Line and Light - Creative composition workshop
Yesterday, I attended a creative composition workshop run by Line and Light. The trainer was Chris Upton.
When I’ve been taking photographs in recent years, I’ve largely been doing it on autopilot. I know what I like and what I don’t like when I look at a photo. I know what a lot of the compositional “rules” are and they tend to work but are also fun to break or avoid from time to time.
This workshop was split into a classroom session in the morning and a practical session in Wollaton Park in the afternoon.
The morning was very useful. Chris went through lots of composition techniques and had examples for each one. They were discussed and questions were asked. There was a nice cross-section of people with varying levels of experience, which made for some good questions and discussions.
Normally when I’m out for a walk, taking photos, I can be in my own little world if walking alone or talking when with friends, and I’m not always that mindful about looking for things to take photos of. Sometimes if I go for a walk with a camera, I haven’t got a plan. I tend to go out with only 1 or 2 lenses - and usually prime lenses. So, for this workshop, I took 3 prime lenses: a 14mm, a 32mm and a 50mm.
During the afternoon session in the park, Chris was encouraging us to think about the different composition techniques. slow down and look at things before even using the camera. This crosses over with what Paul Sanders was saying in the workshop I attended in September.
I’ve included 3 of my photographs from the day - and I think that if I had just gone to Wollaton Park on my own, I think I’d have enjoyed the walk but I doubt I’d have taken photos like these three examples.
The lasting effect of this workshop is to slow down and be more mindful looking for photos to compose before taking them. I also think I’ll set myself little challenges when I take my camera out, to experiment and try new things.
Overall, very good, and it’ll help me break out of my autopilot mentality.
