The idea
Roaming old streets is always a great way to get new and inventive shots. The old Nice is not unlike any other old city. Full of original bystanders and beautiful boutiques, it's a great source of inspiration. Add to that the amazing south of France sun and you can get incredible contrasted pictures.
Moments before this picture was taken I was in the search for some shadows. Getting low and fully using the capabilities of the 16 mm in order to really catch the flow of the lines created by the shadows and the buildings. I then suddenly saw this composition flourish in front of me.
The technique
If your objective is to catch silhouettes and strong lines, backlight photos are the easiest way to get them. For this shot, I made sure to correctly expose the highlights even if that meant underexposing the shadows, because it's not the details of the shadows that make this photo. This allows me to help the characters pop out and to create great contrast.
In order to make the directional lines stand out even more, I prefer going with black and white photography because it accentuates contrast. This decision, of course, depends a lot on your shot. What it does is help bring the attention towards the highlights of the lines you photograph.
The composition in this photo works because of two reasons:
Placement of the subjects;
Directional lines created by the buildings and the shadows.
Here below is a schematic to explain the composition principles behind this picture.
To start, the individuals in this picture are positioned in the last third of the frame (starting from the top). This leaves room for the other two-thirds to tell a story while positioning theses characters in a prominent enough place to be observed and not feel out of place. Indeed, as you can see by the green fill in the explanation picture above, this part of the photo gives breathing room, contrasting with the darker part below (the last thirds). Before going deeper into the "negative" space, it's important to really understand what's going on with the characters. They are looked at from below, normally giving them a sense of grandeur because of the forced perspective. But, they are well enough in the center and far enough from the camera not to be impacted by the distortion created by the 16 mm lens. Here, it's the buildings surrounding the pedestrians that look impressive. It gives the impression of crushing the people below and yet also helps bring the perspective upward by lifting some weight off the lower part of the photo.
There are two directional lines: the blue lines and the yellow.
The lines of the shadows lead the viewers eyes toward the people in the center. Further increasing the importance of these structures (and the light) in the shot. It tells the audience: "This is what is important."
The yellow lines observed through the angles of the architecture, on the other hand, contrast that by giving the negative space importance. This part of the picture isn't there to point your eye to the positive space (being the people), rather to let you read the picture in a second instance. The first lecture of the scene starts from the bottom of the frame (where the highlights are very strong and thus pull your attention in) and continues towards the civilians. The second moment of the lecture starts from the civilians and goes towards the windows and the sky. All of this to make the audience discover the composition, thanks to which they might see little details.
Tools
Camera: Canon R8
Lens: 16 mm
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