Exercise 14a: Two images on the same page - Canalside

Exercise 14 Two images on the same page

Take a standard horizontal page, such as A4 or A5 in Photoshop.  Select two images from your archives that share the same subject but differ in treatment (eg, in scale, viewpoint, focal length, lighting, etc).  Size and position these two images on the page in such a way that they appear to fit comfortably.  They don’t necessarily have to be the same size.  You might have chosen an overall view and an extreme close-up of a detail.  If that were the case, consider making one larger than the other and judge the effect.

Now do the same for a few more pairs of photographs, in each case experimenting with size and position on the page.  Make notes for each, giving your reasoning for, first, the choice of images and second, the way you laid them out.  Finally, rank them in order of how well they seem to work as a visual unit.

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Canalside

I’ve found these two images taken a while ago alongside the Basingstoke Canal.  You can see the crane scoop on the bank in front of some narrow boats.  The second picture is a close up of the top of the scoop focused closely to show the cobwebs on the top.

I tried several ways to place the close up with the wider view even to the point of reversing the main picture to see if it looks better with the boats facing right instead of pointing to the left.  That meant I had to change the wording on the bow of the boat facing directly at you in the pictures as it read backwards.  This way round doesn’t work for me when I include the close up so I left it with the boats facing left.

I looked at the scoop and realised that the second image was from a different angle to the larger picture so reversed it so that both scoops faced the same way; I felt that it would look better if they were facing in the same direction.

I tried several variations of the two images, see below:

 

The one above really did nothing for me; it was just two images, of a similar size joined together, but it gave me some ideas to develop the idea further.

 

Next I reduced the overall size of the first image and added the second image to the right hand side with a dropped shadow.  

Here I’ve angled the close up to give it a bit more impact and feel it works better.  I’ve also reduced the size of the dropped shadow on the close up and made the edges softer and this makes it sit better.

Then I thought about reversing the whole image to see how that works but still with the close up in the same position.  

  This is the finished picture with the close up positioned on the left hand side.  The inset image, with the dropped shadow, creates a balance to the whole image with the large scoop on the left and the enlarged top on the right.