Nature's Best :: Don Smith Photography
Exploring our incredible world one image at a time!
Exploring Visual Concepts – Texture and Patterns
Posted on November 26, 2011
Canon 1DsMKIII, 400mmL f/5.6 @ f/16, 1/8th second, ISO 100, Singh-Ray Circular Polarizer, Lexar Digital Media.
Keeping your eyes open to patterns and texture in nature can add some interest and drama to your scenes. Sometimes, as is the case of the image included with this article, man-made patterns such as these vineyards can do the trick. Patterns are attention-grabbers and also can direct the eye (depending on where we place them in the scene).
Many photographers I have talked to say nature is chaotic. At first glance, I tend to agree. But I submit, that there is an inherent order in nature and part of our jobs as landscape photographers is finding it. For me, this is also part of the fun of landscape photography. Aerial photography is perhaps the best way to see patterns as the landscape is flattened in perspective and patterns appear quite easily. But these patterns are observable from the ground also, sometimes it just takes moving around, though trespassing onto one’s property is not something I advocate.
When I do find a pattern I wish to photograph, I try to find a focal point or another interesting aspect of the landscape that I can put with the pattern. In the image below, I just photographed a vineyard with no focal point. To me, I think the image doesn’t quite make it because it is simply a pattern – no focal point is included. This begs the question: Do all images require a focal point? I’ll save that one for another day.
Canon 1DsMKIII, 400mmL @f/16, 1/13th second shutter, ISO 100, Singh-Ray Circular Polarizer, Lexar Digital Media
Highlights and shadows can also help accentuate patterns in landscapes that may not first be evident to the naked eye. In the scene below, I awaited the first light of sunrise to paint the ridges of Lone Pine Peak located in the Alabama Hills just west of Lone Pine, California. The pattern of these ridge lines were there, they were just made evident by the play of alpenglow light and shadow.
Canon 1DsMKIII, 70-200mmL @ f/16, 1/4th second shutter, ISO 100, Singh-Ray Circular Polarizer, Lexar Digital Media.
Revealing texture in a landscape is very easy. I simply await either first or last light of the day as the sun’s angle of incidence is very low to the ground. I love photographing desert scenes in this type of light on clear days. Every nuance of the landscape is revealed. One key point is to try and position yourself 90-degrees off-axis to the sun as i did with this morning scene on Death Valley’s Mesquite Dunes.
Canon 1DsMKIII, 16-35mmL Series II, 2-second timed exposure, ISO 100, Singh-Ray Slim Circular Polarizer, Lexar Digital Media.
Exploring Visual Concepts – Flow
Posted on November 18, 2011
Canon 1DsMKIII, 24-70mmL @ f/16, 3.5-second timed shutter, 100 ISO, Singh-Ray Vari ND Duo, Lexar Digital Media.
Flow as a concept is simply a means of allowing the viewer’s eye to move through the frame. In Part 4 of this series, I discussed relationships between elements and the importance of allowing for pathways to move the eye through the scene. When I talk of flow, I relate more to the concept of visual movement, either through the careful placement of elements in our frame or by allowing for literal movement such as in this scene of the sun setting into the Pacific Ocean. Flow can transcend an image from a literal capture to an artistic interpretation. Instead of simply capturing a series of waves and a setting sun, I opted to drag my shutter (3.5 seconds) with the help of an 8-stop neutral density filter to allow for the waves to soften as if a painter applied brush strokes to a canvas. In that amount of time, the sun held relatively still and the scene transcended for literal to interpretive. The final image relayed more of my feeling about what I was photographing rather than simply capturing reality. The final image also imparted a sense of softness and sensuality.
But flow doesn’t have to be limited to just water. I have created images where I allow clouds to move and paint the sky, foreground flowers to bob and weave and paint my sensor’s canvas and grasses to wave and paint my foreground. But can we create flow with objects that are not moving? Of course. When it comes to doing this, I look for lines and shapes in nature that direct and move the eye through the scene. In a recent image I captured at Utah’s Dead Horse Point State Park, an inanimate scene became alive with motion as I matched a foreground element with the bend in the Colorado River below unifying the two planes of my scene. There is flow between the foreground juniper snag and river, and there is flow in the U-shapes of both elements.
Canon 1DsMKIII, 16-35mmL @ f/16, 1.5-second timed shutter, 200 ISO, Singh-Ray Slim Polarizer, Singh-Ray 2-stop hard edge GND.
In order to open our minds to the possibility of flow, we must stop looking at the literal; instead, we need to start thinking in a more creative manner. I try to reduce my scene to shapes and lines – simplify. I tend to cross a bridge mentally where I am no longer seeing reality (trees, rocks, streams, etc.) but instead, I’m seeing movement and interaction between elements. Then the game is on. It becomes more about finding unity and harmony between these elements. Relationships is a key here. If elements don’t relate, I simply cannot make an image. Once the pieces of the puzzle connect, then compositions start to come together and flow is an end result.
In this final image, I literally saw sunflowers, but a persistent wind prevented me from freezing them, so I let them dance! I feel this resulted in a better image.
Canon 1DsMKIII, 300mmL @ f/7.1, 1/13th second shutter, Singh-Ray Neutral Polarizer, Lexar Digital Media.
Utilizing Lines and Shapes to Lead the Eye – Creating Flow
Posted on June 4, 2011
Canon 1DsMKIII, 24-70 mmL, f/16, 1/4th second shutter, 100 ISO, Singh-Ray circular polarizer.
Simplifying a scene in nature is sometimes harder than you would think – though I know most of you have experienced this. One of the tricks I use when my scene seems too cluttered is to try and visualize every element before me as either a line or geometrical shape. I try to find a common thread between elements; a connection of some sort that will lead the eye through the scene. I call this flow. Does my composition allow for my viewer’s eye to flow through the frame?
Today’s image is a good case in point. I found this scene behind my hotel just north of the casino lights at South Lake Tahoe. Our workshop group had been snowed-out of our sunset shoot (the first of three storms in four days to hit the area). By 7 pm we threw in the towel and headed our separate ways for dinner. Once finished, I came back to the hotel room, looked out my back window and noticed that the relentless snow had momentarily stopped – a quick glance at my watch revealed that we were right on posted sunset time. I told my friends Mike Hall and Scott Schilling that I was going to wander out and see how it looked as the property backed right onto a public beach. In a matter of minutes we were treated to this scene of the pier with one caveat – someone had put their footprints through the fresh snow.
While bemoaning our bad luck, I started to notice the light brightening allowing for the clouds in the background to look extremely dark. This nice glow appeared on the Lake’s surface and I quickly dropped to my knees and photographed this frame. Besides the light, what really drew me was the simplicity of the lines created by the edges of the pier that led my eye up and through the frame – flow! I decided to relegate the dark clouds to just the top 1/6th of my frame and liked how the horizon line served as a stopping point for the eye so as not to allow it to leave my frame.
We as photographers have an incredible opportunity to limit where our viewer’s eye will go by proper framing. Thanks to an illusion called the Ponzo affect, the pier (like a set of railroad tracks) appears to get smaller as it trails off in the distance. This is something our eye/brain is used to seeing even though intellectually we understand that the end of the pier is the same relative size as the foreground. My low perspective also exaggerates this phenomenon. So, did I arrive at this composition with my first try? No. In fact, I started more wide angle and then kept refining (tightening) the composition in subsequent frames. In essence, I was trimming anything that did not belong or add to the scene – simplifying – creating flow.
So what happened to those footprints I spoke of earlier? Well, in the final analysis they were more of a distraction than an aid so I cloned them out with the help of the patch tool. In essence, they disrupted the flow so they had to go! Did I alter reality? For this moment yes, but had I arrived 10 minutes earlier, perhaps they would not have been there. This is fine art not journalism. I simply restored the pristine look to the scene that I intuitively knew existed. Had I moved or cut-off a section of the pier, then I would have over-stepped my boundaries. It’s really one of those issues that every serious landscape photographer will have to deal with sooner or later. My position is I won’t move elements, but I will remove something that at one point was never there (trash, twigs, or in this case – footprints). Yeah, I know you could make the argument that at one point this pier never existed, but hopefully you get my point.
The bottom line is that by using the lines and shape of the pier, I created flow for my viewer’s eye. Think about this the next time your scene looks a bit chaotic. Tighten, move, change your perspective and play with the shapes and lines in front of you. See if you can create some flow in your images.
Nature's Best :: Don Smith Photography 