Exploring the square 

using a symmetrical and well balanced frame

Shooting in square format can be fun and challenging.

The square is a relatively simple format with a clear center. It tends to lead the eye of the viewer in a circular instead of a straight horizontal, vertical or diagonal motion. The frame can be divided symmetrical into several smaller squares, which can be use to create a well balanced composition.

In order to get a feel for the square format it can be useful to shoot standard rectangular images and crop them into squares afterwards, taking the time to decide which parts to crop away to get the most compelling image.

Here's what i managed to do with four shots of a bunch of flowers at my dad's house, trying to emphasize the color of the flowers and leaves, cropping out the distracting elements like the chair in the background.

Tracey gave me some creative coaching and encouraged me to be more bold in my cropping, so below is how i applied her comment to the first of the images. I think it really improves the impact of the image.

I spent the rest of the week capturing different subjects in my squares

Here are some squares within a square......

Some squares with circles.......

Three squares with different subjects but lots of negative space.........

Loads of long straight lines in these squares........

Squares capturing shadows.......

A collage of brightly colored squares.........

Squares are an ideal format to tell a photo-story.

Here is a sequence about my breakfast, how I made it and where it ended up :-()

The square-collage can also be used to display different views on a singular subject.

Here i have captured parts of me in a square portrait collage.

Capturing what you love

Shooting with passion 

It is important to find a balance between shooting with intent, planning the composition of our images and shooting intuitively, capturing what catches our eye. When we manage to integrate the two, our images will have all the more impact

My favorite subject matter is reflections. I love to capture anything that in any way reflects some of it's surroundings, be it water, shadows, glass, or shiny surfaces.

Here I have captured reflections of myself in my favorite stainless steel mugs. I especially like the way my reflection is divided in two by the two stacked teacups.

Here I have played with the small espresso mugs, placing them in a row and changing the angles and depth of field.

These are my favorite teacups. I love their shape and their colors. I stacked them in different ways and took shots from different angles. Unfortunately the stack collapsed and one of the cups lost an ear.....

Here i have placed them in a row and played with the depth of field, creating a lovely bokeh background.

Creative and intuitive use of lighting, depth of field and positioning can make your subject matter really come to life. You can give it personality or create relationships between subjects and their background.

Here i have used positioning and depth of field to emphasize the relationship between the wooden spoons: they are similar but not identical, they have different sizes and colors.

In the second image I have tried to convey the relationship between the curves in the woodgrain and the wavy lines of the 'filet americain' in the plastic bowl.

The way the blue winter scarf is folded, the way the shadows and highlights emphasize the curves of the folds and the lack of context and other colors give this image a strong sense of personality.

In the second image I have tried to emphasize the contrast between the liquid in the glasses. The glasses are the same but their content is different: the left glass contains more liquid and is transparent with a dotted silvery swirl; the right glass contains a more opaque dark brown liquid with gold colored rays and squares in the bottom.

Portraits
capturing images with emotional impact


There are several different ways to compose a portrait. You have to decide where to place the subject, how much of your subject you want in the frame, which format you want to use and where you want to focus.

Here are two different shots of C, sitting at the table, reading a book on her iPad . I framed her in two different ways, using the square format. The first one shows some of the context: the table, her iPad, the light coming through the french door to the garden. The second draws the viewer closer and shows C's concentrated gaze (but not what she's gazing at) and the curves of her hair and shoulders, sculpted by the sunlight.

Here's another kind of portrait that shows only part of the subject. It is of my father holding a cup of coffee. The focus is on his hands and the mug between them. You can clearly see his aged hands, his wedding ring and the text on the mug. The shadows of the sleeves around his hands make him look a bit vulnerable. I chose to crop the original into this format, that leaves out all distracting details and draws the viewer straight into the story behind the portrait. I love that the mug is positioned exactly in the middle of the table, as you can see by the dark straight line leading out of the frame, formed by the space between the two table halves.

I also took some shots of my father cooking a meal. The light in the kitchen gives these images a completely different impact, which is enhanced by the context: action instead of idleness and tranquility. With every shot i moved in closer; the first shot shows a lot of kitchen context, the second one is focused on my father's face looking up at me and the third one shows only a part of his profile, completely concentrated on his work, with the kitchen utensils only a vague blur in the background.

Light is very important when shooting portraits. You can use the light to shape or shade, to enhance or soften parts of your subject, you can use it to sculpt the contours. The use of light affects the impact of a portrait in a major way.

Here is a portrait of my dog BiBi. She was sitting on a chair, focusing all her attention on someone holding a cookie, while the light created a soft halo around her head. I really captured some of her essence in this shot.

Good Design
arranging and composing vignettes


We were challenged to create vignettes, using principles of good design to compose our images and arrange the objects within the frame in a visually appealing way.

I chose these three completely unrelated objects and tried to arrange a relationship between them

I put the three objects on a black tablecloth with a subtle pattern of twigs and leaves. This pattern emphasizes the dead leaf that gets the main focus in the foreground. The curve of its stem crosses the curves in the pattern in an attractive way. The antique copper bell is more (but not quite) centered in the frame, slightly out of focus and only a small part of it's stem is visible. The copper coins are spread in a blurry half-circle around the bell, they lead the eye out of the frame and away from the foreground, while at the same time repeating the curves of the leaf and the bell. The choice of objects (dead leaf, copper bell, money) and the way they are styled here allows viewers to give their own meaning to the image.

After this assignment using inamimate objects I tried to 'style' nature

I took a shot of these drops clinging to the umbel of a decaying hogweed, using a shallow DoF (with an iphone this is possible with the 'tap to focus' feature) to create a dreamy athmosphere. The next shot I took when I accidentally brushed the hogweed and the drop fell. This time I focused on the background, so the falling drop became blurry, creating a completely different visual effect.

For the second assignment we needed to style just one object, effectively using all the external factors like light, shadow, surface, lines, DoF, positioning and framing to create a compelling vignette.

This is an urn that contains the ashes of some of our pets that died over the past years. I tried to style and frame it in a way that conveys some of it's significance. I used the light above the table to accentuate the dust on the lid. The light gives the surface of the table and the blurry background a nice warm orange glow, which 'suits' the deep blue of the urn. The other lights in the room make starry reflections in the lacquered coating of the urn and turn the mother of pearl of the butterflies into gold. The lights also 'sculpt' the urn with a thin shiny curve around the top right that separates the urn from the background. There is a nice round shadow on the table and a small diagonal of light in the bottom of the frame. The horizontal line that separates the lighted surface of the table from the shadowed background forms the perfect 'horizon' dividing the frame. All these elements work together to give a deeper meaning to the shot.

One morning sunlight fell on the table through a glass of water and I tried to capture, style and frame the beautiful reflections, using all of the design-principles to arrange the shot

The left shot's main focus is on the reflection of the light within the long rectangle of shadow. The frame is divided into 3 slightly diagonal parts. The blurry circle of light in the background overlaps part of the middle rectangle and only a small part of the glass is visible. The image on the right shows more of the glass, dividing the frame differently. One third of the frame is filled by the glass and the rest of the frame is divided in two by the diagonal line between the shadow and the rest of the table. The blurry circle of light now does not intrude upon the shadow, but stays in it's own area. All in all this gives the image a more balanced feel.

Since design was on my mind all the time during this week, I started to see it's use and effect everywhere. Here are two shots I took while shopping in Den Haag. Two completely differently designed shopwindows.

The left shot is of a bakery selling confectionery for the feast of Sinterklaas. It is very busy, colorful and full of curves, and particularly attractive to children. The other one is of a furniture shop, very tranquil, almost monochromatic in color, lots of straight lines and empty space.

I am crazy about machines. One day i spotted one right in the middle of a field and I stumbled down a slope to study it's design up close.

I really love all the tubes and cylinders and pipes and screws and all the red covered with black tarry soot and drops of water. A machine might be the most well designed thing ever.....! In any case somebody really spent a lot of time thinking about its design and it is absolutely very deliberate and purposeful. I love how that shows in all the little details in this collage.

Designing with color
creating depth, balance and magic
Color can make or break a shot. The use of color can add depth and movement to an image, and create balance. It can draw the eye into an image and lead it out again. 

One morning I got up and saw the sunlight shine through a bunch of gladioli in the living room. The beauty of their bright red, orange and yellow hues inspired me to make this photo collage

Using complementary colors can emphasize contrast, thereby extracting a subject from its background. 

Using repetition of the same color in an image helps create balance and continuity.

In the left image I enhanced the red color of the leaves and the green of the grass. Because of this stark contrast the eye is immediately drawn to the leaves in the foreground.

In the right image the focus is on the front branches. Their deep, bright red colors are repeated in the background, thereby creating a tranquil balance.

For the midweek challenge we were asked to make our colors 'pop' by post processing our images and experimenting with different hues and different amounts of saturation.

Here I took an image of a rose and boosted the colors three different ways. Top left is the original salmon colored rose, top right the toned down and softened version, bottom left the extravagantly color boosted version and bottom right has had a magical color shift: purple-pink petals and neon-blue leaves. Four totally different flowers!

While looking for a 'color pop' I stumbled upon the scene in the left image, where the late afternoon sunlight fell on this bright red goal post and literally made it pop out of the contrasting green grass. The mill and cows in the background make this a typical dutch image.

The second shot was taken a few days later, in completely different circumstances. The weather was damp and foggy and everything was grey. The guy in the orange suit was jumping upon the boat when i took the shot, literally popping out of the drab and desaturated background.

The effect of color is greatly influenced by the light. Soft or filtered light diffuses the brightness of the colors and evokes an atmosphere of tranquility and peacefulness. In these shots you can clearly see how the soft morning side light, filtered by the trees, makes this path in the woods look dreamy and a bit surreal. 

I experimented some more with color, light and reflections and made this study of a single magenta glass bottle, shot from different angles. I find the different impact of every single part of this collage utterly fascinating!