Interesting Compositions I'd Love to Try...

Are there any compositions for photos you'd love to be able to take, but haven't come up with a means to do them yet? Either it involves remote triggering, or herculean lighting efforts, or whatnot...

Just something I was musing about. Here's a couple I can think of:

1. A very wide angle shot, either fisheye or rectilinear, but probably a fisheye would look better, with the camera placed flat on a sandy bottom between reef shelves and pointing straight 'up' to get that full pano view of the surroundings and surface including waves and sunball. We see the opposite a lot (straight 'down' on a shallow reef from the surface with a FE) but up might be just as interesting. Similar shot might be pretty cool under some overhanging structure crossing over the visual field, like the traditional 'anchor standing up like a jack', or looking 'up' a line at a ship hull on the surface.

2. Similar shot but with wide-angle looking 'out' of a porthole, so the rim of the porthole (or passthru etc.) is framing the shot....but when you cannot get interior access to actually put yourself "behind the opening", and want the lighting such that the framing structure provides a silhouette vs. being lit from the inside.

Can anyone else think of other compositions they'd love to try but either can't or haven't yet?

Interesting topic. Looking forward to more replies.

2. Similar shot but with wide-angle looking 'out' of a porthole, so the rim of the porthole (or passthru etc.) is framing the shot....but when you cannot get interior access to actually put yourself "behind the opening", and want the lighting such that the framing structure provides a silhouette vs. being lit from the inside.

You can achieve the silhouetted porthole effect and colour in the frame using a filter:

Alternatively you could draw a porthole on your port with a black (sharpie type) marker pen!

As for shooting from spaces where there isn't room to fit a diver this can be done on occasion by lowering the camera in. This cave is at Ras Mohammed in the Red Sea and is far to small to get a diver in - although the forced perspective of the fisheye makes it look like it is. In this case there is a small crack in the roof of the cave - through which the camera can be lowered in - to take the shot. It takes a few ups and downs to get the settings right, but has the advantage that a space which divers cannot fit into, even on a heavily dived site, still have lovely coral growth. Of course aiming and framing is completely blind!

Alex

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?act=A...st&id=11881

This sort of thing?

Tim

I'm working on a concept for an over/under that I have never seen anyone show before, it is going to take a fair bit of trial and error to get it worked out, and then a lot of cooperation and local knowledge from a liveaboard crew in the northern Red Sea next year to make it a reality

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?act=A...st&id=11881

 

 

This sort of thing?

 

Tim

 

Yes, Tim, very nice. Was the camera on the 'bottom' or were you on your back beneath it? Seems like there's not a lot of reef surround, but that might just be the compression-effect of the outermost elevation angles from a fisheye.

I know none of the ideas I pointed out are impossible - remote trigger, external strobes on spikes, polecams, etc. can do a lot - but given a 'standard' rig I thought I'd open the floor to some interesting composition ideas. (To me, anyway.... )