Looking through the viewfinder: Fitting the frame to the subject

I spent a morning at Guildford Castle for this exercise, in which I was asked to take my first shot of my subject without too much thought to it's composition, and then go on to take further shots with specific compositional requirements to help get me thinking about how to compose a photograph and how to see 'images' through the view finder. This was quite fun thinking of other ways to make one subject look very different just by changing the way it fitted the frame and in turn would appear to the viewer.

The first shot is the one I took as I approached the castle, no thought really involved apart from getting it straight and central! This was just to use as comparison for the shots that followed.

Second photo was to try and fit the subject in the frame as much as possible, filling up the entire thing if I could. I like the angle and the vertical orientation I took this from to get it to fit, it makes it look very imposing taking up the entire photograph.

The third picture had to be a close up of the subject, something that would fill the entire frame and beyond, so you couldn't see the edges of what you were shooting. Again I chose to make the image vertically to show the height of the walls, and although there is one edge of the castle in view I thought this added to it's sense of height, and included the flag blowing in the wind on top as it aided in your eye being led up and down the picture, again making you feel the scale of the structure.

The last Image was taken so that the subject would only occupy a quarter of the frame or less. I had to walk a fair distance away to get this and ended up below some trees, and the over hanging branches made for a nice addition to the picture with the castle being focused upon in the distance.

By comparing these different angles, orientations and how much of the frame is dominated by the subject with the first image I put no thought into, I can see how important it is to really think about your photography and how it will be viewed before you go snapping away. The first picture you take may not always be the best way to portray the image. The first image looks very bland and ordinary after I spent time choosing different angles and compositions for the other photos. It does give you the basic information that you are looking at a castle, but it doesn't have the depth or the ability to make you feel anything more like the others do that show how tall and strong the castle really is. I now understand that to get the best out of my photography, a good portion of it will be the thought process and composition behind getting a great shot.

Lastly I had to take one of the images and crop it so that I had alternative possibilities of compositions and where the image would fit within the frame. I decided to use the original first image to see if I could make a much better composition from it than how it had been taken to start with. I came up with the following possibilities:

The first crop I just took a slim section of the original photograph, it sort of just suggests the castle and the tree tops. Its quite interesting because it makes you wonder about the rest of the setting for the castle that you cant see, and your attention is drawn to the left side by the castle instead of just straight into the middle of the picture. The second crop I just brought the edges of the frame closer to the subject. by taking away a lot of the unnecessary back and foreground, the castle becomes much more prominent against the blue sky. The last one I left more back ground and some fore ground to give a sense to the position of the castle to its surroundings, making it appear much larger then the second crop as it is put into perspective by the small shrubs and fence before it.

Cropping can be a very useful tool in making your photographs give out the messages you want them to, about size and position and dominance. It can also add or subtract the details you don't want to include in your shot or take your focus away. By changing the position of your subject through cropping you can change the way people will perceive your photography.