5 Photos Depicting 10 Rules of Composition - Project 5

Introduction

    Photography definitely is an art form in a whole different category. Photographers capture emotions, beauty, feelings, etc. Pictures are sometimes worth more than words. This art form speaks for itself. I am fairly new to photography. I love taking pictures on my phone, and I think I have a decent eye. What I did not know is that there are actually rules. I also did not know that pictures were graded. Like many other hobbies and professions, there are competitions for photographers. This is my journey of gaining knowledge about the rules of composition. We have to take 5 photos that cover 10 rules of composition.

My Journey

    My partner and I decided to go for a walk in the Park Circle B Bar Reserve. Upon our travels, I took pictures of wildlife and the landscape. I am a nature lover, and I love seeing the animals and the landscape. There is so much beauty to be seen. We thoroughly enjoyed our time out at Circle B. These are some of the photos that captured some of the Rules of Composition.

Photo 1

    The first picture that I chose is a picture of a little baby gator. The baby gator is surrounded by water which is negative space. I cropped out a piece of the top portion. The picture was a little underexposed so I lowered it. I also lowered the highlights and the whites. I increased the texture, clarity, and dehaze to make the gator stand out more. I also created a mask, and using the brush tool, I did some color correction to make a portion of the water the same color as the rest. I then added a -25 vignette.

Photo 2

    The second picture that I chose was an interesting tree. The way this tree grew created perfect leading lines taking you across the whole picture. It also filled the whole photo. This picture seemed really pretty, and I didn’t want to take too much away from it. I added +9 clarity and +11 temperature, and the whites were a bit overexposed, so I brought them down to -60, and for the finishing touches, I added a -19 vignette.

Photo 3

    For the third picture, I took a picture of a Monarch Butterfly. The butterfly was my main focal point. I was focusing on depth of field, contrast, and balance as well. I cropped a bit of the top and bottom because there were a couple of distractions. I added 3 masks for the butterfly which I sharpened by +81, and I added clarity of +4, texture of +4, contrast of +40, noise of +35, and saturation of +28. The second mask was the background. I lowered the temperature to -74 and it made the picture come together. I also had to color-correct a leaf to match the background, and then I added a -32 vignette.

Photo 4

    The fourth picture is my favorite picture of every picture I took that day. This picture represents the rule of thirds, leading lines, perspective, and symmetry. I thought this picture was naturally so beautiful. I increased the clarity to +9 and the temperature to +11, and I decreased the whites to -60 because they were overexposed. Lastly, I added a -19 vignette to bring it together.

Photo 5

    For my last picture, I chose a flower. I created two masks. One is for the flower in which I increased the exposure to 1.95. I created the second mask for the background. For the overall picture, I added a saturation of +65, a temperature of +90, and a +64 tint. I decreased the whites to -100, the contrast to -39, and the exposure to -1.40. I really like the way the photo looks warm like the colors of fall.

Conclusion

    In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed going out to Circle B. Bar Reserve to take pictures. They had just opened up a new trail due to closure for mating season. There were many little babies out and about. I have so much to learn about Lightroom and how to edit photos, but like I said, this is just the beginning. I sometimes am a bit unsure of myself, but I will continue to learn and grow.