Art of Photography: Assignment 1 - Long/Short

For this category I chose to focus on trees. Mainly because whilst I was out and about a little while ago I spotted a really tall tree and wanted to try and shoot it from a very low angle to create an interesting image. So that became my idea for the 'long' photograph.

For the 'short' photograph I tried to think of the other extreme, a very short tree, so I decided to try and capture a bonsai tree next to something else which would exaggerate how small it was.

Unfortunately I am not too happy with how this category turned out. Whilst trying to photograph the tall tree from a very low viewpoint I did find some very interesting angles, but I felt that as I was photographing the length of the tree the branches became too compact and ended up being quite messy and distracting in the composition. I eventually used another angle which was still very low to the ground but slightly further away. I lined the tree up with another couple in the distance to exaggerate how tall it was. I also cropped the image to be taller and again exaggerate how tall the tree was. I was then quite happy with this picture overall as the sky was good and I got a good exposure on the image. However it wasn't an unusual angle and composition as I set out to achieve.

As for the 'short' image, I originally planned to photograph it next to a person as I felt it would more easily show how small it was. I tried this but wasn't happy with the results. I then thought about photographing it in front of another tree trunk, with the trunk out of focus. I thought this might maintain the tree theme and show how small the bonsai was at the same time. The result was slightly better but I still wasn't pleased with it. On both cases I found it hard to show a lot of detail and interest in the bonsai tree. As it was quite small and I needed to photograph from a distance to included the larger subject as well, the bonsai kept looking messy and lacking any detail or definition. And if I tried to focus on more detail of the bonsai I couldn't included enough of the background to make the bonsai look small.

So overall neither of the images for this category turned out like I had imagined, but I was still pleased with the 'long' image at least.

Long


Image taken at f/11, 1/30 sec, ISO-100, 18mm.

Short


Image taken at f/2.8, 1/50 sec, ISO-400, 100mm.