I’ve been working on processing the photos from the cosplay meetup I went to and was wondering about your guys opinion on some of them. Anyone have any thoughts on how I should have approached composition at this location with this concept?
This was a historical manor where the surrounding fields were open to walk around like a public park. This was from a courtyard overlooking a lower level field, and farther in the distance is a deep river that separates where the manor is from a historical downtown area in the distance.
Establishing shots of the shooting location (3 pictures)
It’s a courtyard, and behind the person is a fence with two stairs on either side that leads down to a lower coutyard. And off in the distance is a town across the river. The shot of the town is from a little later, after some cool fog has drifted in and the sun a bit lower.
I took some shots as she faced away from me, and I was trying to get one of those kinds of shots where she’s looking in the distance at the town. And I’m not completely satisfied with that I got, but I’m also not 100% sure with what I should have done differently.
These are some of the variations I settled on out of the shots I got (after some cropping and editing):
Anyone have any thoughts on what I could have done differently? One thing I’ve realized is that I could have tried getting more of the town in the shot by raising my camera. The hedges are blocking the view of the town, so you can’t get a sense of what she’s actually looking at. But I’m also wondering if maybe the sky is too empty to try to make it a main element of the composition? I was toying with trying to balance her presence on the ground, the town in the distance, and the open sky above. But it doesn’t feel quite right.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a mail-in (digital) camera repair company? I guess local ones don’t exist anymore in most places, and the manufacturer of my camera (Canon) gave me an outrageous estimate that’s nearly the original price of my camera. (I used their repair service a few years ago with a different camera and it was much more reasonable then.)
Of your final shots I think the last is the weakest as your main subject is getting a little lost and those trees sort of pull the eye toward themselves too much. I think that picture might actually work better without a person in it at all, but not necessarily in the vein of an establishing shot for a cosplay set.
I think the vertically composed shot accomplishes what you were going for (or what I think you were) the best, I like also that the stone path leads the viewer into the composition. Though the closest-up shot does reward the viewer’s attention with a lot of nice details like ironwork on the fence. When I realized it was musical notes it really changed the whole vibe. Less moody, more whimsical, almost? Like it went from anime to fairy tale. (I think the cosplayer is dressed as Saber from the Fate series yeah?)
In the remaining final shot I feel like you lose both the small interesting details and the grander sense of scale from the vertical shot. It’s not bad but I feel like the other two just grab me more.
The sky wasn’t doing you too many favors compositionally IMHO so I would have in general tried to have less of it. Also my gut instinct on the courtyard shot was to have the circle kissing the edges of the frame
But overall not a bad go of it. I will offer the one piece of blanket advice that I always give which is try not to take all your shots from your natural eye level. Unless you’re exceptionally tall or short, I suppose.
Thanks for all of the advice. That painting is pretty much the idea of what I wanted to go for but wasn’t really sure how to actually do in the moment. I’ve been thinking I probably need to just spend more time studying composition from photographs and paintings more, and to try recreating them in my own time for practice. I just don’t really have someone I can use as a subject I can ask to come for practice sessions and I haven’t figure out how to practice on myself.
The not-eye-level tip is something I’ve read before and completely forgot to use, so thanks for the reminder. I remember spending one convention doing only shots like that and a lot of them came out looking a little funky (I was looking up lots of noses), so that’s something I need to practice more. Something else I noticed is that the other photographers there were using long range zooms for portraits, like one has a 100-200 f/2 I think. They all looked to be shooting from really far away to get high lens compression and shallow DOF, which is also something that didn’t occur to me would be typical for portraiture since I’m used to being inside bustling convention centers. I had been using a 24 - 105mm f/4 because I wasn’t really sure what I’d need for this kind of photography and environment, but in retrospect I kind of wish I stuck to my 50mm or 35mm primes more.
About the shot of the circular walkway, I did actually end up using one of those pictures as well, but I used one where I pulled the shot even closer to the subject (who is indeed Saber from Fate/Stay Night).
I had initially been trying to figure out how to capture the whole circle but ended up choosing this vertical shot that crops off the sides. I thought this still managed to convey the sense of her being in the center of the circle despite the sites being cut off, and I think the longer focal length (105mm) managed to pull some of the elements together. The subject is larger and has a stronger presence, the straight walkway is still pulling you towards the center, and she’s still framed by the two bushes (though I wish the opening between the bushes was a bit wider to giver her more space). The town in the background has a bit more presence with this tighter shot, and I think the tree and the tower give the sky a bit more character on both sides of the picture.
I still have this feeling that I need to bring even more attention on her, but I’m not sure how I should have done that without pulling into her so much that you can’t tell she’s in a circle. I wonder how a close-up with a wide angle would have worked- though then I’d lose the lens compression in the background.
I think that’s a stronger shot and the circle surrounding her comes across clearly even if it’s cropped out.
Possibly if you had contrived some way to take that picture from a higher angle you could have captured more of the circle at the same distance, could have been an interesting result
it got hella foggy when i was on my way home and ALSO full of steam from a different complex AND a car was coming towards me way too fast i was so scared when i took this
