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Principles of Design: Scale

Lesson 13 from: Intro to Adventure Sports Photography

Jay Goodrich

Principles of Design: Scale

Lesson 13 from: Intro to Adventure Sports Photography

Jay Goodrich

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Lesson Info

13. Principles of Design: Scale

Lesson Info

Principles of Design: Scale

I bring this into the into this scenario because as small scale, why does this look small to anybody? No, it looks huge, right? In fact, it's a couple of rocks about that big, so it's, a very small scale element, but the way I've chosen to illustrate it in the photograph is very large, right? And all I did was take a wide angle lens and get really, really close to my subject, and a lot of people don't realize that wide angle lens is focused really close within, like eight inches, and if you stop them down to f twenty two, you can get almost four inches within four inches of your subject and that's out to infinity. So that's a lot of information you can, including a photograph with a wide angle lens and that's. What I did here, I got low got next to it got downright worm's eye view more so, then I level view obviously because of things down here put the filled my frame with the foreground element and the clouds in the background. They changed the way you see the image because they're ti...

ny, right? If they were a lot bigger and they're more dramatic or dynamic coming into are saying it would actually make you think of the scale differently, probably as well, but here because of that you think this thing is just really huge right? And the clouds make you think because clouds are typically big that it is that way but it really isn't so you can change people's perspective of scale literally and figuratively and you do by the way you use your lenses and by how you place your elements in your friend okay so small scale macro that thing's about this big right but if I zoom into it I get this crazy pattern now are illustrating texture and color as well kind of cool right so looking at the world differently taking that are arches oh the last one the one up there this is goblin valley state park in utah the texture one o the texture one just curious if you remember that's iceland iceland tyson that's beautiful thank you. I just love kind of this you know to me this looks like pandya or something you know it's a world map I see it that way but I just also the color palette and the way things were kind of breaking up it's kind of interesting you know it's different like in there too so it was I didn't see I've never seen that kind of like and you're here we have doubled man's beard and all that kind of stuff so when you see things that are different and immediately kind of just sparks that yeah very cool thank you small scale pacific northwest scale are sinise scale snail his small scale snail say that fifteen times says hanging out on the rear triangle of my wife's like as we loaded into the cars so this thing crawled up on the bike in the garage and was like I'm going for a ride today and they saw it as I was putting it up on the rack up on the car and I'm like ok there's a shot it's totally shot got a hitchhiker I can illustrate this in a way that most people wouldn't think of it pull out the macro lens bam take a shot they're really small in comparison to that mountain right what did I d'oh changed my perspective got low they got big mountains off in the distance wide angle lens all of a sudden they look huge in comparison right by changing the scale in this scenario what happens who becomes the subject they do what becomes the supporting context in the shop the mountain time of day sunset etcetera see how this all starts working together now? Okay human scale we get that that's a trolley car we get that we're going to get on it it has a very human scale to it right? Even though my friend art is walking over there it doesn't really add or detract from the image so he's good I'll leave them there you see this you see this because of color because it's the most prominent in the scene so you're distractions as they become further away less prominent in your friend then don't really matter to what your subject until you do your subject matter correct what else we got going here shape right I'm a rectangular shape man made etcetera and I asked these guys to pull this thing out it was in the shop like he does move that out I think it be cool like these so these air the doors to the you know the edges of the doors there like right there okay we'll pull it out you can take pictures yeah sure the shore barriers on the coast of venice beach again uh you know if if this dude weren't here we wouldn't know what the height of those barriers are we wouldn't even really know what the barriers were but because he's on a bike then all of a sudden we've got a bike path going on we've got barriers you know between shore and coast we don't want the whole thing to get uh ripped up etcetera so we've got human scale there same thing gavron that way then he ran this way then he ran that way five different shots right so here we're illustrating kind of that human person scale we can relate because why we're on the same plane right same plane is he is essentially but look at how big the mountains are in the background large scale big environment right where the microcosm this is the trail she crashed on moments later down there in the woods this is seward alaska so that's the gulf of alaska out there that's how all of these mountain chains and everything protect that harbor you can see boats cascading how did I get the water that way polarizer I actually had to de saturate this image from the raw in this scenario the colors were just so vivid they'd looked fake to me and I don't know if the way the sensor picked it up or if it's the way that the polarizer kind of affected the scene but same here right there tiny this is actually a really huge slope but what makes it look even bigger? My proximity to then their proximity to the slope, right? Same here horizontal line scale here there's less scale to even think about then what we had in the last shot, right? So this was taken on the ridge below before we crested and saw that dramatic landscape. But I just like the way the clouds kind of created yet again a diagonal line that is implied that kind of leads you all the white elements kind of lead you to that subject right again no rule of thirds here, right that's where we're headed so dramatic second place second most favorite place in the world iceland this tree he his head actually he had to bend over to get underneath that the question you know, like the last time that you had do you know those people that are off no justice okay, so this is we're in iceland were hiking this trail kind of comes down here walks through the valley were hiking in and so are a bunch of other people and there's so many people in the region like I'm like oh, I can use them everyone if you just use like, two way radios oh, no, no it's just in the funny thing is you again watching so some of them stopped some of them keep moving. You wait until they get into the positions you think they should be in to kind of balance out what's going on and then I take a shot so that's it and it is polarized too. You know, I have polarizer zahn all my lenses and they're essentially on my lenses unless his dark album so he had to duck they both had to duck to get under there, but because I'm shooting with a wide angle lens, I let them get further off in the frame. I'm right underneath the trunk of the tree changes the scale we would if we would know that this branch is really low if they were right there, right? Okay here. Two hundred millimeter, probably maybe with a one point four. But by using a telephoto, I compressed the scene, he's, he's, probably miles from the peak, right, but like by compressing the scene with a telephoto lens, it looks like he's, like right there. So I'm on a ridge that's further away from him. Just make him skin up that way, and I'll meet him at the other side, you know, ok, so here's a perfect example. Same lens, twenty four one o five. Same positions in the boats. Notice the difference. Proximity to them, yes, but look at how small this looks we zoom out. Look at how large it looks now. So if we know this, we can start using it to our advantage, right?

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Jay Goodrich - Lightroom Notes and Workflow.pdf
Jay Goodrich - Intro to Adventure Photography Discount Codes.pdf

bonus material with enrollment

Jay Goodrich - Intro to Adventure Sports Photography Syllabus.pdf
Jay Goodrich - Intro to Adventure Photography Gear Guide.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Brendan Quigley
 

While I'm new to the world of Creative Live and their excellent series of lecture presentations, I'm not so new to the world of photography. I'm an avid semi-pro nature photographer with aspirations toward expanding my portfolio to include more adventure sports-related imagery. I found Jay's presentation insightful, humorous and down to earth. His classes mixed the art and design of an image with the technical experience and athletic ability one would need to create the kind of image I'd like to be able to make, and he did it in a way that made my personal goal achievable. Jay's images are stunning, and he presents a lot of valuable information in a way that relates to photographers of all skill levels. I look forward to seeing more of what CL can provide to help me become a better photographer, and also to seeing what Jay will present next. I highly recommend this class!

Dámaris
 

Thank you so much for sharing this and for free. I learnt a LOT... and still gotta keep on learning!! I like and agree with most of your points of view, Jay! Love the no-rules approach, photographer's vision, controlling the shot and camera, and doing most of the job with the camera instead of lots of editing, like many do. I honestly didn't know you before this workshop but am now a new follower you've got. Keep it up! You're gonna kinda hate me for kind of pointing something out to you... you kind of say kind of and kinda kind of 'way too much' ;) Not saying it as negative criticism because it is not at all, but as a funny observation (followed HIMYM? You'll understand ;)). Best of luck. Respect. ps. Recommended watch.

Student Work

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