Archive for May, 2009

How to Emphasize Your Subject Using Framing Techniques

Another digital photo tip to help you capture better images is by using a framing technique. Framing is a nice change of pace if it's something you don't do often. If you look before you shoot, you can find interesting ways to frame your subject. They are all around you. Just be careful not to let your frame overpower the subject. For an extra dramatic effect, try to framing with another technique to emphasize your subject.

Basically anything that you can use as a dominate foreground can serve as a frame. A few things you can consider when you're evaluating your surroundings might include tree boughs, a view through a fence or even a field of flowers. Where your subject does not dominate due to it's relative size or distance, framing is one technique you can use to focus attention. Your subject will appear more forceful and dramatic with the frame around them.

Framing can be accomplished in many ways. A wooden fence in the foreground of a landscape image serves as a frame along the bottom. It helps to establish near and far thus allowing the viewer to estimate distances. You shouldn't consider framing as being only on the top or sides of the subject.

Here's one of Ansel Adam's little known landscape photography tips. Look at some of his images. While not 'framing' as typically thought of, the delicate branches say you are here and that is the subject there beyond The use of leaves and branches of plantings in the foreground to create the sense of scale between the viewer and the subject beyond. You will notice other good examples when you know what to look for.

If you have a digital camera that's collecting dust on the shelf, don't be afraid to put your creative juices to work. Check out the Internet for digital photography lessons and other photography courses online. You can find excellent courses for very reasonable prices. In these tutorials, you can find lots of other great landscape photography tips, studio lighting techniques and much more in-depth information.

Thomas Luttig is a freelance professional photographer and business owner.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/visual-art-articles/how-to-emphasize-your-subject-using-framing-techniques-933413.html

Art as the Visual Imagination: By Dr. Mary C. Saleeby Ph.D

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Art as the Visual Imagination: By Dr. Mary C. Saleeby Ph.D.

Very often I wonder what it would have been like to live in a different time period.  I think about everyday life activities, diverse fashion, transportation and amusement. I dream how wonderful it would be to passage ourselves in time even if just for a brief moment and experience what different periods of existence were like.

One way we can achieve this is with visual imagination.  The trick is to transport your mind and spiritual being into another dimension. This is very often done through art and the power it possesses. The ability of expressing visual images reverts back to Prehistoric times, it also played an integral role in describing the life and everyday activities of people in Ancient Egyptian times.  One might ask, how can we possibly account for someone’s daily experiences dating back thousands of years? Well, the answer is through art and the glorious pictorials that were left for us.

The Ancient Egyptians blessed us with Hieroglyphs one of the greatest gifts the world has to offer.  As a Professor of Art History my students are astounded when I introduce them to this documentary art called Hieroglyphs. Before viewing the pictorials my students fully contemplated what these pictorials held and why they were done however the transcendence of actually seeing them in person drew them into a spiritual place and time they never thought they would encounter. It is their visual imagination that allows them to enter the art and stories of the Ancient Egyptians sacred religion, recreation, rituals and magical afterlife.

One of my favorite stories comes from my nephew, which of whom is a new addition to my family.  Michelle is this remarkable young Egyptian man that was born and raised in Egypt, one day during a conversation he explained to me how his backyard was quite different from those we have in New York City.  As he began to describe where he played after school and as he got older where he played during school I realized it was among the tombs of the Great Pharaohs. The story took my breath away and sent chills up and down my spine. My visual imagination ran away from me and made me wish that just for a moment I could have been a little girl in that same situation.

When we visualize or process a work of art, a painting an artifact or hieroglyph we not only process the image we process the emotion that leads us to encounter this feeling.  “American Physiologist Edmund Jacobson conducted studies which show that when a person imagines running a small but measurable amount of contraction actually takes place in the muscles associated with running”. (The Psychology of Consciousness”, by R. Ornstein) Therefore we must understand that our viewing of art is not only a visual experience it is a physical experience. Visual imagery is imminent to an explicit experience more so than a verbal thought, so whether awake or asleep a relaxed peaceful state advocates visualization encouraging us to experience and savor the wonderful gift of art.  Allowing our body, mind and soul to enter a different dimension and time period is a happy and healthy state of being and helps us amplify our visual imagination.

Copyright 2009: Mary C. Saleeby Ph.D.

Dr. Saleeby holds a BFA, MFA and Ph.D. in Art History with a Certification in Egyptology. She is an Art History Professor in New York City and gives Private lectures at various museums. You can visit her at http://www.marysaleebyphd.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/visual-art-articles/art-as-the-visual-imagination-by-dr-mary-c-saleeby-phd-933451.html