3 pictures designed around points

For the first I’m taking the sheep’s face; the second is the ship; the third is the crumpled union-jack bunting…

1: The picture of the sheep was taken just over the road from my sister’s house in Orkney, largely because it’s ears seemed to indicate an identity crisis with the sheep unsure whether it is actually a rabbit. I take the sheep’s face to be the point, as it is lighter and differently textured compared to the rest of the image (the grass and the sheep’s coat are similar tonally and in effect) and because – as a face, looking at us out of the picture  – it captures our attention. Its position neatly on the thirds is conventional, with the slightly angled back of the sheep giving an idea of movement to the head from the edge of the frame. It’s not a particularly exciting picture, but it works.

2: The picture of the boat on the horizon was taken from the ferry, sailing north from Aberdeen to Orkney. I was looking east at 21:30. The boat I was on was sailing in the opposite direction. I think it works quite nicely with the direction of travel (left to right, almost complete) clearly indicated by the silhouette of the ship showing an almost completed journey beneath a sky where day is fading into night.

3: Crumpled bunting in the car-park of my local (the Hare and Hounds on the Lea Bridge Road) a day or so after the Tour de France went by. While processing the raw file, I realised it coincidently is shaped sort-of like a map of Scotland (if lacking Dumfries and Galloway and a bit of the eastern borders) with the bit of tape to the left almost showing the course of the ferry north from Aberdeen. Given its union-jackery and the upcoming referendum which may render me foreign, it fits here, in the section of the course which will include a fair number of pictures from my bit of Scotland/not-really-Scotland. I think the slightly eerie sense of floating suits the subject well…

All the pictures have been monochromed partly to accentuate their pointiness (the bunting in particular was a bit much against the grey of tarmac, for this exercise at least) and also so I can do some testing of printers before the Assignment for this bit…