as there are several pumpkins together, taking up about a third of the photo. This creates a nice balance, because if the middle image was on the side, the visual weight of the pumpkins would lay strongly to the side, creating an empty feeling on the side with the single pumpkins. An addition to this triptych that can be seen is the green border. The green matches a color found within the pictures, tying it in nicely. The thickness as well as the muted and darkened color of the border help to separate the three images, so that the bright orange and lighter tones of the images aren't overwhelming. The contrast and almost opposite colors of the green and orange also help the pumpkins to really stand out. If something were to be changed about this piece, it would be to have the sky also appear at the top of the first image like it is in the other two. The third image also has a very light ground at the bottom. Some more white coming from the sky and ground of the first image would have further balanced the composition.

Good luck in the new school year!
                 
Sincerely,

Yourself