In preparation for this activity, you will do a little pre-assignment planning. You are required to decide on the subject, rather than being told what to shoot. Success will come from taking many photos, allowing you to narrow down your choices to your best work. Sometimes photographers will take hundreds of photos in order to get one perfect shot.

 

 

Research:

In addition to reviewing the photos at the bottom of this page, find images that break some of the composition or technical rules we have learned. Find 7-10 examples of photos on the internet which intentionally break the rules, but result in visually appealing photos such as the ones below. Choose 3 images and add a link to them in the Flickr discussion titled ‘Bad Photo research/inspiration’. Under each link, include the photographer’s name (if available) and the rules that the photo breaks. Be specific; in other words, don’t just say that the photo breaks the rules of composition. Instead, reference the rule of thirds (for example) and note how this rule has been applied “incorrectly”.

 

Experimentation:

Take lots of photos (50-60) that meet one of the requirements listed below. The key to submitting your best work is having a pool of images to select from. Take a few photos based on your research. Look at what others found and find out what settings were used. Try them for yourself. Try different styles, techniques, and ideas. Leave your house. Explore your neighbourhood. Go downtown. Shoot during daylight hours. Shoot at night. Experiment. Have fun.

 

Each photograph should meet at least one of the requirements below. Submit 10 photos in a Flickr album called Bad Photo. Although a photo may fulfill more than one requirement, decide which single requirement you are demonstrating. For example, you might have a photo that is blurry and poorly composed, but the photo should clearly represent one of those, so decide which it demonstrates better.

Select your best: Remember, even though the photos you take are supposed to be technically “bad” in some sense, we want you to create things that are interesting to look at. What we are calling ‘bad’ should be intentional for an artistic purpose.

 

 

Over/under exposed 

Using manual mode or E/V compensation, take a photo in which most of the image is either too close to black (underexposed) or washed out (overexposed).

 

Blur 

Take a photo in which the main subject is motion-blurred, either due to the movement of the subject or movement of the camera. Note: everything doesn’t have to be blurry.

 

Out of focus 

Take a photo in which nothing at all is in focus. It’s hard to take a visually interesting photo where nothing is in focus – be creative!

 

Incorrect W​B 

Use the wrong white balance setting for some intentional effect. Knowing that you can make the photo either too cool, or too warm, come up with a subject or scene that takes advantage of this.

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Poor composition 

Remember some of the rules we talked about (rule of thirds, leading lines, open and closed composition) and then intentionally break a few. If you’re not sure what to do you may want to consider an exactly centered subject that produces an oddly symmetrical photo, a confusion between the subject and a background object, or a horizon that isn’t level.