Embark Challenge 3 - “Composition 101”
This challenge was a bit of a whirlwind, I had multiple different images I thought were going to be suitable, but none felt the THE image.
I started off convinced I had the photo I was going to submit from when I photographed the Ultimate Stock Dog Challenge. I very clearly had a vision in mind, I wanted to shoot a dog framed by the legs of cattle or sheep. When I snapped this image at the USD, I thought it was the one.
However, after re reading the brief, I decided it didn’t meet the requirements for this challenge. The face of the dog might be in the centre of the image but the rest of the dog is off to one side which doesn’t give a great sense of balance. so back to the drawing board!
Next I shot my collie, Tex, running through some puddles on a dreary day, I knew with his medium coat, the water would make a good texture on his fur. The photos were ok, but not exactly what I had in mind. I am still very much wanting to keep my images to a working dog theme.
We are now only a couple of days out from the deadline, I knew I had one last chance to shoot the exact image I wanted. Thankfully we were already going to Millison Park Border Collies to shoot Bianca’s young dogs. This was my final chance!
After shooting the younger dogs, I told Bianca of the image I was trying to get, and she knew just the dog to make it happen. She pulled Bauer’s Moss out of the kennel and we got the image in under 5 minutes! This was made even more special that Moss is my dog, Tex’s, dad!
I thought I had absolutely nailed this challenge, I got exactly the image I wanted, Moss is centred in the picture and is framed by the legs of the sheep.
Unfortunately, the feedback wasn’t what I had hoped. Charlotte and Craig agreed that the intensity of his gaze more lends itself to an image that has more room on the left for the gaze to go into, not a centred image, so it did not meet the brief.
This was hard to hear but I had to remind myself, just because it doesn’t fit the brief, doesn’t mean it’s a bad photo.
So, now comes the hard part of resubmitting an image. This makes me nervous as now I will be submitting something for the final portfolio that I have no idea if the judges like or not.
I could easily go out and take a generic portrait again, however, I wanted to stick to my theme of working dogs and I thought the image I submitted still had string foundations.
This is the image I am submitting for the final portfolio review, it is a risky one because I know the sheep covers some of the dog’s face. Yet the dog is coming straight at the camera and while is centred, I have left some room at the top of the image to compensate for the intense gaze. I think having the sheep fill that top of the frame helps with the storytelling…. let’s hope Craig and Charlottee feel the same way.
