05.02.2011.

TAOP Level 4.

Part 1. The Frame.

Positioning the Horizon.

Equipment: Canon G12.

For this assignment I ended up with three sets of pictures each showing various aspects of placing the horizon at various heights.  The first set was of Deal Pier under a glowering sky and taken from the land.  The following day I woke up to snow and took the opportunity to have a second go at the subject.  In fact I took two more sets of pictures.

The set of pictures featuring the pier and the glowering sky worked as a picture only when the horizon was kept low and the sky could dominate.  As the horizon rose in the pictures the sea and a featureless stretch of beach took over the picture became less interesting.

The second series was of the the town and beach under a blanket of snow, taken from the pier, looking north.  In this series the pictures with the highest horizon had the most impact.  The sky in this series was a uniform dull grey and of little interest.  The snowy beach and town were the points of interest.  The area of beach washed clear of snow acts as a lead to take the viewers eye from the bottom left to the horizon.  I would have cropped this a lot tighter but that was not the remit.  In this set the pictures became less and less interesting as the horizon dropped down the pictures.  

The third set was of Deal taken from the pier and looking south.  In this set, although similar to the second set in many ways, worked better with a low horizon.  The sea was almost without feature but the sky had a threatening quality that was amplified by giving it height. 

When I took the two sets of pictures from the pier I assumed I would get similar results and was surprised by the results.

One can get away with a high or low horizon if one restores balance to the picture in a similar way to that demonstrated in the Balance Exercise.