Exercise - Focal lengths

In this exercise I have taken 4 photo's using for different focal lengths on my zoom lens in order to appreciate the amount of view that can be taken in at each setting.

Photo 1

 focal length 78mm

2

focal length 95mm

  

3

focal length 195mm

4

 focal length 300mm

Photo 1. This was taken fairly casually and gives plenty of view of the boat in it's setting. I would probably crop some of the edges slightly to remove superfluous detail to make this scene work slightly better.

Photo 2. I decided to take the other 3 pictures landscape as I thought the portrait orientation of the first pic wouldn't work as I got in close. Photo 2  I feel is boring because the subject is in the dead centre spot ( Freeman, 2007) and there is a lot of river foreground which too isn't particularly interesting.

Photo 3. I think this photo works really well with the dynamic tension introduced in the background with the diagonal rock strata meeting the river edge and the dynamic flow in the river. I think that if I'd taken the photo from a slightly lower position then the top of the boat would have been above the line of the edge of the river and broken that line. This I feel would have been more aesthetically pleasing. The red buoy adds some nice colour contrast and of a similar colour tone to the lifebelt balances the detail in the pic.

Photo 4. With the boat filling most of the frame but at a slight angle which means it doesn't appear static and flat. There is again a little tension from the diagonals of the rock strata which works well. I feel that again a slightly lower position as in Photo 3 would have just given that little improvement.

Ref;  Freeman, M. (2007) The Photographer's Eye A single point UK ILEX