DSL Reports 30 Day Project – Elements of Design – Day 1

Over at the DSL Reports (DSLR) Digital Imaging forum we started a 30 day group project this week on the Elements of Design. I decided I wanted to also blog about my experiences taking the photos so I’ll do that here.

Day 1, May 23 – Line

“A line represents a “path” between two points. A line can be straight, curved, vertical, horizontal, diagonal, or zigzag. Lines imply motion and suggest direction or orientation.” (COMPOSITION & the ELEMENTS of VISUAL DESIGN)

This was harder than it sounds. Working on a university campus, there are lines all over the place – buildings, trees, parking lot markers, etc. – but I wanted to have something more than a photo of a couple lines. I needed more of a subject than that. It was also midday (lunch time) when I went out, so there were people everywhere.

I ended up settling (I know I shouldn’t do that) for the photo above because I found a spot that was strangely completely devoid of humans. Although in retrospect, It may have been better to have had someone in the foreground or at the top of the trail. As it is, there’s still not much of a subject in this photo. The path way nicely leads the eye through the scene, but to what? The trees are all pointing to the sky, that you can’t really see.

A different perspective on this same scene may have come out better. If I had been at the top of the path shooting down, then end of the path (where I’m standing) opens up into the park. I might need to reshoot this one.

(FYI: I actually took this photo on Tuesday because I wasn’t able to get out on Monday.)