Exercise - A sequence of composition.

For this exercise I am asked to photograph a sequence of around 20-30 pictures following a scene with people in it. Of all the exercises so far I found this one to be the most difficult because of lack of confidence when shooting people. I had a few tries before settling for the sequence that will follow.

This series of photos was captured while I was standing on the lifeboat stations jetty and was a chance situation. The subject is that of a pair of fisherman returning to land with their catch of the day (which looked like whelks).  Photos where all taken freehand on a fujifilm S100fs in full sunshine (am).

First series of pictures is the fisherman mooring and transferring the catch over to the boat to shore.

Here we see the fishermen loading up their smaller boat which was unfortunately on the blind side of the fishing vessel. I zoomed out to get both fishing vessels in.

Full zoom of the fisherman loading up.

Captured fishing vessel through netting for effect.

Quite like the effect of the out of focus net on this one. I like the irony of catching the fisherman through a net!

Small boat all loaded up and heading for shore. This and following photos taken  using different zooms. Had to slightly lighten subjects as there was too much shadow which spoilt the shot.

Changed viewpoint so I could capture the moment they got to shore.

Changed view so that I was directly over them as they dragged their boat up the beach.

This is my favourite from the series. The boat is at a pleasing angle in the water with both fisherman seeming to satisfy the rule of thirds position. One of the fishermen has spotted me and the look on his face really adds to the feel of the picture as does the nonchalance of the other fisherman. The boat contrasts really well against the water.

I believe I have learnt a lot about subject positioning when taking a photo during this exercise. I can also see the merits of taking too many photos when trying to capture a scene. If I had only taken a couple of pics, as I normally do, then I would've missed what I think was the best picture of the series.