Blog 1: Composition

 Composition 

The Shell Jar

For my theme, I decided to focus on my jar of seashells in a mason jar. I particularly like this object because of the way the glass reflects various colors of light to the eye. I also thought choosing an object with an interesting shape might work for better compositional aspects as I could play around with different angles to help "work the shot". I thought The blue sky in the background through my window was a good accent detail to the jar which incorporated the colors of the ocean (the beige of the shells,  the whitewash of the windowpane, and the ocean colored sky). I chose a simplistic location (my windowsill) to bring in enough natural light to detail the object enough to please the eye but not distract the foreground or background. 

Compositional elements included:

-Background

-Framing 

-Rule of thirds/balancing 

1) Background

In this picture, my use of an unobtrusive background helped to create the foreground of the jar as a focal point, the eye is not directly drawn to the window pane. The soft coloring of the background with natural colors also helped to flatten the background which helped to create an efficient, clean backdrop for the jar. 

2) Framing 

In this picture, the natural edges of the wall and window frame corner helped to create a natural frame around the jar which made it the isolated main object/focus of the image. The natural frame also helped to create depth of the foreground before the jar through the three specific edges which look as if they are pointing towards the jar.

3) Rule of thirds/ balancing 

In this picture, I felt as if there was an effective balance between each third of the image between the jar, the pane, and the sky. The negative space of the sky created more of a visual weight towards the jar which also balanced the detail of the glass as well as the texture of the window pane. The weight was also created by the objects of lesser importance to fill the space (the buildings in the back/flags). 

Three more photographs for the photocards assignment: