Chapter 8 Challenges Apply the shooting techniques and tools that you’ve learned in the previous chapters to these assignments, and you’ll improve your ability to incorporate good composition into your photos. Make sure you experiment with all the different elements of composition and see how you can combine them to add interest to your images.
Learning to see lines and patterns Take your camera for a walk around your neighborhood and look for patterns and angles. Don’t worry as much about getting great shots as about developing an eye for details.
Photographing a theme Go on a photowalk and give yourself a theme to photograph, such as a specific color or shape. Try to stick to this theme, and only take photos and look for images that contain that theme. Doing this will help open your eyes to your environment in a new way and perhaps discover things you may not have seen.
Changing your perspective Take a photo from a standing position, then move down lower to the ground and photograph the same thing. Try to get up higher by using a stepladder or just by inching up on your toes. Compare your images and see how different your subject looks from each point of view.
Using the aperture to focus attention Depth of field plays an important role in defining your images and establishing depth and dimension. Practice shooting wide open, using your largest aperture, for the narrowest depth of field. Then find a scene that would benefit from extended depth of field, using very small apertures to give sharpness throughout the scene.
Leading viewers into a frame Look for scenes where you can use elements as leading lines, and then look for framing elements that you can use to isolate your subject and add both depth and dimension to your images. Share your results with the book’s Flickr group! Join the group here: flickr.com/groups/canon60dfromsnapshotstogreatshots
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