On the Edge

This is my first assignment for my Photography class, and I have to say, it was a really fun project to do, and it had a good challenge to it that really made me think about my subject and my composition within my image. For this assignment, I was tasked with gathering 30 or more images of people, vehicles, trees, signs.....anything really, but I had to make that subject appear "on the edge" as the title entails. This meant that I had to angle my camera to take the photos in a way where my subject would either be on the right, left, top, or bottom edges of the photo instead of more towards the center.

In my image, I really wanted to incorporate leading lines so viewers wouldn't be so easily distracted from my focal point, so, what better than to use a brick wall? Highlighted in red just shows the multitude of different leading lines that lead straight to the door (which is my focal point) and I feel it turned out really well. However, what I noticed as I went into post-production were the other techniques that were actually present in this image that I originally didn't think of when I snapped the photo. As shown in blue, the rule of thirds isn't highly apparent in this image, but the door is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the point on the left. Also, in green is a shadow that was cast by a nearby tree, and it somewhat made a frame for the door, so I was glad I shot this during this time of the day and not any later.

Really the only tools I used during post for this image were the Black and White and Levels tools, which allowed me to really fine tune some of the colors and bring out more of the contrast and texture inside the bricks and shadows. Also, I did crop the image down since the original image had a little too much on the top and the door didn't seem as close to the edge as it is now, so I was able to make this image more fitting for this assignment (and I kept the crop in a certain aspect ratio so the crop didn't seem very odd).

If I were change anything about this, I probably would've shot the image just a tad bit earlier in the day as that would've let me have better framing instead of the frame this image has now, and shooting earlier would've allowed me to gather more contrast between the black and whites, allowing for more texture and detail. Overall, I felt this image turned out very well and easily beat the rest of the images that I took for this assignment. I like these assignments that give us more of a challenge when it comes to our composition, so I look forward to the next one.