“The final exercise of this project makes use of the viewfinder grid display of a digital camera.
This function projects a grid onto the viewfinder screen to help align vertical and horizontal
lines, such as the horizon or the edge of a building, with the edge of the frame. Please check
your camera manual (or Google search) for how to display the grid in your viewfinder. If
your camera doesn’t have a grid display, just imagine a simple division of the viewfinder
into four sections.”

“Take a good number of shots, composing each shot within a single section of the viewfinder
grid. Don’t bother about the rest of the frame! Use any combination of grid section, subject
and viewpoint you choose.
When you review the shots evaluate the whole frame not just the part you’ve composed.
Looking at a frame calmly and without hurry may eventually reveal a visual coalescence, a
‘gestalt’.
Gestalt: an organised whole perceived as more than a sum of its parts.”

For this exercise I decided to take my photographs in my parents garden. It was a pretty windy overcast afternoon but there was an abundance of shapes and flowers, so I thought I would see what I could do.

Below is my final collection.

Below are a few of my favourite shots together from the collective.

I love the vibrancy of these two photographs. The reds pop from the green of the grass even in the low light conditions, and in the case of the Forgotten Poppies photograph, the overgrown nature of the area really allows the poppies to stand out from the tall grasses which surround them.

I tend to name my photographs, and the above is no exception.

I decided to name it Lonely Boy with Dog. He’s been placed strategically between two trees in a bare patch of the garden. Theres no flowers, nothing else to draw the eye, just the boy kneeling with his dog. He almost looks sad and as a viewer I think it evokes a similar feeling.

I think all the photographs work well individually, each has a subject placed within it, all using the rule of thirds, one or two containing leading lines, so working on composition elements from previous exercises.

I’m happy with my take on Gesalt, and hope the viewers are transported to an English country garden in each individual photo and the collective.