THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EYE

chapter 13 Places
s you progress from
"things" to "places," the
number of variables you
must control will increase. Now, in
addition to placing your subject
carefully within the frame and worrying
about the effect of light and
shadow on it, you have to pay attention
to all kinds of potential complications
and distractions. People,
animals, cars, trucks and weather can
get in your way just as you're about
to click the shutter. Buildings, trees
and telephone poles can make it impossible
for you get the composition
you want.
In addition, you'll have to be very
concerned with perspective: should
you be close to a building or far
away? How big should a tree look
next to the building? How much sky
should be included? Should you crop
in on a small part of the scene or try
to fit it all into the frame? Meanwhile,
your subject is likely to be
changing all the time. If you think
too long, it may no longer be worth
the bother. If you get impatient, you
may miss out on a new and unexpected
opportunity.
There are other challenges as well.
For example, if your subject has any
moving parts (people, animals,
machines, running water, trees in the
wind, etc.), long exposures will produce
blurs. This means that you will
Student photograph by Debbie Taggart.
either have to stick to fast shutter
speeds or learn to like the blurs.
Lighting will become more complicated
as you enlarge your field of
view from particular objects to
general scenes. While you will still
need to pay particular attention to
how the light affects your primary
subject, its affect on the surrounding
environment will be important as
well.
You will also begin to face the
challenge of dealing with people. If
you're photographing a crowd, you
may not be aware of all the individual
people in it. They, however, may be
very aware of you. Some of them
may prefer not to be in your photograph.
For the assignments in this
section, you should be able to avoid
this problem either by leaving people
out of your photographs or by asking
permission in advance (e.g. for
the "Construction Site" exercise).
However, if you feel that some advice
on photographing people is appropriate
at this stage, you might
want to read the introduction to the
"people" category of exercises.
Overall, controlling composition is
the greatest challenge you'll face as
you begin photographing places. It's
Places 167