Exercise: Fitting the frame to a subject
For this exercise I decided to shoot my motorbike. The photographs were taken at my work car-park on an exceptionally cold and grey day using a Nikon D300s.
Conventional View
A 3/4 view of a motorcycle - 1/160 @ f4.5 ISO100 19mm
Filling the Frame
Profile view of motorcycle - 1/400 @ f5.6 ISO200 45mm
Detail Shot
Engine Block of a Motorcycle - 1/160 @ f/4.5 ISO100 70mm
Subject with Background
Motorcycle in Carpark - 1/125 @ f/9 ISO250 70mm
Crops of above
Conclusions
This was the first time that I photographed my bike and I enjoyed it as a subject. The location isn't the most inspiring which means the background was quite limited for the required crops of the 4th image. In terms of the detail shot, I felt quite constrained by the instruction not to show any edges, given that a motorcycle is 90% edges, that where there is an expanse of material it tends to be quite uniformly featureless - such as the tank or the saddle unless given some kind of context. I've attached further images that I shot on the day that I think better illustrate the features of the bike and are more interesting compositionally, but which do feature some edges.
Overall I'm generally please with the days shooting under the circumstances. When better weather, (and therefore lighting) returns, I'll likely revisit the bike as a subject in a nicer location. it would also be nice to do the shots of the whole bike with a telephoto to get some decent separation of the bike and the background, which I just wasn't able to get with the 70mm available.
