A study in Mono

[Almark]

Everyone needs a project, from time to time, just to get out and take some photos....

So: I gave myself a project to consider; windows, light and shadows.

I went to the Ulster Folk Mueseum, Cultra, Northern Ireland.

(Updated following advice below)

http://www.markallenphotography.co.uk/mark...eries/mono2.exe

Best regards

Mark

[Barry Beckham]

Mark

A really nice idea, but you have lost all the composition of your images, by placing largely dark images onto a black background. We see the edges of the images in some places and not other which affects the charm and flow of the show.

The background needs to be black given the subject, so I think it is essential you pick out these images in some way. A perfect subject for that thin white, or grey line.

[davegee]

I agree with Barry - if it were in the centre of the screen with a white line all around and blank space top, bottom and sides it would be superb.

I have shied away from mixing portrait and landscape in shows because of the difficulties it presents when having to use the white line.

DaveG

[Almark]

Good point, I will go now and fix it with a small white stroke and update it. Thanks for the feedback.

That's one of the problems with working on a bright laptop, in the dark, at 2 am ;-)

[Almark]

Hmm, I'm not sure about this now. I have added a white line, but as each photo was cropped for (what I thought was the best) composition, they do not flow well from one image to the next as they are all slightly different sizes. I suppose I could adjust each of the portrait images to that they are the same pixel size - although this will distort them somewhat. Of course this wouldn't help the square-ish images in there!

All feedback, ideas and suggestions are most welcome.

[davegee]

A lot of people I know in the AV world will not shoot anything but Landscape and crop to the same aspect ratio as their camera for the reasons that you have found.

DaveG

[Almark]

DavyG

I can see the need to plan ahead and think about the AV before and during a photo shoot. Like many folk, I liked these images and thought an AV would be a good way to present them. On reflection a simple web gallery may be a better way.

http://www.markallenphotography.co.uk/mark...ortfoliobw.html

[Almark]

Thanks to David Roberts for suggesting a collage approach. I'm not sure if it works, new version below (6MB). All feedback welcome.

http://www.markallenphotography.co.uk/mark...eries/mono2.exe

[JEB]

Hi Folks,

I am not I’m not considered to be trying to teach my Granny to suck eggs but this is a topic that is close to my heart. So please Mark do not take this as any criticism of your work it is certainly not meant to be that - its just me high jacking your topic!

Ever since I came into this wonderful world of AV a few years ago I have heard many people getting excited about the mixing of different aspect ratios. However I don’t subscribe to the view that it is taboo, far from it, there are many examples out there of how well this can be handled – carefully!

Barry Beckham has many superb illustrations well worth having a look at.

For what its worth, I think it is MOST important to keep the number of changes to a minimum and ALSO to make them match as closely to each other as possible. In other words get as many landscapes together as possible then portraits in a batch before moving back to landscape if you have to. It’s just another factor to be considered when putting your images into order and it just may not be possible. I also think a slow fade works best.

I have put a short sequence together folks may wish to have a look at, which I hope illustrates some of the issues and how they may be handled. At the end of the day it’s all down to personal choice and some images will lend themselves to this treatment while others will not.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?yiuzmkvhv2j

Regards

John

[Almark]

Thank you John, for your feedback. That's a useful AV, thank you

I have updated the AV

http://www.markallenphotography.co.uk/mark...eries/mono2.exe

[Almark]

Updated again, feedback is most welcome. I have cropped some images to get lines coming / going from the corners. (6MB) 2 Minutes 31 seconds.

http://www.markallenphotography.co.uk/mark...eries/mono2.exe

[jfa]

Mark I get a 404 Not Found error when I click on your link--

http://www.markallenphotography.co.uk/mark...eries/mono2.exe

[Almark]

Oops,

link updated, it must have got truncated

http://www.markallenphotography.co.uk/mark...eries/mono2.exe

[Almark]

Oops, I forgot to add this info earlier. I was aiming to get as many lines as I could into the corners. This was one of the aims of the project, in an exercise in composition.

If you carefully examine each image you will see that at least one line will always emerge from a corner. In some cases I have been able to get two and three lines to work.

I got the inspiration from George Barr

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/next-level.shtml

http://www.georgebarr.blogspot.com/

While I do not think that lines into / from corners is the 'be all and end all' of composition, it certainly does explain why some images work, while others don't. It was, for me , a worthwhile exercise in photography. I hope that by viewing this AV you will think about lines and corners!