Assignment 1 - Subject Elements

Here's my take for Assignment 1, which requires us to produce photos that contain the subject elements of: Shape, Colour, Lines, Texture and Form.

These are the pictures the better ones that I've selected from the many that I have taken, but I think improvements can still be made, especially for "Shape" and "Colour". Perhaps a few photos also straddle between different subject elements, such as the pictures of the pipes and the clock.

I'll do an update once I get the new shots in!

"Starstruck" - Colour

Self critique: 6.5/10

I wanted the capture the different colours of the lucky stars that were kept in the bottle, but I think the reflection of the ceiling lights in the Central Library is kind of distracting.

The white balance of the shot is also a litte off, mainly because of the warm white lights that were used in the Central Library, which created an "orange-yellowish" tinge. Photos taken were stored as JPEG files, so I couldn't really adjust the white balance of the picture. RAW is better lol

The background seems a little cluttered, but I thought the "bokeh" (background blurring) created by the shallow depth of field isolated the bottle pretty well.

"Clockwork" - Shape

Self critique: 7/10

I kind of like this shot. It was taken inside a tutorial room at AS6 in NUS. This picture is a little "controversial" haha... because I envisioned this shot to represent form though some saw it to be a representation of shape rather than form.<

Instead of capturing the shape of the whole clock, I decided to shoot only a portion of the clock, hoping to capture the shadows that were formed by the ceiling lights shining onto it.

I thought the slight "glow" of the rim at the bottom-right corner could quite effectively isolate the clock from the wall behind in order to make the picture seem more three-dimensional, but I guess the lighting wasn't strong enough to create this effect.

Perhaps deepening the shadows using Photoshop would be better, but this was also taken and saved as a JPEG file.

The picture is pretty "zen" though, consisting of minimal colours and simple visual elements, isn't it? hahaha...

"Piping" - Form

Self critique: 7.5/10

I originally envisioned this picture to represent lines, but at the tutorial session it was pointed out that this picture could better represent form instead, even though there is a row of pipes in the picture.

I think the interesting point of this picture would be the lighting condition in which this picture was taken. A flourescent tube light was mounted along the way near the ground at the left of the pipes, therefore it created a "glow" which nicely fell onto one of the four pipes in the picture, effectively highlighting it and isolating it from the other pipes.

The focus point of the camera was then shifted onto the nicely-lit pipe and that's how this shot was taken.

"Ridges" - Line

Self-critique: 8/10

The conceptualisation and process of producing this picture was quite simple. It only involved the use of a chair in a tutorial room in NUS. The chair was turned around so that the back of the chair was exposed.

There were ridges situated at the bottom of the area of the back support, and these ridges were produced in a semi-circular manner. Therefore, this created a nice graduating effect which explains why the lines get longer from top to bottom in the picture.

The chair was also lit by ceiling lights from the top, which also creates a graduation contrast in the shadows casted by the protruding ridges.

"The linings' on the wall" - Line

Self-critique: 7/10

This picture was taken at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music. As one can see, the walls near the entrance had textured lines which protruded out, creating an effect of seemingly never-ending lines.

I stood at one end of the wall and aimed my camera towards the far end, hoping to capture the effect of the "never-ending lines" haha... I wanted to use this picture to represent texture, but the line elements in this picture would be quite distracting to clearly represent texture, so I decided with "lines" instead.

"Cat's tail" - Texture

Self critique: 7.5/10

This picture was taken just outside the Arts faculty canteen. There were clusters of this plant type called "Cat's tail" (or something like that) growing in a particular area. It was during the morning period, about 10a.m. when I took this picture so the lighting came from the side.

I envisioned the picture to effectively capture the "bushy" texture of the bristles on the Cat's tail. I had also hoped that the unevenly-lit Cat's Tail would further highlight the texture element of the plant.

During the tutorial session, I realised that the texture element of this picture could be further enhanced by the use of a macro lens perhaps, to focus even closer on the bristles.

"Raindrops" - Texture

Self critique: 9/10

The picture that generated quite a bit of response from the tutorial class hahaha... It was a wet day when I took this picture and the heavy rain forced us to limit ourselves to shooting indoors.

We were at the University Hall when we noticed this bench located at the vehicle drop-off point. Rainwater which was draining off from the external areas of the University Hall was falling onto the bench. The impact of the rainwater on the surface of the bench created this effect of unevenly-shaped and unevenly-sized water droplets.

A work of Man (the building) and Nature (the rain) perhaps? hahaha...