Pt1, Ex 7 Positioning the Horizon

I returned to St Peter's chapel in Bradwell On Sea on a sunny day to capture the images for this exercise.  I'd wanted to use the chapel as the subject as I felt it gives a strong image as the building is substantially built, but very isolated and gives a point of interest to the horizon.  The original images can be seen in this Flickr set.

Positioning the Horizon Low.jpg  1/100, f/22, 20mm

 The dominant feature in the first image is the sky, the chapel and the horizon are very low and almost incidental elements of the overall photograph.

Positioning the Horizon Mid Low 1/100, f/22, 20mm

 The next image moves the horizon up slightly.  This creates a more balanced image, and one that is more familiar to the viewer as it becomes more akin to what one would normally view naturally.

Positioning the Horizon Mid.jpg  1/60, f/22, 20mm

As the horizon moves higher up the frame, the dominance is moved to the foreground and the viewer is drawn towards the subject

Positioning the Horizon high.jpg  1/50, f/22, 20mm

As the horizon moves higher the viewer perceives that they are getting lower in this image and there is a strong sense of being drawn into the picture towards the subject.

 I also elected to take the same scene, but with the camera turned 90 degrees. The following images are the result of this and, although the horizon is filling less of the frame, the dominance of the sky and foreground is magnified.

 Off all the images, I much prefer the ones with the subject at the bottom of the frame, largely because of the big blue sky in the images and the simple building.  Usually I prefer horizons to be high in the frame, such as in the photo below I took late in the day a few years ago.  This works as there are areas of interest in the foreground and this contrasts with the plain sky.

I feel that the the two positions of horizon that work best for me are a low one where there is a simple subject or one where you want to emphasise height and high horizons where there is an interesting subject in the foreground