Angles, View Point and Cropping

Degas

Degas was a French artist who focused mainly on Dancers and can be described as an Impressionist, which means painting the realities of the world as inspiration. The majority of his paintings are dancers performing showing movement, the same way you could with photography, all of his paintings are very life like. Degas originally wanted to paint history pictures but once photography was invented, it produced new ideas and ways for painters to try and create new paintings.
The painting on the right is based on the sculpture Degas made when his eye sight began to deteriorate, it's a 14 year old ballet dancer named Marie Van Goethem.

                                                                                    Painters would create an idealistic image of what they thought was 'perfect' which meant everything was centred and nothing was cropped. Photographers came in and showed that for a photograph to look good, it didn't have to be 'perfect' you could crop and leave spaces in the picture and it could still turn out just as good as a painting that was done without cropping or spaces.

Early Kodak Photographs 

 Kodak cameras were very popular                                                      because they were portable and cheap and perfect for amateur photographs, the people                                                         using Kodaks just used them for general photographs                                                           when they were on holiday or on     days out. The amateur photographs being taken with Kodaks proved that professional photographers could make more 'errors' and tilting the camera to one side, to make the photographs more abstract rather than picture perfect, as paintings used to be. Paintings and Photography both influenced each other in showing that their work didn't have to be perfect, it could have 'faults' but they didn't necessarily make the photographs or paintings unpleasant.

Angles, View Point and Cropping

In these two photographs I was using camera height by looking up and looking down on the subject of the photograph. When I took the photograph on the right, I also tilted the camera slightly to make the photo appear a little more abstract but as Poppy is in the centre you are still drawn to her and that was the aim of the photograph.

 In this photograph, I went to the top of the stairs on the bridge and looked down at Ellie, I think the photo is successful in the fact I have used camera height but I think if I was to take the same picture again I could ensure that there isn't any other objects in the photo so the main focus is on Ellie only. Personally, I don't dislike the photo but I think it would look much better if the table and other objects weren't in the way, also if the windows behind Ellie weren't in full view.

This is another shot using camera height and I really like this picture. I like how there's nothing else in the way of the photo other than the trees branches and leafs which means all your attention is solely on the tree itself.




                

The next thing I tried out was camera angles, basically just taking a picture but rather than taking a straight shot, you rotate the camera just to make it look a bit different and slightly abstract. On the right I took a portrait of Ellie, I quite like the photo and I think it looks much better as oppose to it being a straight shot as it gives it a slight edge and more intriguing. I like how the background is blurry and she's central to the picture as it makes you much more drawn to her.


This photo on the left is the sports building and although I don't think it's a great photo I do think it looks half decent, especially with the tilt on the camera, however if I was to take the photo again I would definitely not crop as much out just because I think it would look better with more of the building showing.

All of these 3 photos are using in-camera crop which I think worked well with the second and last photos but I don't really like the first one although I think by cropping the top of her head it draws attention to her face and the fact her hand is covering her face up. Plus the background is boring and apart from her hand drawing attention to her face, there's not much else going on.
                                                                                     




In the second photo I think it's a really good shot and there's a lot of focus on the camera which catches your eye, especially with the background all being blurred, I don't think the effect would be the same had her whole head have been photographed. It draws your eyes directly to the object of the photo and its bright and there's more going on.

In this photograph again, I have cropped the top of her head off which draws attention to her hat and brightly coloured hair, which also matches the colour of the leaves, the leaves are bright which also captures your attention and draws you in. I don't think the effect would have quite been the same without the cropping.