Photography Lesson
Hendrickson Garden, Wizards Tower, North Side.
(Like Wizzo said, Shapes and Colors do matter. A little.) 

The goal of this lesson is merely to sensitize you to the choices you have available when aiming a camera. 

We’re going to look at 4 different photos of this garden made from more or less the same angle of view just moments apart from one another. There is something to be said for all 4 photographs. Therefore, I will say it.

A person could argue that one of these is “better” than the others, but I am not that person. Like I said, there is something to be said for all of them. 

This first photo reveals classical “good composition.” Notice how the shot is framed so that there is something to see along all the edges:
1. The yellow flowers in the upper left corner extend slightly beyond the framelines, pulling the eye and the imagination with them.
2. Likewise, the cactus, the 2 windows and the cedar tree fill the upper part of the frame, refusing to be ignored.
3. A little bronze girl reading a book and a large bowl of cactus intrude from beyond the right frameline, telling you there would be more to see if only you were there.
4. A heavy, curved stone wall with a bit of rock garden revealed below it anchor the lower frameline.

This is an example of what photographers mean when they say “fill the frame.” Basically, they’re telling you to move a little closer so that some of your favorite stuff is bisected by the edges of the photo – partly revealed, partly hidden beyond the field of view. The eye and the imagination LOVE this.