Linda photographs a shark at John's Pass Village with her Nikon D3100 during our DSLR Photography Lesson #4At John's Pass Village Linda continued her torrid pace of taking DSLR Photography Lessons. For our fourth lesson together (1st, 2nd, 3rd) we concentrated more on composition and seeing photographs when walking around a given tourist or travel area. John's Pass Village is definitely a touristy place, but one I actually like a lot myself as it is heavier on nostalgia than kitsch.
I had not had a lesson at this location in awhile, so it was nice to go back and spend time along its quaint shops and candy stores. However, a lot had changed since my last visit, including installation of many street light poles that were unwelcome intruders into scenes that were once free of such objects, as well as an artistic staircase losing some of its art appeal.
For followers of my flickr photostream, you may recognize that shark. There is now a light post making it impossible to get the same composition I did two years ago (photo here). Hopefully Linda will like her shark photo as much as I do mine. Now when I go back there I feel like the shark is an old friend.
The above photo is titled off horizontal axis on purpose since I could not otherwise fit both Linda and the shark in the frame. This was the main composition tip I had Linda practice during the lesson. Sometimes the best composition is not with everything in a straight line. Sometimes you cannot fit all you want to in a level composition. In these cases, off level composing can be very effective. Of course as with all techniques, one should not become too reliant upon it, but rather maintain a variety of composition styles.