The addition method
Strategy. Widening your horizons
Sometimes if you just take a closeup picture of the subject all by itself, the picture is kind of boring. A new strategy called the addition method can help us to widen our photographic horizons and enrich our pictures!
This time, of course, we are going to add things to a picture one-by-one.
Here are the instructions for the addition method:
- 1. Start with a closeup of your starring subject (a subject photographed from very close).
- 2. Add things to the picture one after the other by using our secret weapons, especially by shifting the frame to the side or by backing up. You must do this while trying not to add any intruding elements at the same time, of course!
- 3. Decide how many things you want to show in the picture. Stop when you think the picture is good and there’s nothing cool left to add!
Considering the evidence. The rowboat and the bell tower
So the idea is to make the frame wider and wider in order to show more and more of the context, not just the subject.
For example, I chose a blue-and-yellow wooden rowboat as my subject, and then I realized that there were some elements in the area around it that could be interesting to add to my picture. So I enlarged my frame a little bit at a time to see how that turned out. Read the captions under the photos to see what was going on in my head!
Which of the pictures below do you like best?
Picture quest. Enriching the picture
Follow the addition method!
- 1. Take a closeup picture of your subject.
- 2. Back up a little and/or shift the frame, noticing all the while what this adds to your picture. If it’s an intruder, backtrack and undo whatever you did in order to get rid of it! But if it’s something cool and interesting, all the better!
- 3. Keep backing up and shifting your frame for as long as you can keep adding interesting things without having too many intruders sneak in. If you feel like your subject is getting too small in the picture, or if there are too many intruders invading the picture, go back to an earlier version that you liked and take the picture!
Did you notice that when you get really close to a subject, you don’t always see the whole thing in the picture anymore?
So you only get a picture of part of it . . . That’s surprising, isn’t it?! A piece of a subject! Urrrgghhh!
It makes you think that framing is sometimes a little bit like a pair of scissors that you can use to cut a picture or part of a subject out of the middle of everything you see!
The next part of your assignment will be to look at your subjects even closer up and to investigate this crazy framing/cutting.
Good luck!