In Chapter 3, Freeman talks a lot about shapes and lines, and creating artistic motifs in your photograph despite the constraints that photography inherently possesses. I thought about a few of his ideas more in depth, especially the concept of having subtle shapes that create a fun game for the viewer’s subconscious to solve. Freeman actually made a point to explain how you can’t “offend the viewer’s intelligence” and that very obvious motifs may make the photo come across as cliche in that regard.
This chapter made me think of the yoga photography I had a chance to do last Friday. My apartment complex sent out a mass email inviting everyone to their biweekly Yoga by the Pool sessions and I emailed them back expressing an interest in photographing them for our scavenger hunt. I ended up getting a lot of really good pictures, and I like this one particularly because of the repeated shape motif that is broken when you get to the woman closest to the camera, who appears to be taking a break from the exercise.
I love this picture for a variety of reasons. I think it’s very well exposed, I noticed in post that I didn’t have to alter the exposure at all. I also love the composition of the photo, particularly the layering. Whats important for this chapter is that shape motif, plus the fact that yoga is all just shapes and lines. There are actually a lot of lines in this photo, the contrast of the concrete and the dirt, then the bright blue yoga mats repeated all in the same direction and orientation.
I think that this photo is a pretty good example of repeating shape and line motifs and if I were to improve it I would probably just change where I was standing so that the girl in the blue outfit on the third layer wasn’t being obstructed by the woman in the red tank top’s head.