This exercise required a subject that was clear and compact. I wanted a subject that was interesting and had a purpose in its surroundings; a sculpture on the Bristol-Bath cycle path fitted both criteria.
As an anecdote, this provided a case of where one has to interact with others - photography is not always a solitary pursuit. The sculpture is also a seat, unfortunately taken up by a gentleman with lurid dayglo jacket strewn over the edge - image potentially ruined. I simply had to ask if he minded being disturbed for two minutes...and he was fine about that!
All the images below were taken in P mode with auto focus, there being no advantage to doing anything differently.
First subject is taken with little thought to composition:
Here we get an OK but rather uninteresting view of the subject in its surroundings; the image lacks thought - a classic record shot. 1/180 and f9.5.
Second shot focuses on the sculpture only. I thought it would add interest to make the top straight and tilt the sculpture in the viewfinder as follows (1/180 and f9.5).
The third shot is a close up. This is an interesting shot (and looking ahead in course, may need some shots of curves) and shows up some of the graffiti on the subject; a feature not evident from the more distant shots (1/250 f11):
The curve helps with the light in this image too . the sun is clearly from the left so there is a pleasing gradation from full light to half shade on the right. Closer up we get better detail of the sculpture, a less flat image.
Lastly, I moved back to a point where the sculpture is only a small part of the frame.
With the helpful addition of the cyclist, this puts the sculpture in its context; I felt it was important to have the straight line of the path edge on the left to lead the eye (1/180, f8):
The exercise required also to do some cropping on the last image. Performed this in Photoshop, producing the following two images:
The first one crops out the path but loses the lead-in effect by doing so; the second is just a flat image of the sculpture with an uninteresting foreground.
The lesson from here is the need for careful composition where possible, and to look for interesting angle as demonstrated by the second and third images.
