S-curve composition places objects and lines in a specific arrangement to create movement through the photo. See this photo larger and a discussion about how eliminating some foreground objects may help S-curve composition at iPhoneography.us.

Everyone knows the Rule of Thirds. Everyone. Including Kroger. And that can be a lesson for you.

Among the first photos I took with my iPhone was this frame of vegetables at Kroger. It’s actually frame number 29.

I should have used it last Saturday during the Ohio Photo Classes session on composition. We talked about the Rule of Thirds as the cornerstone of composition and how it is important enough to be the cornerstone yet static enough to be ignored.

I have no other photo that does a better job of explaining why the Rule of Thirds works.

The photo is divided into near-perfect trisecting elements with two sets of lines breaking the frame into nine sections.

The shelves break apart the horizontal sections. The vertical section is divided along the lines between the three vegetables on the top row.

Without a primary subject at the points where the lines intersect, the photo still qualifies for Rule of Thirds inspection.

What is more interesting is the use of the horizontal sections and how they better play into creating a dynamic composition within the rule. All three sections employ other compositional tools and tricks to craw attention to each subject.

The top row is broken into thirds with the center section flanked by two darker, contrasting colors to the red radishes. The radishes reflect the overhead lights in a more repeating patter pulling  the viewer’s eyes to the center of the frame. The outside sections are more diffused, without specular highlights. Also notice that they are different vegetables with different shapes. Having both the same would make the arrangement more static and inhibit compositional movement through the photo.

The center section is an asymmetrical repeating pattern. The placement of the white sections of the onions at the base of the shelf places them behind the small grid adding a slight amount of depth to their location. Each onion’s shape is unique by the placement of the blue rubber bands and how each compresses the bunch. This section of light-toned, repeating, irregular patterns flanked by the small dark frames at either end keep attention at the center of the frame.

The bottom row, composed of darker leafy vegetables arranged in an irregular pattern provide the pedestal upon which the other two sections sit. Its curved placement created an arc that draws you back to the center section and to the radishes at top center. The curved emphasis would have been much less effective if the top row had not obscured the curved railing that held them in and their straight line against the mirror at the rear.

Admittedly, for most people this is just a section of vegetables for sale at Kroger worth nothing more than a quick glance to find the bunch that will match our food palette for the evening meal.

For a photographer, it is a study in composition. Kroger works on a very narrow profit margin. It’s important that its displays draw the interest of consumers and that they are attractive enough to moisten the saliva glands and loosen the wallet.

I can go to Kroger today, more than a year after I shot this photo and these vegetables will be in the same arrangement.

What does that tell you about the Rule of Thirds and marketing success?

The next time you’re looking through the viewfinder trying to compose a marketable photo, think Kroger. Think vegetables. Think radishes.

Waiting for the granddaughter yesterday I stepped from the car with my Canon G11 and iPhone in hand. Nearby was a home with a white picket fence and a row of crabapple trees still bearing their fall fruit. Blanketing everything was the overnight snowfall that cause school delays, traffic slowdowns and photographer nirvana.

I’m not the first person to shoot crabapples blanketed in snow. North of the Mason-Dixon line it is probably in the top ten snow photos attempted by amateur photographers. I hid my professional photographer credential behind my iPhone and explored the ordinary.

I’ve shot this row of trees before, several Springs ago when they were in flower, but never in winter.

To add interest to my photo quest, I wanted to see mif I could duplicate the Canon image with an image from my iPhone. The flat lighting and clean background would make the experiment simpler.

Shot the Canon G11 photo at wide-angle to get a background that included two trees, the fence and a deeper background.  Set the aperture-exposure to over expose by 2/3rd of a stop. Automatic exposure attempted to compensate for the large expanse of white making the photo dark and the crabapples so dark they lost detail.

The iPhone has a more normal focal length lens making it difficult with the same bunch of berries in the foreground to include as much background.

Even with the difference, the fence and tree at right still helped communicate location and relation.I did use the iPhone touch screen to attempt setting exposure so the abundance of white wouldn’t darken the berries.

The iPhone photo was passed through the PictureShow app to pull up the shadows. That made a great difference in  shadow depth and detail.

Of course, there is a great difference in resolution with the G11 having 12meg files and the iPhone at 3meg.

What amazes is that the iPhone photo is, for Web and small printed publication, as good a photo as the G11. Makes one ponder what will happen when battery technology advances to the point that a phone-sized battery will perform like the batteries in the G11.

Think zoom lenses, variable aperture, large files, better editing software and carrying only one camera.

Photographers coming to tonight’s Meetup in Westerville are supposed to bring along something photo-related that they received at Christmas. We’ll get to see each others gifts and hear about how the new equipment will help them make better photos.

I’m getting a head start.

One of the things I received was an iTunes gift card. I love my music and have moved loads of old vinyl onto my iPhone. It’s rare I listen to most of it through the headphones. I find it distracting preventing me from being more observant for great subject matter while carrying a camera. And, I always carry a camera.

One of the first iPhone camera apps I bought was HDRFusion by Cogitap software. It’s rather odd that it isn’t listed as an app on the company Web site yet is available, for $.99, in the iTunes store.

I love this app, with one small caveat.

HDR Fusion calculates the exposure for highlights and shadows and then makes two exposures references each setting. The resultig images are then merged into a finall image that may be stored  in your Camera Roll of canceled if you didn’t like the results.

In the above photo the first exposure was determined with the app selecting the sun as the highlight exposure. The second exposure came from the dark section of woods at top right. The resulting image had a full set of tones typical of an HDR image. If anything, it is a little flat, again, typical of an HDR image before tone mapping or editing.

I then ran the image through the Camera+ app to add toning, contrast and slight vignetting to better match the impact of a darkened woods at sunset.

The only problem I have with the app is softness. Hand-holding the iPhone is problematic enough. Holding it for two exposures to be perfectly aligned when one is a longer exposure to fill the shadows increased the likelihood that the two images will merge into a less than perfect iPhone sharp image.

I suggest sharpening in another app or moving the photo through Photoshop for more effective sharpening.

From the iTunes store

HDR photography is fun… Waiting minutes to get the results is not! Introducing HDR Fusion, now capture real HDR pictures faster than ever!

Featuring real time image analysis and ultra fast image processing, HDR Fusion has been designed so that you can quickly catch those unique moments. Simply launch the app, tap the shutter button and preview the result almost instantly!

Highlights:

● Real HDR pictures using under/over exposed pictures
● Ultra-fast image processing – Four times faster than competitors!
● Automatic mode with real time image analysis
● Manual mode with exposure points selection
● Rapid mode switching
● Handy Self-Timer

NOTE: Currently, only pictures taken in the app can be merged (i.e., no library mode).

How do you measure the quality of your work? Do you sit quietly in a corner hunched over a laptop analyzing your Photoshop skills? Do you make display prints and share them with friends, family and other photographers? Is there a Web gallery with your photos for everyone to see? Are these your best images?

The process for teaching photo stringers how to process film, edit and make prints for wire service transmission wasn’t complicated. Novices to our routine were introduced to it in two sessions.

The first was a dry run when they were walked through the procedures learning where chemicals were mixed and stored, the proper times and temperatures, and how to judge the times until the next open spot in the photo transmission queue. This was the verbal instruction book. All new photo stringers had processed film and worked in a print darkroom although some had never used some of the equipment in mine. Stainless steel reels instead of plastic. A Leitz enlarger instead of a bargain basement purchase.

Their second training tour was observing as I completed the entire set of tasks processing, printing, captioning and transmitting a news photo in real time, on deadline.

When the training was completed, I’d offer two warnings.

Now that they knew the proper methods for processing film and making prints, it really didn’t matter. No one would be able to look over their shoulder in the film room. It’s dark. Rarely would anyone be watching as they made prints. I told them I really didn’t care how they made everything work. As long as the results were what was expected, it didn’t matter how it was done. With one warning. Don’t ruin my film or the film of any AP staffer. End of story and career.

After hearing such a severe warning and knowing the results would be enforced, my next instruction took away some of the fledgling’s fear.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be right.”

For a news photographer, there’s no greater day-to-day fear than being on deadline and stuck in a darkroom knowing that the next open transmission time is in eight minutes, that you have three minutes left in the film chemistry, two minutes to dry the film, and three minutes to print and caption the print before being told to start your transmission going to every newspaper in the country.

This is not the time for perfection. But, that doesn’t mean you have the authority to be sloppy. At the end of every caption was the photographer’s name and it applied to more than whether or not the photo was great. It also revealed, to those who understood, how the photographer handled the process from shooting the photo to getting it ready on deadline. A great photo that didn’t make deadline ended up in the round file at the end of the day. It also brought a series of phone calls asking why the photo was too late for deadlines.

The answer could never be that you were trying to make a perfect print with perfect tones, proper contrast, precise burning and dodging, a print suitable to hang on the office wall to showcase your talent as photographer and darkroom technician.

I couldn’t count the number of yellowing prints I’ve seen in newspaper photo libraries. Prints that were dipped into the fixer tray just long enough to last through one transmission on deadline. None of those prints were perfect. All of them were right, for the intended job. That was more important than perfection.

That lesson has followed my throughout my career where I always struggle for perfection in my work. I don’t think I can ever look at any of my prints, old or new, and think they are perfect in every way. There’s not a single digital file that couldn’t stand just one more tweak of tone, hue or contrast.

I think of the times I’ve extended a portrait session because I wanted to move the light just ever so slightly to make sure the shadow from nose fell across the cheek in just so or reach over to pull a chin a fraction of an inch higher to move the catch light in the eyes.

I’m my own worst editor, always complaining to myself about the quality of my work, always looking for the perfect moment, perfect light, perfect timing, the perfect work flow and a perfect finished image. If I’ve worked this long and still failed to reach perfection on at least one of my images, what is to be done with the rest of today.

The struggle continues. I constantly calculate my simplicity quotient, figuring out where effort meets reality, when deadlines are reached, when being right is perfect.

I doubt there is a single photo stringer who didn’t tell themselves at the end of my training sessions that they would be the first to succeed at perfection. The psychology of the training forced them to at least try with every assignment to be perfect. To find the perfect place to stand, watch for the perfect action and timing, perfect composition , and a perfect processing work flow.

The struggle continues. I constantly calculate my simplicity quotient, figuring out where effort meets reality, when deadlines are reached, when being right is perfect.

Perfection comes in simple steps. It begins with knowing what is right. Sometimes right is the perfect result.

I am sure there are moments when bystanders much wonder what is going through my mind. Sometimes my wife wonders the same thing. Of course, she has good reason.

Many years ago my wife thought it would be exciting to accompany me on a news assignment I had to shoot a street fair. It would be an opportunity to watch me at work and be able to take in her share of art, fried foods and mimes. I agreed to the arrangement with the warning that I’d probably have to leave before seeing the entire fair that extended several downtown city blocks. She agreed that although it might be cut short, she would have someone, me, to share the fair with her and that I might see something she didn’t so the experience might be greater than what one person could observe.

Little did she know what she was in for.

The fair was an ordinary spring event with aisles of food vendors plying passersby with vocal broadcasts to sample their special barbeque sauce or bite into a grilled beef, onio, and green pepper sandwich cooked with all local ingredients. Sprinkled among the professioanl food merchants were church groups and local service organizations selling corn dogs and lemonade a fundraisers for their local projects to feed or clothe the less fortunate.

Artists, most of whom sat stoicly in a chair just outside their 10×10-foot white canvas tents, observed the passing of possible Patricians hoping only one would acknowledge their obviously superior work, remove a fatted wallet from their pocket and offer to buy everything in their display.

I passed along the interior corridor between the opposing tents set along the street’s edge looking for that perfect photo to show the dynamic interaction between art and food lovers and their providers. Knowing the assignment was scheduled to play on the front page of the newspaper, I struggled looking for a vertical photo that featured strong graphical elements that might be bisected by the paper’s fold so that either half might draw a reader’s interest.

I put myself into that photographer’s zone where I observe quickly, referencing the details of a subject to see if it might fit my needs.  There’s no lingering hoping an evolution of a possible subject will transform my view into the required image. If I didn’t see it immediately or could see that it was about to happen, I moved on. My wife trailed me, not in a subservient way. She stayed behind so she didn’t step in front of my lens while I was shooting and that she didn’t become part of the background of my photo. This arrangement had been determined before we began our travels.

Our arrangement abruptly ended when, within that photographer’s subconscious observations of the surrounding possibilities, my mind traveled backwards to a spot about five feet behind me where I’d sorted through the details of a good photo and now determined that was the place, now was the time.

I quickly turned, rushed to get to the perfect spot before the dynamics of the moment changed. The only problem was my wife. She was immediately behind me. Not several feet away. Not to the side. Close enough that when I turned my cameras slapped her in the chest and arms. She tipped backwards attempting to avoid further contact with my gear and to regain her balance after I’d stepped into her while turning.

I can still see her expression. No amount of pleading for forgiveness or explaining my thought process could return me to the slightly romantic state of our travels together along the streets of a spring fair.

The damage was done. I’d ignored her. Ignored her for a photo. Ignored her enough to have run over her with camera and body. And then, I ignored her while I stepped past her to get to that spot where I found the photo that would play on the front page the next day.

It didn’t matter that I’d accomplish what had been expected of my by the photo editor who gave me the shoot. It didn’t matter that the photos fit the fold perfectly. It didn’t matter that I’d apologized, many times. It didn’t matter.

Now when we go to an event together and I’m carrying cameras, we agreed to split up, go our separate ways and meet up at specific time and place where we can share stories of what we’ve seen. If necessary, when I’ve completed mys assignment or photo search, we return to the event to share our observations.

What’s makes this arrangement work so well is that I get to see the same subjects in a different way, as seen by my wife. That’s a different perspective than mine and she doesn’t get clobbered in the chest by her husband.

Betty sat quietly in her living room on a chair pulled close to the door where I’d positioned her in the light. An artist, Betty understood my requirements of her for a good portrait. She slowly moved through varied arrangements of her face and hands, turning slightly into and out of the light listening to my camera and spoken instructions.

The portraits, two of which you see here, are among my favorites and speak to the simplicity of good light and a model who understands that a story is being told.

The light was natural, coming through the open door of her condo. The door faced north, the light funneling itself through the relatively narrow 42-inch space, bouncing off the adjacent wall and filling the shadows on face. The room light then fell on the wall behind her with enough power to brighten the wall so it didn’t go dark. It was dumb luck, or Betty’s sartorial skills, that her sweater matched the color of the wall.

The color and tone of her skin and the bright contrast of lipstick blended into a near perfect pallet of color for her.

There are a couple of interesting elements that help make this photo successful. Note the shadow along her nose. It’s just soft enough to be barely noticed yet dark enough to narrow her nose.

The catch light in her eyes is large, the shape and size of the door.

The curve and size of the sweater on her left shoulder helps to counter the much large hand for a more balanced composition.

The crop is tight. Many portraitists would say too tight. Her fingers and the top of her head have been cropped off.

What was great about Betty is that she didn’t mind me showing her wrinkles and dark spots. In her 80s, Betty still embraced life, painting and acting, holding down a job and enjoying the friendships she’d accumulated.

Betty has bright eyes. Eyes that, even surrounded by wrinkled and weathered skin, invites you to participate in her life. Hopefully these portraits helped tell that story.

“If I told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times not to exaggerate!”

That phrase has circulated through my family for at least four generations. Maybe more if I’d had contact with relatives gone before my time. Perhaps on my next trip to Florida I’ll stop in Cassadaga and make contact with one who might have used the term.

Meant to take note of another’s exaggeration, the hyperbolic phrase quiets most children’s verbal complaints about life’s collective inequities and their quest for greater personal identity. At least that’s the way it works in my family.

As a photographer I hold the opposite view.

Exaggeration is your friend. Used properly, exaggerating an object or subject advances the storytelling impact of your photos.

Perhaps exaggeration is not the proper word. Think of it as emphasizing a piece of content. Putting emphasis on something in your photo directs the viewer to what you think is important in telling them what you saw in the viewfinder and what’s important for them to know about the moment.

As a work crew cleared damaged trees from land near Johnstown I used my wide-angle lens to exaggerate the size of the just felled tree’s diameter to create a large, graphically interesting foreground to contrast against the routine imagery of a logger running a chainsaw through timber.

Using a small f-stop, the tree’s rings and the logger are in focus. I could have used a smaller depth-of-field to isolate more on the rings and throw the logger out of focus.

A better way to narrow the focus would be to back off with longer glass, select a wider f-stop and focus on the rings. The subject and storytelling then changes to emphasize the tree’s rings and not the relationship between the tree, the logger and the surroundings.

Telling this relationship in a single photo is best done with a wide-angle lens where you can emphasize a particular part of the photo, have greater depth-of-field, and include objects that help in relating a complete story in a single photo.

Today’s editorial market lacks publishers that are going to be looking for a series of photos to tell the story. Photographers who can supply one storytelling photo is more likely to find publishers eager to purchase their work.

The process of studying your subject, looking for that single image that tells a complete story increases you opportunities for additional photos that may complement the single image for clients and publishers who have space and budget for more photos.

Shooting one storytelling photo should be your primary objective. Finding two or three others strong storytelling images with additional photos to complement the first series is the challenge.

Lens choice modifies the mood and impact of your photos. My first thought shooting this group of almost Spring fitness seekers was with a telephoto view to compress their figures against the chaotic water falling over Hoover Reservoir as the background.

I chose a point on the entrance road leading to the parking lot at the base of the dam, running up the incline into position to shoot level at the group’s height. The 300mm f4 Nikkor would be long enough to compress the view so they would be outlines against the spillway water.

You can see my angle with two photos <below) from the same spot with my 70-200mm f2.8 zoom. It is wide too including many elements that distract from the group. I thought about contrasting groups using the man and his two kids in the parking lot as part of the composition. The possibility of the two groups forming a complete composition was unlikely and I knew the upper group’s activities were far more interesting with greater possibility for a good photo.

The wider shots, with the 70-200, included the power lines that angle horizontally across the frame. Zooming in to exclude the parking lot, they still interfered with the composition. The 300mm, although it also included the wires in a horizontal photo, placed them at a high enough position to be cropped out.

70-200mm, f2.8 Nikkor Zoom at 70mm

I moved off the roadway onto the muddy hillside for the best angle watching their movements for matching alignment or patterns but having to settle for a staccato arrangement as each worked at their own pace instead of moving in unison.

I left my position when the group seemed to have finished their workouts on the upper level and moved to the parking lot. I knew I had several possible photos in camera and began my walk to the car when they paused at the base of the stairs for instructions for the next set of exercises.

I joined them on the stairs as their trainer described the exercises they were to perform for the next trip of the flight up stairs to the top of the dam.

70-200mm, f2.8 Nikkor Zoom at 200mm

Her instructions to leap along the flat section adjacent to the waterway brought out the 14-24mm f2.8.

The group, never complaining despite always being out of breath and near exhaustion, hopped their way across the concrete path. Like some out-of-shape Russian dancer, I squatted as low as I could for each photo jumping to my feet almost in unison with the athlete to follow each across the path. It was part of my morning workout carrying camera and lenses for extra weight.

What had begun as a compressed telephoto shot had evolved into a wide angle full depth of field shot including the group’s workout environment. Both photos are successful but in different ways and they tell different stories about the group and the environment for their workouts.

Exploring your shooting position is important.

I’m usually an advocate of a clean, crisp arrangement of objects in photos. This wasn’t one of those times.

The rolling ridges of this farm field, a lowered roadway where I stood and an overcast afternoon sky all contributed to a difficult setting for good photos. I’ve used the house in the background in a series of photos over the last several years and a nearby grain elevator has been shot in every weather, cloud condition, and season so this was common territory for me.

The colors were muted, basically tones of blue and brown. The flat lighting removed any chance of great detail through contrast with the exception of possibly silhouetting the house and tractor against the skyline.

The only way to get the tractor silhouetted against the background was to squat in the roadway and wait for it to move far enough towards me so the cab stood above the horizon. That required including the edge of the field in the foreground.

The field was covered in corn plant stubble from the harvest making me search out a position where the vertical spikes didn’t interfere with the tractor or the house on the horizon. There was not a place to position myself to eliminate the stubble. It had to be in the frame.

One of the rules I offer to young photographers is to decide if everything in the viewfinder contributes to telling the story. If they don’t eliminate them. Change position. Use a different lens. Wait until the scene changes. Or, if they can be removed, find a way to make them work.

The stubble remained in the frame placed in position to not interfere with the primary objects yet contribute a foreground that adds a third layer of depth and a hint of more work to be done, even on a cloudy day.