Last month, we looked at
horizontal lines in photography. Why?
Because we want to training our eyes to see the
way a camera does. Our natural eye is used
to seeking out what is most important and
dismissing the rest. My mom insists that
every boy is born with selective sight--we can
walk right over toys and trash never seeing them
at all. In reality, all people have this
selective sight to some degree, but cameras do
not. They are going to record every single
thing they see so a good photographer needs to
also.
Seeing
the clutter
What is clutter?
In a photograph, it is anything that
could take away from your subject.
It might be other people, objects, a
weird background, or an odd light.
Have you ever taken a photo and then
there was something suddenly "growing"
out of the top of someone's head?
It may be a lamp that was 10 feet behind
them, but when the camera takes the
photo it all flattens to closer and now
they have horns.
Thank you to
Dora Phillips for this photo.
In this photo of
Dora's niece Isabelle, we are distracted
by the brightly colored buckets that
appear to be by her head. In
reality, they were all the way across
the yard.
Another shot:
Just a touch of
garbage in this one, but it takes away
from the shot. Taking a moment to
kick that can out of my way would have
strengthened my photo. Before you
take your photo, take a look around and
see what is going to clutter your final
image.
Of course, clutter does happen.
We can fix that--follow me to the next
page.
