In the last Practical Assignment, you analysed how visual design was used, arranged, or “composed” with expressive purposes, by means of conscious and/or intuitive decisions made in the field at the moment of exposure.

Now that you have studied your images, you might have found out that your composition could have been refined a bit more by being a bit more selective. Indeed, it is very common to include too many images in the same photograph. As we scan the subject we photograph in the field, we discover interesting additional elements and we add them all in the same composition, thinking that the overall interest of the picture will be higher. Contrary to what we might believe, what we are doing is diluting the overall message and turning the photograph into a visual cacophony. Nothing is innocuous in photography, and if something does not add to the composition, it will automatically subtract from it.

In the last exercise, you have also studied the Visual Distractions in your composition, that you might have included in your frame at the moment of exposure, either consciously or unconsciously.

With this exercise, we are going to try to refine our composition, “à posteriori”, by means of cropping. Obviously, this is an exercise that, if possible, we should make in the field at the moment of exposure, trying to get the final image in camera. However, by doing this exercise later, like you will do now, you will train yourself and learn from the process while improving your final images.

For this PA5, you will practice the exercise of “making photographs into the photographs”, analysing how the final message changes in the process. You will be asked to work the original composition in a convergence process of simplification, concretization, and distillation of the essence of the message.

The idea will be to make at least 3 or 4 different iterations of each of your images, where you force yourself to find “an image within the image” by incrementally cropping the image into something smaller. For each of these iterations, you will be asked to identify the overall message and the emotional connotations, like you did on the PA2, and see how eventually they change throughout the process of composition refinement.  

When reviewing the photographs made in this way, we will surely see a certain Gauss-distribution curve of interest, where the first image(s) are too complicated, weak, and vague. Typically, the first images will be cluttered, with too many elements, too many distractions, and with a too-general message. That message will frequently be a pile of nouns: name of the place, tree, rock, water, boat... etc. The subsequent images made in this process of “photographing into the photograph” will start becoming more “essential” in nature. The message will surely adopt a more metaphorical value, and the list of nouns will turn into a list of adjectives. The visual design will become purer and more refined, the message stronger. As the process of distillation continues and more images are made into the precedent ones, a moment will be reached where the images are not simple anymore, but simplistic. This will be the moment when the message falls apart as we eliminate important elements in the composition. We will know we have gone too far.

This exercise is also great to analyze how we grow and mature as artists. As we increase our experience and develop our intuition, we will surely see how in a very consistent way the strongest image gets closer to the beginning of the series of photographs we made. This does not mean we are not trying different options; it just means we are doing it in the subconscious of our mind, well before we get our camera out of the bag.

MATERIAL YOU SHOULD HAVE STUDIED FOR THIS PA5

In order to carry out this PA, you should have covered the following modules:

Module 6 – Composition with Intent

Module 7 – Composition with Intent – The Videos

Practical Assignment Example (PDF and Video) by Rafael Rojas (below on this page)

MAIN OBJECTIVES:

The main objective for this Practical Assignment will be to analyse how the message and emotional connotations of your images can be made clearer, stronger and more effective by refining the composition.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ASSIGNMENT:

IMPORTANT: For this Practical Assignment, please consider the images as they came out of the camera, with no postprocessing and reframing (cropping) being done to them. If you shot the images in Jpg, then use those jpgs as a starting point. If you photographed them in Raw, then convert them directly to jpg format without applying any post-processing yet. The idea of this Practical Assignment is to analyse whether the composition made in the field was effective, or whether it could have been improved by being more selective. Therefore, this exercise will help us realize whether our decisions when it comes to camera position, framing and choice of focal length, were right or could have been improved.

Make a series of at least 3 or 4 images, by incrementally cropping into the picture (reducing the frame).

There is no need to maintain the same format ratio. In fact, you should select the frame format that in your opinion suits the image the best (square, 4:5, 1:2, 3:2, any format…).

You can work by making virtual copies in Adobe Lightroom, and then cropping incrementally into the image in ways you think still maintain the overall message and mood you wanted for the image. Stop when you think there is no way of cropping more and still maintain an image that makes sense.

Of all those “images-within-the-image”, identify how the overall message, emotional connotations and visual design evolve and get affected.

At the end of the series, choose the tightest “crop” that in your opinion:

• Transmits the best the message and emotions defined for that image in the PA2

• Keeps in the frame the Focal Points analysed for that image in the PA4

• Eliminates as many visual distractions as possible as analysed in the PA4
  
  

This cropped image is the one you will process with global adjustments and local adjustments in the next few Practical Assignments.

In order to complete this Practical Assignment, you will need to work on a PDF document template. You can download this document here.

In terms of how to proceed, for this Assignment you should:

• Fill in the PA5 PDF document for every image of the 10 images selected with your tutor during the PA1.

• The PDF’s can be filled automatically on your computer. You can also attach-embed the corresponding image to each of them. In other words, there is no need to print these files out, fill them by hand or scan them. You can directly do everything digitally on the file itself. To do so, you might need to download the file, save it to your computer and then open it with Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• Save the filled-in PDF files, by giving the file name: “yourname_yoursurname_PA5_number 1 to 10”

• Send the 10 files via email to info@essentialseeing.com. If the files are too heavy, please use the free service www.swisstransfer.com or www.wetransfer.com.

• Your tutor will review your Practical Assignment and produce a Video Assessment review, giving you personalized feedback and guidance. This video will be posted below on this website page.

• You will be notified when your Video Assessment is ready for you to review.

• You can also check the Assignments posted by other students and the corresponding Assessments. Like this, you can learn from each other.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate and contact your tutor.

We are looking forward to reviewing your submissions!

PA5 BY RAFAEL ROJAS

STUDENTS’ ASSESSMENTS