Rather than choose a large object, for the first framing exercise I thought I’d use something smaller. I really like the texture of the knitted toy on the small sofa, and this first shot is how I would normally take it. As you can see, I’ve tried to incorporate some of the surroundings and include some interest in addition to the main subject by way of the second soft toy at the top. For me I guess there’s an element of comedy – the cute face looking down at the surprised knitted character, almost as if he’s jumped up there and shouted ‘boo!’. I arranged the knitted toy’s ears to look as if he just jumped, not completely surprised, and is looking at the camera as if to say ‘how tedious’.
This shot has some downsides though. Firstly, not getting close enough loses the feeling of deep texture in the main subject and to some degree and the second toy does detract from the main subject.
For the tightly cropped shot I chose to move to the side slightly. I thought shooting square-on produced a flat looking image and the depth and shape of the toy became lost. I tried tilting the frame and some other angles but I couldn’t get any more of the toy in the shot. Using a tripod in this case would have helped as holding the camera still enough to crop tighter without losing some of the image was quite tricky.
The texture of the toy becomes much clearer by getting closer and there is a lot less distraction by losing the other toy and the background.
In addition to the clearer rendition of texture and shape, the exact same positioning of the toy now conveys a different ’emotion’ in the toy. Gone is the surprised come tedious look which has been replaced by a more serious expression, as if the character is about to impart some advice or give you the benefit of experience. Perhaps it’s the more 3d look provided by the changed angle and deeper shadows; it could also be due to the slightly forward leaning pose that this angle has revealed.
For the crop shot I was in two minds, I could focus on the textures and shapes or keep the eyes in the picture to keep the character element alive. I thought the latter was probably more obvious, so I decided to focus on the texture and shape and include the button by way of contrast. It’s clearly some kind of knitted toy but exactly what is now lost; it has been reduced to sections that are vaguely identifiable.
I like the button in this shot, which I’ve made sure is off centre and roughly placed two thirds down and across. The colour is a different family to the rest of the toy and it’s smoothness provides a nice contrast to the knitting that otherwise would fill the frame.
The final picture of the series was taken from much further back and it encompasses the toy and much more of its surroundings than any of the other shots. I balanced the exposure so that the background gave an impression of depth and was more visible than some of the other shots.
The limited space in the room and the position of the toy did limit my ability to get around it, so pictures from other angles wasn’t so much of an option in this case. I did move around and try of course, with the camera pinned to my face! Below are some of the cropped options I tried from this shot.
This exercise highlighted to me the almost infinite possibilities presented to photographers when you put a camera to your eye, even if only a very few are shown here. And that’s just framing, before you even consider what can be done with exposure, depth of field and other tools that have creative impact. Even with limited space and ability to get around the subject, there are still plenty of options. The surprise to me this time is the how the change of composition seems to change the personality of the toy, even though it hasn’t moved. The other thing I’ve noted, which may obvious, is that while cropping can also completely change how the image is portrayed you loose the choice of perspective and depth that you have when you’re still with the subject. There is no replacement for moving when you’re getting your original capture.