Composition 9/11 - the first 6 rules of composition
Like great pieces of art, great photojournalism shots are well composed. The photographer carefully places the elements of a photo within a frame in order to tell a story in the most visually powerful way possible.
Unlike art, the content of photojournalism is not, for the most part, controlled by the photographer.
This was never more true than during the attacks of September 11, 2001. This has been called one of the most photographed events in history.
Imagine being a photojournalist on that day, running into this disaster while most people are running away. In the midst of this misery and chaos, it is your job to capture the the human side of the story in an orderly and effective way.
Assignment
You will learn about some composition techniques and find examples of how photojournalists applied them to the chaos of 9/11.
First read about the the rules and look at the really strangely crappy pictures of "Simplicity, The Rule of Thirds, Lines, Balance, Framing, and Avoiding Mergers" on the following web site:
Then, because I'm a rule breaker and I can't stand it anymore...go to this site and look at how awesome breaking them can be. Click through the 9 pictures and celebrate with me... http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-tips/breaking-the-rules/#/boy-jump-trampoline_37471_600x450.jpg
Next- Go to the three websites below, and find excellent examples of photos shot on 9/11 that follow each of the rules.
Post one example of each of the techniques from the composition web site.
The title of the post should be the name of the technique.
For example- Post a photo with "Framing" as the title. You will need to do a post for each of the composition techniques. Which means you should have 6 posts today.
Here are the websites - they should be clickable links, if not copy and paste then into a new browser window.
http://www.thepowerhour.com/911_analysis/911_photo_gallery.htm
http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2013/09/11/iconic-911-photos.html
(for the website above, there are 25 pictures. Make sure you find the clickable link labelled NEXT and look at all 25 photos.)
When you're done - you might be interested to read this story. If you post your reaction to this story in a separate blog, I will give you extra credit points. This is graphic and not the easiest thing to read, so if you are squeamish, you might want to skip this one. Once you click the link, hit continue and it should redirect you to the website.
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/falling-mad-man-6648672
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/the-falling-man-10-years-later-6406030
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2014/09/esquire_publishes_essay_about.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/09/esquire-falling-man_n_5789918.html