As I reported earlier, I am attending North Island College's ten-month Professional Photography Certificate program.  One of my favourite classes to date has been in Composition and Design. In this class I learned to really think about what I was putting in my frame, and what made a great picture. The key elements of photographs were explored - line, shape, form, etc. - but what was really driven home was taking the time to ensure that what was in the frame was really supposed to be there, and how to make the sometimes difficult decision to leave stuff out.  As a result of the exercises and assignments that we did in this course, I am convinced that the images that I create are several notches closer to my ideal of being simple and composed with intention.  

Speaking of assignments, the last assignment we had in this course was a bit of a doozy. Of a list of about a dozen themes, we had to pick two, plus a self-portrait, and express each theme with six images.  I chose "danger" and "freedom" for my two selections, and below I've presented the images that I came up with for "freedom".  These images aren't captioned or titled since I hope they each speak for themselves.