The Finney School of Real Life

Here is a photographic experiment.

Have a trip out - a walk, a car journey, anything, it doesn’t matter. But, leave all your camera equipment at home.

All of it.

Beforehand, make two pieces of card in the shape of an “L” - approximately 20cm by 15mcm - so that when you put the L’s together they make a frame. Take these with you on your outing.

Then, use the L’s just like a frame. Hold them up in front of your eyes and move the cards to adjust the size and shape of the frame you are looking through.

For this particular journey, this frame is your camera viewfinder.

As you go around, look at scenes and objects through this frame. Landscapes, people, bulidings, transport. See how the subject composition changes as you make the frame bigger and smaller and thinner and fatter. Manipulate the frame to get the composition you think works best.

You are now composing your image. You will start to think about the “subject” rather than the “shot”. Having no camera or lens means that you have nothing else to concentrate on.

How do your compositions change as you move the cards? Do you “feel” yourself composing rather than just gaily snapping? How can you transfer this learning experience over to your photography?

You will gain from this exercise. The next time you use your camera, your viewfinder should remind you of you L-shaped cards

Eric Hartwell is an enthusiastic photographer. He owns and runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums http://www.theshutter.co.uk/forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com Anyone interested in getting involved contact him at shutter@theshutter.co.uk