In Studio - Notes, Handout & Task: Frame

Highlighted handout:

In studio question & notes:

How can we place importance on certain information within the frame?

Effectively applying size and placement to the elements within the image

What are the benefits of overlapping objects in your composition and how is this best achieved?

Creates interest within the composition and helps express what is going on more directly. Arrange elements so that identifying characteristics of each one are not completely obscured.

What role does the frame play in composing visual information within your image?

The frame acts as a "cropping" tool to focus the audience on certain centres of interest, and minimise area in which to help with overlapping compositional elements within the image. Large frame = more space and less chance of overlapping if spreading elements out, and visa versa.

In studio critical task:

My attempt to critically deconstruct the image with particular focus on the following composition considerations:

- Arrangement and overlapping of objects

- Cropping/ use of frame

- Foreground, mid-ground, background

Hokusai

In this image, the use of layering helps give a sense of scale and location and also the cropping/frame centres the audiences focus on the camper despite the arrangement not being completely linear. This creates an interesting/pleasing/balanced composition.

Foreground: Camper

Mid-ground: Trees (also act as a second "frame")

Background: Sky/hole through background trees

Ella KooKoo

Cropping and frame has been used in this composition to help draw attention to the main characters in the foreground, but still fill the frame with information. Layering elements in the foreground, mid-ground and background, helps create the idea of depth, despite the possible sense of over-crowding?

Foreground: Seagull and fishermen

Mid-ground: Man with yellow hat

Background: Buildings and sky

Antony Zinos

The clever use of placement within this image helps to create the sense of isolation, sparse space and emphasise that the central character is alone. Adding the overlapping characters in the top right hand corner adds interest, depth and narrative.

Laura Callaghan

This image has been cropped so much that it is difficult for the audience to focus on anything more that the main 3 character elements that fit perfectly within the frame. Here layering and staggering these central elements against the background, helps to give a sense of space, 3D depth and perspective whilst keeping all of the key information as visible as possible. Each character almost represents a compositional element itself - laid out perfectly:

Foreground: Girl with brown hair, pink top. - Largest key element

Mid-ground: Girl with dark hair and blue top - Middle sized key element

Background: Girl with dark hair red & pink top - Smallest key element

Matt Taylor

In this image the frame really helps give the audience a sense of scale and hight whilst also keeping enough space to create an isolated atmosphere. It helps to tell the story and these factors are also emphasised by minimal overlapping of intricate key features in the image.

Mark Herald

Within this image, there is a key sense of separation between the foreground and background created by the sizing of the key elements. The foreground elements alone, take up a large amount of the frame and are large in size themselves - dominating the focus, whilst the background gradually disappears remaining in the background and takes up only 1/4 of the frame. The main foreground elements are clear and do not overlap, sharing equal focus.

Marc Aspinall

Clever use of cropping and frame. Despite the central focus being on the left side of the image, the overall image is still balanced and framed by the faint appearance of clouds in the top and bottom right corners. The arrangement of these elements helps tell the story of hight, space, the "unknown". No real use of foreground, mid-ground and background.

********

Rule of Thirds

I have been taught the rule of thirds concept a long time ago, however never really thought of applying it to my own practice since beginning uni. Learning about it again in this weeks session has been really interesting and has taught me to be more mindful about the central focus and arrangement of the key elements within my own images. It has also caused me to look at other peoples images, photography and even film a lot more closely to see if the "hotspots" element of composition has been applied. 

Rule of thirds is essentially a method used to enhance the visual strength of your image. Dividing the image into a grid of 9 equal parts/squares using horizontal and vertical bars helps to create central areas of interest - the points where the lines meet become visual ‘hotspots’.  

Images which use the rule of thirds approach tend to be more pleasing to the eye. Naturally the human eye seems to appreciate balance and symmetry as apposed to centralising key single elements which cause division. The rule of thirds concept allows for symmetry and balance between the central focus and background.