Tic Tac Toe

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <FONT SIZE="7" COLOR="#A0A0A4" FACE="Chiller" ><B>Photography by Carron</B></FONT>    </div> <bR> <div> <B>Tic-Tac-Toe - A Lesson In Composition</B></div> <div>  <A NAME="tic_tac_toe"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> There are a lot of elements that can make or break a photograph.  On my list of the top three, composition is Numero Uno.  The Big Cheese.  The Top Banana.</div> <bR> <div> And it's the easiest one to fix.</div> <bR> <div> What is good composition?</div> <bR> <div> It's as easy as a children's game.  Tic-tac-toe.  But in order to be successful at tic-tac-toe, you have to have a plan, a strategy to follow.  The same for photographic composition.</div> <bR> <div> Back in the good old days, when I was using a 4x5 view camera with a glass view screen, I literally used very, very thin graphic tape and marked out a tic-tac-toe board right on the glass.  This kept it foremost in my mind to always place things correctly in my shot.</div> <bR> <div> Some 35mm cameras came with this feature built into their view finders.  Hasselblad even made a view screen with a grid.  These were fantastic.</div> <bR> <div> You need to keep in mind a few things while composing a shot.  First, what are you trying to capture?  When you're on a trip and you're looking at those once-in-a-lifetime scenes - just get the picture.  Take that memory shot that shows the whole thing you're looking at.  Once you've got that captured sufficiently, start getting up close and personal to all the things that make being in Paris, or London, or Istanbul so unique.</div> <bR> <div> Second, you have to remember that in western culture, people read from left to right.  They want their eye to move naturally from left to right when they look at a picture.  Therefore, the movement or line through your picture should start from the lower left block of a tic-tac-toe board to the upper right.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="0672ce10.jpg" border=0 width="300" height="225" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> If you look carefully at the picture above, there's a cable on the left that keeps the eye from sliding out of the picture to the left - it says subconsciously "start here and go that way"; then there's a cable coming up from the left and going upward and to the right, nudging you to follow it to the life preserver.  There's also the large open space of wood (with it's glorious grain) that leads the eye, making it look for something.  That something is the large white life preserver  and the 'stopper' in the photo is the orange fire extinguisher.  It's pointing down.  Which brings the eye down, where it hits the cable, it goes back to the left, hit's that cable and says "oops, can't go this way" then floats back over the large open space again, only to run into the life preserver again, and the fire extinguisher....etc.  This is how you keep someone's eye in a picture.  </div> <bR> <div> As anyone who's ever played tic-tac-toe knows, you never start in the middle.  The biggest mistake most people make is to put their main area of interest right in that big middle square and leave the rest of the frame empty.  Listen, if you're going to take a picture of someone at the Eiffle Tower, that's one thing.  But when you want to take a picture of someone, get in there close, fill up that frame.  And never put the eyes right in the middle of the frame.  Human eyes are drawn by instinct to other human eyes.  Get them just out of that center block, and you create interest in the rest of your picture.  Otherwise, the viewer's eyes won't really go anywhere else.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="069c80b0.jpg" border=0 width="200" height="267" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> Accomplishing this could be as easy as tilting the image in the frame of the camera.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="06bc8f20.jpg" border=0 width="200" height="242" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> The intersection of the lines of that grid are where you want to put your point(s) of interest.  If your intent is to make a resolved, relaxing image, make sure your line of interest moves from left to right and is framed within the picture by some boundery setting item (like the cables above in the life preserver picture).</div> <bR> <div> If you want to creat dissonance in your picture, or a feeling of anxiousness, have the line of your picture moving from right to left, and have the object looking or pointing out of the picture.  But remember to fill your frame up with what you want, and put the object of your picture at the intersections of that tic-tac-toe grid.</div> <bR> <div> You'll be a winner.  I guarantee it.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> On to the<FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Bradley Hand ITC" > </FONT><FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Bradley Hand ITC" ><A HREF="http://www.photographybycarron.com/gallery" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.photographybycarron.com/galle"><U>Portfolio</U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id17_tutorial_list.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tutorials"><U>Read Some Tutorials</U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="mailto:carron@photographybycarron.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:carron@photographybycarron.com"><U>Contact me</U></A></div> </td> </tr></table></body>