In the photography classes that I teach I give a
Photo Assignment
each week to the students in my class.
In our last class I chose an assignment that I found in Bryan Peterson’s book Bryan Peterson Photography School. The assignment was:
Choose a subject. Using a single lens (24-70 mm, 24-105 mm, etc.) place your subject so that it falls in the middle of the frame, allowing for a lot of empty space on all sides. Make a photo of your subject. With your camera still at your eye walk toward your subject. Every 5 steps make another exposure, being mindful to keep the subject in focus. Keep walking forward until your lens can no longer keep the subject in focus. Without changing the focal length repeat the same exercise while on your knees and then again on your belly.
Repeat the entire exercise 3 times but with your lens set to different focal lengths each time.
Then try to do this once a week for 3 months.
— Bryan Peterson, Bryan Peterson Photography School
I like to do the assignments that I assign to my students because I am interested in learning too. Also it helps me to understand some of the issues and questions that might arise.
Though I modified my steps slightly (I wish that I had reread the assignment right before I began making photos), I discovered that I learned a lot from this simple exercise.
My first instinct was to walk far away so that I would indeed have a lot of distance to cover between me and the house. So I went around behind the house where a stone fence curved around towards the house.
Making photo from same place but different focal lengths: 24mm, 70mm, 105mm
I began by standing in one place on the far side of the house and make photos at 3 different focal lengths. Then I walked forward 5 steps, made a photograph, and repeated this until I was as close as possible to the house.
Three of the many photos I made every 5 steps toward the house, 24 mm focal length for each photo
I then began playing with angle of view by walking around a corner of the house at the same distance, making photos as I walked.
Angle of view
Then I repeated the exercise from another side of the house making photos from a standing position and then on my knees.
What I Learned…
Browsing through the photographs I had made, my first discovery was that my initial instinct to photograph the house from the back with rock wall leading in towards the house was dead wrong. None of those photos were interesting to me. The trees blocked the house from view and the interesting angles and details were not really visible from this angle. Even as I got closer and closer, the photographs were mostly uninteresting to me.
While being more distant may work well for some subjects, for this beautiful historic house, I felt that I needed to be closer to show the details. In fact the details were what interested me the most. I loved how the old window glass distorted reflections and created an abstract view.
I also learned as I looked at my photographs in Lightroom that I often pointed the camera at different angles instinctively. So, I wasn’t strictly following the assignment instructions. I hope to repeat this assignment again paying more attention to holding the camera in the same position for each frame.
My final choice of photographing the front of the house was the most pleasing to me, though distance and angle again made a huge difference in creating a pleasing composition.
This was my favorite photo of the house with a tree in the foreground and another couple of trees in the middle ground framing the house.
Keep Growing and Learning
I wrote every day throughout my twenties. For a while, I had a boyfriend who was a musician, and he practiced every day. He played scales; I wrote small fictional scenes. It was the same idea – to keep your hand in your craft, to stay close to it. On bad days, when I felt no inspiration at all, I would set the kitchen timer for thirty minutes and make myself sit there and scribble something, anything. I had read an interview with John Updike where he said that some of the best novels you’ve ever read were written in an hour a day; I figured I could always carve out at least thirty minutes somewhere to dedicate myself to my work, no matter what else was going on or how badly I believed the work was going.
― Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Challenging yourself to learn and grow in whatever creative endeavors that you choose is an interesting way to enrich your life. What are you learning in your creative life or what do you want to learn?
May you walk in beauty.
Photo made while on my knees, I decided to really feature the tree shadows when I worked on this photo in Lightroom
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