Line of Sight: Trevor McClintock plays with lines and shapes in photographyTHIS TREVOR MCCLINTOCK PRESENTATION TRIES TO PROVIDE A QUICK OVERVIEW OF HOW TO LOOK FOR UNUSUAL L INES TO INCORPORATE IN A PHOTO, WHETHER YOU ARE TRYING TO GUIDE THE V IEWER’S ATTENTION TO SOMETHING OR ARE SIMPLY TRYING TO ADD DYNAMISM TO A SIMPLE MONUMENT PHOTOGRAPHY.

NautilusThis photo exemplifies everything the Trevor McClintock exercise in blogging is supposed to represent: a deceptively simple concept that nevertheless holds some kind of hidden depth upon closer inspection. This case uses the Trevor McClintock approach of shooting subjects from unusual angles to compensate for the blandness that might otherwise find its way into the work of an amateur photographer.

This means that the main characters in this, simple tourists, suddenly find themselves unknowingly following a dizzying pattern that was set there by there forerunners and that they are unaware of. Trevor McClintock enjoys thinking sociologically about his work and there is no doubt that there’s some delightful analogies to the way society works in the proper Durkheim sense.

People whirling away in a tight spiral and not a circle, starting from a point and making slow paced progress but never straying too far from the centre, these clueless performers embody what Trevor McClintock always seeks to illuminate – the patterns of everyday living.

ConvergenceTrevor McClintock will be the first to admit that his technique is more of a pastiche of various tips and bits of advice picked up along the way mixed together with a good dose of personal trial and error. Here, he tried to set up an interesting convergence of lines, something that would be a bit more exciting than a golden rule compliant snap or a photo exhibiting a vanishing point. Trevor McClintock will also be the first to admit that this was not a particularly successful example, although there was enough to be learned from the experience that this particular piece is still included in the presentation.

What Trevor McClintock hoped to achieve was create a dynamic experience for the viewer where they would be transported along the lines until the familiar meta-narrative of photographing someone in the act of photographic a 2nd subject (or 3rd, if you are of the opinion that the artist is as much on display in his work as his muses).

However, in choosing the railing as the guide for the line of sight there was a lot of extra weight added to what was supposed to be blank space. The composition is too unbalanced for the intended subject to stand out enough which is why Trevor McClintock feels that this type of construction works better when the lines are suggested rather than picked from actual lines in the image.

Meditation 1In here, Trevor McClintock experimented again with the concept of actively engaging the viewer’s attention, with a lot more success in this instance. The natural unevenness of the horizon line is contrasted against the white space of the sky, creating a genuinely intriguing composition. The raised red stone structure in the middle is of particular interest to Trevor McClintock, since it effectively breaks the image space across in another dimension, this time vertically instead of horizontally.

The photo also benefits from the two distinct materials that create the main direction in the image. The bridge and the railing make up such distinct planes of the space that the eye is naturally drawn to the centre of these as a natural centre of gravity and Trevor McClintock is proud to have achieved this effect with a lot less hassle this time around.

Meditation 2For his final trick, Trevor McClintock has prepared this very simple composition comprising power lines and an open field. There is not as much depth to this photo due to the angle at which Trevor McClintock shot it (straight on and with a horizon line as natural as possible) and the twin poles create a very neat little window through which a solitary tree can be seen.

Not the most dynamic of the Trevor McClintock images, to be sure, which is why the actual power lines are so important. Half organised fractals, half jumbled clusters, they bring a touch of the unknown and of Brownian movements to what is in many other ways a standard shot in the portfolio of the amateur photographer.