"I've got a life sentence for breaking the rules of composition............what are you in for?"

Breaking the rules is not as easy as songs about teenage angst, delinquents and pro-peer pressure motivational speakers make it out to be. Well... at least not the rules of composition. Taking a photo successfully breaking the rules of composition AND looking beautiful at the same time have proved to be difficult while shooting for this assignment. In order for me to get a "so good it's bad" photograph, I simply did the things I normally do or observe while I'm at home. I figured life doesn't abide by the rules of composition and neither would my photographs if I simply observed the life I already see with my eyes everyday...but this time with a lens between them. I played with my dog, watched TV, did homework, and sat on my kitchen counter silently with the exception of a few clicks and snaps. 

I took this photo with a Canon Rebel T2i with an 18-55mm lens, an aperture of f6 and a shutter

speed of 1/60s. 

This photo breaks the rules because the couch is the focus of the photo,

and all the "action" in this photo has nothing to do with the couch. The two 

paintings in the background are unbalanced, but the chair arm on the left  balances

out the photo in a way and keeps 

unity in the photo. 

I shot this with a Canon Rebel T2i with an 18-55mm lens, an aperture of f7 and a shutter

speed of 1/60s.

This photo breaks the rules because the flowers are the object of interest in this photo, but 

the interesting parts of the photo are perfectly unrelated and related at the same time (confusing...

but not as confusing as breaking the rules of composition to create a perfect photo).  The boys feet somewhat 

merge with the girls head in the right corner. The woman's arm and the boy's leg are going in the same direction,  this secretly mimics the compositional rule of "line" and makes it an interesting and strangely eye-appealing photo. 

This photo was taken with a Canon Rebel T2i with an 18-55mm lens, an aperture of f7 and a shutter

speed of 1/60s.

This breaks the rules of composition in a number of ways. The lines on the floor and on the girls contrast each other and don't compliment the rules of composition but they do compliment this photo in its own way. The frame of the carpet does not work in the way that composition/interior designers would like it to. However, this photo works because it is all brought together by the direction and placement of the dog's legs and the girl's legs. 

After getting some "perfectly bad" photos, I continued with my idea of capturing perfection in the daily livings of a compositional rule breaking world... and decided to use the new knowledge of alternative processes to bring these photos to life...literally. I decided to create acrylic lifts of each photo and use them as placemats. I think placemats match the same criteria as a compositionally awful photograph. Place mats bring some sort of unity to the table, now matter how disheveled the contents on....or around... the table are. 

Geometry is not true, it is advantageous. -Henri Poincare

I really like all the lines and shapes in this photo. When shooting this, I incorporated the flourescent lighting from above, the streetlights on the street (behind the window), moonlight and my own light source being a small light set up on subject's right. I used a Canon Rebel T2i with an 18-55mm lens, a shutter speed of 1/60s and an aperture of f7.0.



For this photo I used a variety of light sources. I took advantage of the natural moonlight and the streetlights, and incorporated my own light source by putting my phone light right in-front of the lens (facing the lens). I used an aperture of f6.5 and a shutter speed of 1/40s. I used a Canon T2i with an 18-55mm lens to take this photo.

I think this photo is interesting because it looks like a double exposure. I used a Canon Rebel T2i with an 18-55mm lens to take this photograph and applied a shutter speed of 1/60s and an aperture of f7.0. There are several light sources I used to my advantage in this photo; such as the streetlights outside, car lights, natural moonlight, and fluorescent lighting from inside. To add my own light source I popped a flash (on my phone) directed towards the subjects back. 

I love this photo. I used natural moonlight, the fluorescent lighting from inside the library and apartment building, streetlights, and I popped a flash from a film camera directed onto the leaves of the big, yellow tree. I used an aperture of f7.0 and a shutter speed of 1/40s. I used a Canon T2i with an 18-55mm lens to take this photo.

To create motion blur in this photo, I used an aperture of f4.5 and a shutter speed of 2s on a Canon Rebel T2i with an 18-55mm lens. I asked the subject to jump and as he did, I popped a flash on his face (to create the replicated image of his face). I also incorportated natural moonlight in this photo, streetlights, and the fluorescent lighting of the library and apartment building.

For these photographs, my inspiration came from the library building itself and its surroundings. I do some of my best thinking at the library and I'm sure many others do too. It is a place where connections are made either by reading a book or just sitting there in quiet study. The geometry of the library reminds me of these connections/channels that so many minds have made while on a train of thought. I love the structure of the building and all the lines and shapes it produces... which is especially evident when lit up at night. The backdrop of natural moonlight has let me use the unnatural light (fluorescent light, etc) to emphasize the geometry of the structures in every photograph, and has let me manipulate my own source of light... kind-of like letting me place my own signature on every photo. The library really is an interesting place.

Studio Frightening

For my studio lighting portrait photos, I didn't want to take 3 simple photographs of the subject smiling and "sitting pretty". Instead, I found inspiration (once again) from Halloween and the masks that people wear on this strange event. I wanted to add an element of confusion and wonder to each photograph to  make the viewer feel taken aback by the sight of the different distortions the subject has endured via photoshop. I took these photos on a Canon Rebel T2i with an 18-55mm lens. I used a shutter speed of 1/60 s and an aperture of f22. The properties of light in photography (brightness, colour, contrast and direction) are evidently used in each photograph to obtain characteristic likeness of the subject. I speficially like the different directions of each light source (reletive to the subject and the lens) in every photograph; I feel like it gives the photos diversity. How ever unflattering the extra body parts are...there are no unflattering shadows. It was funny to see the looks on people's faces when I was taking these photos; they just looked over with a blank stare with no emotional or mental attachment what-so-ever to the typical, posed faces and positions of the subject. When these same people looked over at the computer after the photographs had turned into confusing (and maybe disturbing) images...they're expressions had totally changed. That in itself was an amazing feeling because I could see that they were feeling something towards something that I created; that is the satisfaction I crave as being a photographer.