Exercise 5: Composition- Principles

2.3.2017 (Week 5)
Adrian Charles Chee Yew Chen (300666425)
Introduction to Photography

Week 5: Composition- Principles

Lecture:

Mr Vinod began the class by checking everyone's blogs. He checked them one by one and gave each one of us feedbacks based on our own personal work. After that, Mr Vinod proceeded to teach us about the different principles underpinning composition in photography. A few examples are such as:

• Domination/Emphasis
• Isolation
• Balance
• Repetition
• Alignment
• Contrast
• Rhythm
• Symmetry/Asymmetry
• Harmony

After briefly teaching us the basics of these principles, Mr Vinod assigned us a task to go out and capture 4 images which contains at least 1 of the principles. Each picture needs to contain a different principle from the previous. After we have taken the images, we were required to show them to Mr Vinod. Below are the images I captured for the in-class activity.

Contrast

Repetition

Isolation

Alignment 

Symmetry

Mr Vinod ended the class without giving us a take-home exercise. We took the same lift down to SEGi Tower Lobby. Fortunately(or unfortunately), he remembered right before we exited the lobby. He gathered us together at the lobby and informed us that we need to do a take-home exercise similar to the task he gave us during class.

Instructions 

Exercise 4b: Principles underpinning composition

Capture 4 Images adhering to any of the mentioned principles below:

Domination/Emphasis • Isolation • Balance • Repetition • Alignment • Contrast • Rhythm • Symmetry/Asymmetry • Harmony • Perspective

(Put to use what you have learnt in the Zone system exercises here)

Ensure the results are recorded as instructed on MS Word (using tables and the instructed font and font size).

Exercise 4b: Principles underpinning composition

1) Repetition

2) Harmony/Contrast

3) Symmetry

4) Isolation

5) Alignment

Feedback:

There are no feedback yet for this week's exercise.

Reflection:

Experience:

I found this exercise quite interesting. It definitely helps build an individual's interest towards photography. It made me try my hardest to achieve a certain principle related to composition, especially when the subject matter in it's natural appearance does not portray itself to have a certain principle related to composition.

Observations:

While working on this take-home exercise, I noticed that there are many everyday objects which looks plain and ordinary until we find the right angles and perspectives to get the best out of that subject matter. 

Findings:

When I was doing exercise 4b, I found that we need to get out of our comfort zones in order to get the principles underpinning composition. In order to capture a well-composed image with certain specific principles, we must put in effort to look for them and be ready to travel and explore a little bit.