Community Practice 1: Lines

[Saknika]

End Date: August 1st 2009

To kick off the community practices, we're going to start with something simple but effective: Lines.

How do you use lines in a photo? Think about this the next time you're out shooting. Lines are great for leading the eye to an object, or when an object is breaking them up so that you want to focus on your subject.

With this community practice, show us a relatively new photo where you use lines, or take something brand new to show us. Post it in this thread, and receive feedback on it. If you post a photo in here, please be sure to comment on at least one other photo. After you've received feedback, if you want to reshoot the image, or try a new one, and show us your improvement, you may post again.

This should be great as an exercise and for feedback. Have fun with it, and no pressure. No one expects perfection.

I will start us off with an image I have done that contains lines:


Camera: NIKON D200
Shutter Speed: 30/1 second
Aperture: F/8.0
ISO Speed: 100
Date Picture Taken: Jun 23, 2009, 4:27:18 PM

[comicIDIOT]

I'll enter this in a few weeks or less. I want to take a fresh image directly from Maine!

[comicIDIOT]

This is where I said I'd enter in a few weeks. I some how led myself to believe - with a passion - I had posted this under the Contest area.


Camera: Canon 400D
Shutter Speed: 1/100 second
Aperture: F/7.1
ISO Speed: 100
Date Picture Taken: Jul 11, 2009, 02:08:16 PM

[midnightmystery]

Here's my practice with lines.
Camera: Kodak Easy Share M1063
Shutter Speed: 1/249 second
F Number: F/5.5
Focal Length: 6 mm
ISO Speed: 64
Date Picture Taken: Jul 18, 2009, 3:24:14 PM

I'm not quite sure on everything about this photo. I'm not all savvy with the lingo yet. ^^;;

[j10asen]

Ok remember everything is relative including age. Soon to an antique would be less than 100 years. So bearin that in mind I fopund this old shot taken with a 3mm camera using black and white film probably asa 100. I scanned it but I do not want to take the time to look up the negative to confim the film type.
Here is my "lines" photo from the past
I did my own film processing on tis as well. That developer\stop bath \fixer stunk!!!!!
I amI have a digital camera.

[Saknika]

ComicIDIOT
Good use of lines, they both frame the image and they also go across the cows in the background. Be careful of your detail though, some is lost to black and it's borderline on too much. Your biggest problem though is that the lines and the background are competing. Even though it's out of focus, your eye still wants to see what lies behind. Sometimes this can be good, however in your case because the cows are so out of focus I think it's not an asset.

MidnightMystery
You got the idea with lines. Not only do you have the vertical ones with the tree and the fence, but the fence itself is a horizontal line that leads to the tree. The tree breaks up the line, causing attention to focus on it as you wanted. The branches are just an added bonus, since they point skyward and work really well in your favour.

The angle on this is good as well, since it's at a unique viewpoint. If you had a manual camera, I'd say that next time you should work on depth of field, which is where you use selective focus. Some day you will have this ability, I'm sure of it. You sort of can with the macro function on those cameras.

One thing I will say is to try upping the contrast and vibrancy a bit, or seeing what it looks like in black and white. Black and white really helps to bring out the basic elements of a photograph, and can be an enhancer to many things.

J10ason
I have to ask if you actually took this shot, or simply found the negative and processed it. It's not quite clear in your post.

[comicIDIOT]

Jul 20, 2009 18:42:28 GMT -5 j10asen said:

I did my own film processing on tis as well.

Ya know, on my second pass over, I believe he took this photo now.

[j10asen]

[quote author=admin board=community thread=12 post=402 J10ason
I have to ask if you actually took this shot, or simply found the negative and processed it. It's not quite clear in your post.[/quote]
I am not sure why you would ask that but I would not publish a photo that I did not take myself. When I bought a scanner with tranparency capabilities I looked into my archive and found this shot. Back in those days I was just learing how to process in print black and white photograhy. I have more of this stuff, I just need to time to scan it all in.
a side note, I had some shots of my children that did not turn out well and were full of dust specs, Photoshop removed those blemishs very nicely.
Another reason digital photography is awesome.

[comicIDIOT]

Jul 20, 2009 20:33:04 GMT -5 j10asen said:

[quote author=admin board=community thread=12 post=402 J10ason
I have to ask if you actually took this shot, or simply found the negative and processed it. It's not quite clear in your post.

I am not sure why you would ask that but I would not publish a photo that I did not take myself. When I bought a scanner with tranparency capabilities I looked into my archive and found this shot. Back in those days I was just learing how to process in print black and white photograhy. I have more of this stuff, I just need to time to scan it all in.
a side note, I had some shots of my children that did not turn out well and were full of dust specs, Photoshop removed those blemishs very nicely.
Another reason digital photography is awesome.[/quote]Awesome. I was a bit skeptical because I did not clearly read that you had the first time through. I contacted Saknika and asked her to look into. When I had more time I reread your post and found the key sentence quoted in my post above

Sorry about the confusion!

[Saknika]

Yeah, I'm sorry I had to ask. I just wasn't 100% sure, so I figured it was safer to ask then to assume.

Anyways, I love the lines in the photo. Not only do they lead up, but they lead away; and because composition dictates you read from top left to bottom right, it makes for EXCELLENT composition. The lines make this photo. The exposure in camera was off though, so that is a problem. The blacks have lost a lot of detail that would otherwise help and enhance your image.