Paul Mc Namara's WorldView

The second project in my photography course was shot way back in September in Munich. The purporse of this project was to shoot the same scene but focusing on different dimensions. This would concentrate attention on different parts of the photograph.

This first image focuses on the closest feature of the scene which was the back of a woman’s head as she watched a street band on Kaufingerstrasse. This photo is not that interesting as the background is too blurry and out of focus while the head is not so interesting from the back.

This is the medium view where the focus is directed at the accordian players in the band. They back of the woman’s head is still visible but out of focus. It is still interesting that it is contained in the image as it gives the impression of a crowd watching the band.

The furthest focus was taken after many attempts to find something interesting to focus on in the passing crowd behind the band. Here, a man comes out of the Kaufhof shop and seems to focus his attention past the band to the camera. This is probably unintentional and was a result of the luck of the shot. Here the accordian player is slightly out of focus but in a much more clear way that in the first photo. In my opinion, this is my preferred photo of the three.

These are the images that I took for the first project in the Art of Photography course. I guess the purpose here was to demonstrate the change in perspective by using prints and using them as a basis for understanding the changes that can be achieved by adjusting the focal length of the lens. I don’t have a printer so I am waiting for that to complete the exercise. One thing that I do need to get is a card reader for my SLR (Olympus E-520) which I started the exercise with. In the meantime, my LX3 will do the job nicely. Tomorrow on to focus with a set aperture.

I have taken a course called The Art of Photography with the Open College of the Arts, a distance learning institution based in the UK. As part of the course, students are required to record their work, thoughts and influences throughout the period of study. I thought that it would be a good idea to incorporate it into my existing blog.
I got the pack on Sunday after they were mistakenly delivered to my apartment in Munich rather than in Berne. Since then I have been reading and re-reading the course information. This is something similar to what I have done with many other books on photography but this time, there are projects and assignments to be done. Tomorrow I will tackle the first project and record the results here.