Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Looking Closer - Pre-Visualization and Chess

When a typical computer plays chess it might start the game by using a playbook of classic game openers, after a while it will begin to do exhaustive evaluations of every move and possible counter, and counter-counter, etc until it arrives at a move that ranks strongly.

When I play chess it is somewhat similar but it don't do exhaustive move evaluations. I may for certain key pieces but generally i feel the balance of power between the two sides and look for specific vulnerabilities.

When I make an image my approach is similar to chess. There may be certain 'openers' that I use. These might be easily expressed as following the rules ... the rule of thirds, fill the frame, get low, get high, principles of design, Gestalt, positive and negative space, etc, but from there it is more about feel. At least that is the way I work.

For this image I knew I wanted to be up high so I could look slight down on this leaf. A nearby rock gave me a platform for that. I wanted to look mostly across the surface of the leaf with the emphasis being the base of the leaf. I knew that I wanted a general wash of colour in the background made up from similar leaves - similar colour. This is the result.

How do you pre-visualize?

1/200 f/6.3 ISO 400 EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 105 mm Canon EOS 40D
Sibblad Point Provincial Park,Ontario

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