Contrasts
Why Are You Doing this Assignment?
Contrast is a basic tool in photography. You can make a photograph in which the sole subject is contrast. You can use contrast to add to the idea or emotion that you're communicating in your photograph. An equally valuable tool in photography is the repetition of colors, tones, shapes, and so forth.
Some examples are listed below. You don't have to do any or all of these.
Value Contrast
Lights and Darks. Photograph the shadows on a brownstone from the sidelight of a sunrise. Contrast this light with the shadowless light of the brownstone in the shade or under an overcast sky.
Color Contrast
Warm/Cool colors, one yellow tulip in a sea of red ones. A blue blanket with a yellow pillow on top.
Spatial Contrast
Photograph something close, and something else that is far away, in the same composition. For example, photograph a peony in bloom, with the conservatory of a botanical garden in the background. Often, a wide-angle lens is useful for this situation.
Conceptual Contrasts
Working/ broken
Wealth/ poverty
Purity/ sin
Old/ new
Clean/ dirty
Construction/ decay
Passage of Time
Photograph a bus station at 5pm and at 10pm.
