Spring 2022

This is my happy place when looking at this picture before cropping the photo. You see everything and there is no focus. You have the sky, the hills, the eagle’s nest, the pond, the house, and the ATV. There is a lot of different things to focus and you can get distracted by many different things going on in the picture.

Now with the photo cropped its focus is on the house where I used to sleep after a long day of being out in the middle of nowhere. The ATV took me to all the new and different places. With the photo is cropped you can just focus on two different things the house and the ATV. Having cropped the picture shows a different story. Having the photo cropped I like that the house is more in focus. I learned a lot and did a lot in that house.

I was drawn to this image of a Boxer in the forest because I thought the setting was peaceful and contemplative. (I also have an affinity for floppy-eared Boxers because we have had several in the family.) Although the original image is impactful – the lighting focuses on the dog and the darker edges give good contrast and a sense of the space around the dog – I felt like it could benefit from some improvements. In the cropped version, I decentered the dog and placed more focus on him rather than the scene around him. It made sense to place him in the left lower quadrant to bring attention to the direction of his gaze. This placement also removed much of the foreground, which simplified the image and brought the dog closer. Although much of the forest is removed, one still gets a sense of the setting.

Using Adobe Photoshop, I cropped the photo in order to alter its perspective. Pictures have the ability to tell stories in many different ways. The picture I selected is a great example of how this works. In the original picture, we can observe a large family posing for a picture. However, while some seem interested, others appear distracted.

By using the rule of thirds, I cropped most of the people out of this picture, leaving only two people, one of whom is staring into space and the other amused by what is happening in the background. We are left wondering what the ladies are looking at. They are each staring at something different. This is funny because people could actually use the image as a meme.

I chose my newest indoor plants in selecting an image for this week’s project. These plants are placed next to my WFM desk. In the original photo (featured above), there are many vivid colors/background noise behind the plants between the sky, outside trees, and windows. I wanted to create a more focused and new narrative by eliminating the plant closest to the viewer. Using the rule of thirds and my grid line, the new image is now centered with the most significant plant located in the top-left grid and the succulent situated at the bottom right of the grid. This creates more focus and light for the two plants and brings the plants closer to the viewer than before. It also enriches the main plant’s color than before. I also like that the plants are neatly lined up and centered in the original. The cropped photo centered the two plants while also cutting off a chunk of the main plant, almost like getting a hair cut! The cropped image simplifies the background more than the original.

And just like that, then it became two plants.