The first rule of photography is a very simple one. It’s a vital one, and it is unfortunately one that I forgot to follow when I grabbed my gear for this exercise. 

Rule 1: Always ensure that the memory card is in the camera.

Thankfully this exercises equipment requirements were as basic as possible, and the examples below were shot with an iPhone4. I should also point out that it was a bitterly cold day, made worse by a very strong wind coming off the land hence the rather uncomfortable look on my models face! 

Exercise: To place a subject within a large even background and shoot from multiple positions in the frame. 

As the written material did not make reference to the amount of the frame that the subject should fill, I produced three series of shots at various distances – close, medium and far.

My natural instinct is to put my subject in the left or right thirds depending on the direction they are facing. I rarely like to put a subject in the centre of the frame unless they are filling it, which is this case they are not. With the large background I find a medium shot has a better feel. I’d define a medium shot as the fitting the entire subject in frame crossing the two horizontal lines in the rule of thirds.

My natural inclination is to position the subject here, looking into the frame. 

I have attached a rough sketch to further illustrate my thinking. 

In these examples, the far shots simply don’t work at all. There just isn’t enough to make the person stand out. Where this kind of shot would be useful is it was elevated and intended to show the vastness, or emptiness of an area. Think arctic explorer in the snow, walking into the huge expanse that is the rest of the frame. Here though it just more like a landscape shot that someone has walked into, no matter where the subject was positioned.

With the close ups. Again the middle position just doesn’t feel natural, and the subject dominates the image and the background is lost. Positioning the subject to the either side produces a better feel, and does allow some of the background to filter through. However for the purposes of this exercise, this is not a particularly good distance from the camera as it lends itself more to a portrait as the subject dominates the image no matter where he is placed.

So returning to my  medium shots. The centre again just feels unnatural. If the subject is a facing in a direction other then directly towards the camera, my natural instinct is to follow the eye line. This then immediately leaves half the frame feeling awkward. Again my instinct for a static subject is still to put the subject on one of the ‘thirds’, with the choice being made on the direction he is facing. If the subject is moving towards or away from me, then I would still look to place the subject on one of the ‘third lines’, however the direction of travel would determine if I placed them higher or lower in the frame.

Medium shot left framed.