Every August in our camera club, run by Emma Davies, we have '30 days of composition,' 30 daily single-word prompts to invigorate photographic practice. There are ways of approaching this, but as I like a challenge, I try to maintain a theme throughout the month. We also have a monthly exercise called 'one day, 12 pics,' to encourage you to make a photograph on the hour throughout the day.
Due to moving my architectural practice into a new studio, I knew I would struggle to achieve the 30 prompts. I, therefore, decided to riff on both exercises, taking a tree as the theme and using the first fifteen prompts of the month in one afternoon to see how far I got.
This lone Beech tree has established itself on the side of a prehistoric barrow at Seven Barrows near Lambourn, West Berkshire. Whilst I have photographed the tree throughout the seasons, I have never really got up close and personal. This was an ideal opportunity to change that, as well as getting used to a new camera.
Some images are tenuous, some aren't as sharp as I'd like, but a pleasing set of images nonetheless.
viewpoint
framing
negative space
diagonals
rule of thirds
leading lines
symmetry
fill the frame
3's or 5's
balance
pattern
no foreground
circular
form or shape
