Positioning the Horizon (11^th August):

I had the good fortune to get tickets to the Olympics women’s mountain bike final at Hadleigh Farm in Essex. This gave me the unexpected opportunity to do the horizons exercise as the views across the bike track out towards Canvey Island were really open and had incredible depth. The three images on the exercises page show the horizon as low in the frame, near to the middle and high in the frame.

My preference is for the low horizon, although I would want to remove the irritating lighting gantry in the centre of the shot. I prefer this because I like the way the almost misty effect on the horizon merges into the sky with its gradations of cloud. It was an extremely sunny day so I was pleased to see there was still some detail in the sky. I also like the two pink Olympic flags to the right of the image that just give a hint of something else happening.

As suggested in the course text I feel the mid horizon is the least successful because it is the least dynamic, it just divides the fame and makes the shot seem very flat. There is still some interest in that the pink staging markers perhaps make you wonder what this and where this place might be but overall it is not very interesting.

The high horizon obviously gives more sense of the activity in the foreground and definitely gives a sense of depth across the farm and the houses down to the estuary and across towards Canvey Island. The fact there is less detail in the sky doesn’t seem to matter as there is plenty happening in the foreground. However, I do think the foreground is probably too busy and would warrant some cropping of the out of focus figures bottom left.