Photography Explorations: Filling the Frame

On Saturday, I took a drive up to Point Reyes – motivated by the Open Studios held this weekend. There were a few photographers having open studios – including my friend – and black and white photographer – Marty Knapp. Before heading to the open studios, however, I stopped by a few of my favorite sites in Inverness and at Pierce Point Ranch out on Point Reyes.

First stop was the FV Point Reyes, a popular site just behind the Inverness Grocery Store. Many photographers have shot this forlorn fishing boat over the last few years. I made a quick stop here – spending at most 10 minutes – shooting hand-held with my Canon 5D Mark II with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L lens – and my iPhone 4S.

I first captured the usual iconic shots of the boat – from about a half dozen angles as I walked around the bow. As I was about to leave, I noticed how lovely the light was on the cabin of the boat itself – and that motivated me to go in closer and to “fill the frame”, not worrying about capturing the whole boat itself.

This image turns out of be one of what I consider the best of my recent photos – with the beautiful light, the great detail of the boat’s “grunge”, the bokeh and moodiness in the sky behind, etc. I titled it “Derelict”. A great example of one of the basics of great photography: “fill the frame”! The major point about filling the frame is that our minds will deal with the missing elements – it’s certainly easy to see that this is a fishing boat – and, given it’s tilt, that something’s amiss!

Here’s another image – one that was more heavily post-processed including a texture overlay – of the FV Point Reyes that I posted last summer.

PS: If you’re in the US, hope you’re having a great Memorial Day weekend! We had one of our grilled tri-tip dinners last night that was wonderful – a bit more more on that later once I update the menu on my Scott’s Kitchen web site.

PPS: Here’s a straight out of the camera shot of the FV Point Reyes – taken with my iPhone 4S. Sort of sets the scene for the closeup shot above!