Learning Outcomes
- Students will be able to demonstrate a basic understanding of composition.
Sketchbook
Watch both videos linked below and take notes in your sketchbook.
Writing
Find an example of good design online and print the image out. Describe why you think it is good design. How are the elements and principles used? Also find an example of bad design and print that image out. Describe why you think it is bad design.
Materials
Smartphone or digital camera
Info
“To quote out of context is the essence of the photographer’s craft. His central problem is a simple one: what shall he include, what shall he reject? The line of decision between in and out is the picture’s edge. While the draughtsman starts with the middle of the street, the photographer starts with the frame. The photograph’s edge defines content. It isolates unexpected juxtapositions. By surrounding two facts, it creates a relationship. The edge of the photograph dissects familiar forms, and shows the unfamiliar fragment. It creates the shapes that surround objects. The photographer edits the meanings and patterns of the world through an imaginary frame. This frame is the beginning of this picture’s geometry. It is to the photograph as the cushion is to the billiard table.”
–from The Photographer’s Eye by John Szarkowski, former director of the photography
division of the Museum of Modern Art in New York
Process
- Using your phone or a digital camera, photograph objects or groups of objects that create interesting compositions. A composition is an arrangement of the elements (line, shape, form, value…) combined with the principles (movement, contrast, balance…) to create engaging works of art.
- Switch your camera to a black and white filter. Consider what could be “framed” by your camera within your chosen scene or objects. Create 5 different compositions from the same group of objects.
- The goal is to think about composition so that you create an interesting image. Would the object be more interesting if you zoomed in or out, cropped out part of the object, arranged the object so that it creates a diagonal across the frame of the camera. Perhaps you could play with lighting or shadows?
- This should take fifteen minutes. When you are done, upload your photos here.
- As a group we will discuss what views in the room could be beautiful, interesting, well-composed, or explored further.
Examples