Take a Giant Step Closer...maybe

One of the keys to creating a strong composition is, naturally enough, letting your audience know exactly what your intention was when you were taking the picture. If someone has to ask what it is you were trying to show, dude, you've missed the boat somewhere. One of the simplest ways to give your photos more impact is, interestingly enough, to make them simpler. And, of course, one way to simplify any picture is to get closer to it. The question is: What is close enough? Ahh, that's where concepts turn into judgments calls: it's up to you to decide just how close you want to be (or not be).

When I spotted this photo idea at the very nice Caramoor Museum and Gardens in Katonah, New York, I knew almost immediately that I wanted to shoot this big urn. And I knew that I wanted that beautiful and ornate gold and black gate in the background to be a part of the shot. So I composed a shot (using my tripod, naturally) to include the entire urn and most of the gate. Nice shot. It looked nice on the LCD and I still like it. But then I thought that putting those geraniums in the foreground might be creating too much of a distraction and diminishing the impact of the gate. So, poof, I zoomed in a touch and got rid of the flowers. What the heck, as long as I had the original shot I wanted captured, I might as well shoot a bunch of variations.

As it turns out, it's a good thing I did. I'm using the middle shot above in the revision of my book The Joy of Digital Photography (Lark Photography Book) and while we tried to use the top shot first, the reds and greens were giving the printer trouble (too much saturation, partly, but also just very strong contrasting colors) and so rather than just try to tweak that file, we chose the middle shot. With the reds and greens gone from the foreground the shot will almost certainly reproduce better.

The third shot was just a variation that I thought might be useful in a lesson (like this one) to show that even when you think you are close, you can still take a giant step closer--and still come up with a nice shot. I call it the Giant Step Theory (well, actually, I just thought of that name, but you get the point). While the gate is completely gone and there is no real foreground, it's still a neat shot and in some ways I like it the best. One small step for you, one giant step for your photographs.

Is any one of these shots better than the other? It really depends on the use and what you like (or what you like at the moment--my preference on this keeps changing). But since digital is free and since you only have to move a few feet (or zoom a bit more) to give your self a variety of options, go ahead, shoot the wide shot and then take a giant step or two forward....as long as you're not shooting from the end of a dock.

Add Dynamic Power with Diagonal Lines

First, sorry that I've been away from the blog for the past week or so--just a case of spring fever and spending more time outdoors and less sitting at the computer. How I'm going to get through another summer of writing I don't know. Oh, but there is always my garden to tend in summer, so that keeps me from spending too much time at the computer. I actually haven't started a single seed indoors yet, and usually I've got a lot going by now, but I'll catch up this week--time to start those tomatoes or I'll be buying plants and I much prefer to grow my own. By the way, if you're looking for a good source of seeds, check out the Seed Savers Exchange site--a fantastic source for heirlooms seeds of all types.

OK, back to photography for a few minutes. When I was looking for an image/idea or today's post, I came across this shot of a "scarf dancer" (I don't know what her real title would be) that I shot last summer. The performer is a member of the family of acrobats that travel with Tino Wallenda and the Flying Wallendas. The thing that struck me about this shot, other than the very symbolic-looking Easter/spring colors (a good topic for another posting), were all the powerful diagonals in this shot. The ropes, her body, the scarf--all have a very powerful diagonal orientation. Even within the lines of her body are several very bold diagonal lines.

In terms of composition, diagonal lines emphasize power, strength and the feeling of impending movement--while horizontal lines, for example, bring to mind concepts of stability or balance, diagonals are better at creating a feeling that things are changing. If you look at a see-saw, for instance, you inherently know that when two people get on it, the balance is inevitably going to shift and the mind picks up on this idea whenever it sees diagonals, whether we realize it or not. You feel the same type of implied motion if you see a person walking up a hill--there is a much more dynamic feel to the scene that if you were to photograph that person walking down a flat sidewalk--yes? It's interesting to think of the psychological implications that something as simple as the direction of a line can impart to a composition and how you can change peoples' interpretations of a scene just by the way that you orient the lines within the frame. And, as with this scene, any time you multiply the number of lines, you intensify those feelings.

Don't Get Divided Over Symmetry

 

One of the "rules" of design that you'll see over and over again in books about composition is that you should never divide a frame exactly in half, either vertically or horizontally. The reason for that stodgy old rule is that when you precisely divide a frame in half it tends to take away the dynamic tension in a scene by creating an exact balance of visual space between two halves of the frame (either top/bottom or left right--or both). And a lot of times not dividing a frame in half is a pretty good idea. But as they say, to every rule an exception. I think there are times when perfect symmetry works really well and one of those times is when you have a very strong reflection--as in this winter scene. 

I shot the picture here last Friday on the same day I shot the previous winter pond scenes (see the previous postings), but this is a different pond, a few miles from the other one and I went there intentionally looking for a symmetrical subject. Because it's a somewhat long and narrow pond and you can see the entire length of it from almost any spot along the edge, I wanted to shoot a panoramic (and I did) of the hillside and it's reflection. As I was finishing up I saw the man and dog approaching from the right and so I quickly framed a scene that I wanted (I wanted to include that curved stairway--where I spend endless Saturdays hanging around as a kid) and just waited for him to walk into it. He was walking a long leaping stride so I was only able to get off a few quick frames before his shape got lost in the stairway--and I wish I'd shot a half second sooner than I did--but I'm happy with this frame.

Because I had the camera set up for a more or less symmetrical composition before he came along, I just left it that way and I'm glad I did. I kind of like the tension that exists between the reflection and the "real" scene and I even cropped it a bit to make it more closely balanced. While the horizon isn't in the exact middle (you can check in Photoshop by using the ruler tool--Command R on a Mac, no idea what it is in Windows!), if you look closely you'll notice there is just as much space between the top of the tall tree on the left and the top of the frame as there is below it's reflection and the bottom of the frame. I think that that spacing actually emphasizes the idea of symmetry as much as the precise placement of the horizon. 

Anyway, I think the scene has a kind of Norman Rockwell appeal to it and I very much like the symmetry between top and bottom--though to be honest, I could probably crop it otherwise and be just as happy. As I said, I think symmetry works particularly well with strong dividing lines like reflections and so next time you're shooting a reflection in a pond or lake (or a puddle, for that matter), don't be afraid to run the horizon right across the center--you may find that, rules or no, that's the best placement.

Include Hands in Interesting Ways

A friend's hands can be very useful things to have "handy" when you're out photographing--they can help you carry gear, point to interesting subjects that you might have overlooked and, if you're lucky, maybe even scratch your back occasionally. But having an extra hand or two nearby can also be a useful creative addition to your compositions. Hands can be used to show comparisons of scale and texture, they can hold unusual objects in your compositions for you (a plastic alligator dangling over Times Square, perhaps) or maybe just to point to a real alligator sunning in nearby in a stream (hopefully not too nearby). Hands are interesting because they add a human element to any type of composition and again, in terms of both scale and texture, they can be extremely helpful. Using my friend's hand touching this giant saguaro, for example, provides a great sense of scale to the massive folds of the ancient cactus (probably 100 years old or more) and her thin delicate fingers provide a wonderful textural comparison to the rough, time-worn skin of the plant.

By the way, if you aren't lucky enough to have a cooperative friend with nice hands nearby, you can always use your own hands--just place your camera on a tripod, frame the scene and then use the self timer to get your hand(s) into position. Or, if you have long enough arms and a wide-angle lens, you can probably even just reach out into the scene and include your hand. I've photographed small stones and shells sitting in the palm of my hand this way and have even photographed a chipmunk feeding from my hand. But however you get a hand in the shot (and whosever hand it is), just be sure to frame the scene carefully so that people know you meant to include it and didn't just take a nap while you were composing the picture. You've got to hand it to hands--creatively and logistically, they're quite handy!

Architecture: Break Some Rules to Add Drama

Ask any architectural photographer and they'll tell you never to get too close to a tall building with a wide-angle lens because your photos will show an effect called "keystoning" that causes the buildings to lean back in space. But ask them if they ever do exactly that to create drama and the answer will be, "Of course." In most cases (especially if you're shooting photos for the architect) you want to get architecturally-correct views which means either backing away a sufficient distance or, if you're well-heeled equipment-wise, using what's called a perspective-control lens (a lens with a shifting front element that corrects keystoning) to keep the lines of the building square and parallel. But when it comes to creating dramatic photos of buildings, very often it comes down to abandoning technical rules and going with what looks most interesting.

I photographed this view of the Iowa State Capitol, for example, using an 18-70mm zoom at its widest setting (equivalent to about 28mm in 35mm format) from right next to the building. Obviously the building doesn't lean back like this and the columns don't converge, but again, the combination of the wide lens and the close vantage point creates a shot that is technically "wrong" but also quite dramatic. I also shot a number of images with a longer lens from a distance so that the building would look architecturally correct, but they were also complete yawners! The last thing you want people to do when they look at your photos of buildings is to get bored. Next time you find an interesting building, shoot some "straight" images if you have to get it out of your system, but then break some rules and see if you don't like those photos more.

Consider the Suggestion (Not Rule) of Thirds

It must relate back to some intensely rebellious incident in my childhood (one of a trillion, no doubt), but I've never been very good at following (or even accepting) rules. That's probably why I balk abruptly when I hear anything--even if it's beneficial idea--labeled as a "rule." Still, when it comes to photographic composition, there are some guidelines that can be very useful in speeding up and improving the image-design process and one of those is commonly known as the rule of thirds. I like to think that perhaps the word "rule" is used here to indicate "ruling" (as with a ruler) rather than a "rule" (a convention not to be broken). OK, enough semantics.

You've probably heard or read about the rule of thirds many times and even if you haven't, you've almost certainly invoked it without even knowing it. For many visual artists it's such a natural concept that we use it without even thinking about it. Essentially what the rule suggests (not dictates) is that you divide the frame, both horizontally and vertically, using a set of invisible dividing lines. Using this
design principle will help you establish a more harmonious sense of balance in your images.

If, for example, your divide the frame vertically (see the white division lines) by placing a strong horizontal line at either the lower or upper one-third division, you create a pleasing sense of proportions between the upper and lower halves of the scene. In the sunset here, for instance, by placing the horizon line approximately one third  of the way down from the top of the frame, I've created a 2:1 ratio between the lower and upper halves of the scene and the brain perceives this as having stability and balance. The idea of thirds is further reinforced in this shot by placing the small clump of dark land in the foreground at approximately the lower one-third line.

You can also use the intersection of thirds lines as a helpful guide in placing important subject elements, even if there is no particularly strong line present--placing an object in a still life where thirds intersect, for example. In this shot I've put the heavy clump of land at the intersection of the lower one-third and left-vertical third lines and that sets up a nice feeling of balance with the open area of water to its right. In fact, the lower third line seems to run right through the center of the clump of earth.

Would the image fail if I moved either the horizon or that clump of ground to a slightly different position in the frame? No, of course not. Dividing the frame is as much about personal taste and instinct as it is about rigid divisions of the frame. But artists have been using this simple technique for centuries and I think you'll find that when you're searching for just the right balance of objects, spaces and lines, the suggestion (not the rule!) of thirds can be very useful.

Step Up to Better Garden Photos

In a previous tip I talked about looking for high vantage points for landscapes and other wide shots, but the idea is just as useful for smaller subjects, particularly garden photos. A few years ago after realizing that I was shooting all of my garden photos from approximately the same height (coincidentally, my eye level), I decided that varying the angle more might add some variety to my shots. I do a lot of garden shots laying on my stomach or my side already, so what was missing was height. I tried some shots with a 6' step ladder and for some shots, particularly wide shots of entire garden beds, that worked fine, but the angle was too steep for closer shots of smaller areas. It looked like a giant had been shooting the photos (though I have shot some photos of my garden from a second-story bedroom window and they look kind of cool).

Next I tried a kitchen stool, just a small white plastic Rubbermaid step stool and it was perfect. Even though it only bought me about another foot of shooting height, the difference in the angle was noticeable and it seemed higher, yet not extreme. Better still, because I was only a foot higher, I was able to use my smaller tripod (a Bogen/Manfrotto 3021). I have a much taller tripod (a Bogen/Manfrotto 3047) but it weighs a lot more and I'm less likely to haul it around the garden. The plastic stool was great and I can throw it in the car for road trips. It makes an excellent platform to get a foot above the crowds at parades or fireworks, etc. Of course, considering the stool only cost about $5 I should probably break down and buy one to keep in the car--I'll have to put it on the next shopping list.

Height is a great thing in composing photos because it provides just enough of a tweak to the composition that people notice the difference without it being an obvious gimmick. Try it!

Dig a Little Deeper to Unearth the Gold

For years, one of my hobbies other than photography has been metal detecting or, as it's sometimes called (sarcastically, I think) treasure hunting. Yes, I admit to being one of those geeks that walks along the beach with a $1,000 machine looking for dimes. And trust me, those coins aren't laying on the surface waiting for you to bend over and pop them into your pocket. You spend hours listening for the detector's friendly beep and digging a lot of false hits before you unearth the real deal. It's actually a very fun and interesting hobby and the first time you pull up an old silver coin out of the sand, you feel like running up and down the beach screaming, "I told you so! I told you so!" And I'm sure that some people do. (I just hopped around in a small circle for several minutes grinning and waving the dime.)

Photography is like that too. Even after your treasure-hunting machine (your eyes) spots a potential hot-spot, you have to dig around a bit to find the real buried treasure. I came across this old car at the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic Park (author of The Yearling) and, being an old car lover, I desperately wanted a picture of it. But the way it was parked in a shelter, half in sun and half in shade, I couldn't find an overall shot that I liked so I abandoned that idea and started digging into the details with my 18-70mm zoom lens. My first shots were of the entire trunk panel and then close-ups of just the old license plate. It was when I turned the camera vertically though that I found a shot that captured both the oldness of the plate and some of the interesting details of the car. As an added bonus, by working a much smaller area I was able to avoid the contrast problems of the very dappled light.

It takes some effort to ferret out the best detail shots sometimes and you get a lot of false hits before you strike gold. But when you do, you might just feel like waving your camera around over your head and hollering, "I told you so, I told you so!" But you might be better off just hopping around in a small circle grinning as you show people your LCD.

Compose with Odd Numbers (Don't Ask Me Why)

You probably wouldn't think it would matter how many of something you have in a particular photo, but whenever you're composing a group of things, whether it's pears, people, polar bears or pretty much anything else, compositions seem to work best with odd-numbered quantities. None of the composition books I have seems to offer a really solid reason why that's so (file it under "minor mysteries of the human brain"), but I think it's a good rule to follow. Whenever I'm arranging objects in a found still life or composing a landscape (three trees, five horses, etc.), I almost always seem to gather things in groups of three or five. There were about 50 sailboats in the harbor when I took this shot, clustered in little groups, some odd, some even, but the groups that looked best in the viewfinder always had odd numbers in them. Strange, isn't it? I think part of the problem with even-numbered groups is that the eye can easily divide the subjects into pairs and it starts to divide up the frame on some subconscious level. But whenever there are threes or fives, for example, they seem to adhere to one another in a way that unifies them. Try it sometime. Photograph groups of apples on your kitchen table and see if you like the odd groups better than the even ones. And if you figure out why the odds look better, let me know.

Don't Settle for Your First Impression

Finding a potentially interesting photograph is a pretty exciting moment for most photographers since it's the reason that we own cameras and spend our free time picture hunting. Once you've found a subject with promise, however, it's important that you push past the first flush of attraction and take time to "work" the subject a bit. Refining the shot and looking more closely at what attracted you to a subject really helps to simplify and strengthen compositions.

Often what attracts you to a scene is a clash of color, a particularly interesting bit of lighting or perhaps just a interesting shape or texture. In the case of this bright yellow rope that I found on a dock in Camden, Maine, it was pretty much all of those things: the bright yellow rope, the bright but soft late-afternoon lighting, as well as the shape and texture of the coiled nylon rope. The first few shots I took (top photo) were somewhat predictable: I included the entire coil of rope, as well as some of the dock and the water. I actually left the dock after shooting those first few photos and returned a few minutes, nagged by that voice in my head that tells me I haven't looked hard enough yet.

When I returned to the rope, I began refining the composition by finding a more directly overhead view (which meant leaning out somewhat precariously over the dock from the gangplank I was standing on) and by zooming in more tightly with my 18-70mm Nikkor zoom (a great little lens that came with my D70s kit). By extending the zoom almost all the way (93mm in 35mm equivalent) I was able to crop out all of the excess baggage from the left side and lower parts of the frame. Finally I played with the angle of the dock in the viewfinder until it created that nice diagonal line. I still like the first photo a bit, but I feel the second image is much more graphic and dynamic.

Normally I would shoot this type of scene with a tripod, but because I was hanging out in space somewhat I wasn't able to use one. Fortunately there was enough light to shoot at 1/250 second while still using a relatively small aperture (f/11) to get the depth of field that I wanted. By the way, if you look carefully, you'll notice that the shadow of the cleat (upper right) has become substantially longer and more gentle in the second shot--an indicator of how long I spent trying to find the best shot.

Take time to work the subject and you'll give yourself a lot more options in editing and printing and as I say so often, it's free, so what the heck.

Need a Challenge? Illustrate a Concept

Sometimes the best way to push yourself to be more creative is to give yourself a challenge. One way that many art teachers do that is to have you illustrate a single word or concept, or a particular emotion. The word "quiet," for example, might be illustrated nicely by a person studying in the library, but it could also be illustrated by a harbor scene at sunrise. And while you can't see the wind, you can certainly illustrate the concept of wind--leaves blowing down the street, salt spray blowing off the tops of waves, etc.

Emotions are a great source of photo ideas. Think of the range of emotions that most of us go through in a typical day: happy, sad, pensive, blue, exuberant, excited, victorious, defeated, loved, lonely, etc. If you have young kids around the house you're likely to see this spectrum of emotions on an almost hourly basis and taking pictures of those emotions and moods is a great way to add depth to your family album.

Even if you don't know your subject though, you can often try to imagine the emotions they're feeling and then accent them using the tools of composition, exposure, color palette, etc. To me the photo above perfectly illustrates the concept of the word "alone" or "lonely;" though that is just my interpretation of the scene--there's every possibility that the person in the photo isn't feeling lonely at all. In composing the shot I used a normal lens and a very open framing so that the person standing on the jetty was engulfed in a huge area of sky and sea. I also shot on a somewhat overcast day and late in the afternoon so that the palette of the scene emphasized the solitary nature of the moment.

Interestingly, as I was composing this shot, I heard the lines of John Masefield's poem "Sea "Fever" (my mother's favorite poem) running through my head: "I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky..." I'm not sure if I was thinking of the poem first or saw the potential image and that made me think of it, but either way, the word "lonely" was in my head.

What concepts does the photo conjure for you? Peacefulness? Serenity? Loneliness? Memories of summer? Wanderlust?

Challenges push you forward as an artist both visually and emotionally and finding ways to illustrate ideas and concepts is a great way to hone in on your personal vision. And if you have ambitions to sell your photos or become a professional, you'll find that most photographs are assigned, or purchased through stock sources, based on your being able to illustrate concepts rather than come back with photos of specific subjects. The photo here, for instance, could be used to illustrate a financial ad ("When it comes to investing decisions, you're on your own.") or a Hallmark card ("When you're away, the world seems empty."). Merging visuals and emotional concepts is precisely what the advertising world is all about.

Give Your Sunsets a Great Foreground

It's easy to look at a pretty sunset or sunrise and think that nature will do all of the work for you when it comes to photographing it. With all that color and drama, what's not to like? But you can improve any sunset/sunrise by simply finding a good foreground to place in front of it. Because you want the colors and cloud patterns (or sky reflections, if you're near the water) to dominate the shot, you want your foreground subject to be simple, yet interesting. Also, because it's likely that your foreground will end up entirely in silhouette, you also want a subject that's bold enough to be reduced to lines and shapes and still add interest to the photograph.

I took this shot of the rigging in a commercial fishing boat in Galilee, Rhode Island and I really like the way the complex web of stays and ropes creates such interesting patterns. It took me a while to find the shot though--even though I had been scouting around the harbor an hour or so before sunset. I was really hoping to get a shot of a boat pulling into or out of the harbor, but all the boats were tied up for the night. After walking around the marina in a slight state of panic for what seemed like an eternity (it was probably only about 10 minutes), afraid that I might miss this great sunset and not get a good shot, I looked up into the rigging of this boat and knew it would make a great shot. I planted my tripod on the dock and fired off a few dozen shots as the sky grew more intense and then started to fade, shifting my position slightly after each few frames.

Scouting ahead of time is the real key to finding a good sunset foreground. I've always found it's better to sacrifice an hour of late-afternoon shooting to do more scouting if I think there's going to be a great sunset, because I know that the combination of an interesting foreground and a great sunset make really pretty photos. Better yet, scout earlier in the day, at midday perhaps, and just be sure you get back to your sunset location in time to catch the sky show.

Beware the Six-Legged Horse

If you look closely as this photo, you'll notice that the horse appears to have four front legs. This is a beautiful (and huge) draft horse, so I'm not sure if that would make him stronger or not, but it sure makes it look a bit like a circus freak. The problem, of course, is that the other half of this team is standing right behind the front horse and all that you're really seeing from the second horse are its front legs.

Unfortunately at that moment the horses had just finished working and were eating furiously, so I wasn't going to ask the owner to pose them better for me. I only shot the photo because it was such a beautiful and big horse, I wanted a snapshot of it. The point is, though, you really have to keep an eye on backgrounds. Had this been an important shot I would have waited or worked harder to find another angle. But it was just a snapshot at a country fair, so I let it slide. But do beware (and be aware) of backgrounds when you're shooting--especially people and animals--or people may think you're shooting pictures at the sideshow.

Eliminate the Subject...and Just Shoot the Reflection

Whenever I'm photographing near any kind of reflective surface, whether it's the surface of a pond, a store window or a shiny car fender, I try to find ways to use the reflections in the composition. I think that including reflections as a component of a larger composition adds an element of color and depth that brings an extra level of visual interest.

But reflections can also make interesting photographs when the subject itself is cropped entirely out of the frame. Isolated reflections have a very romantic, impressionistic feel, often bordering on abstraction. I shot the photo here while photographing a landscape scene of the trees that included a small bit of this reflection in the foreground. As I was shooting that larger scene, however, I began to notice some interesting possibilities using just the reflection. Within a few minutes I was so engrossed in shooting isolated views of the reflection that I completely forgot about the landscape scene. Sometimes you just have to go with the creative flow (which I guess is what creativity is all about).

There are some interesting benefits to photographing reflections, particularly when you're shooting them in water. For one, if the surface of a pond is dark (especially a very stagnant pond like this one) the colors will be more saturated. Also, if you have a breeze or some ripples (just toss a stick in the pond if you want ripples), you get an added level of abstraction. It's important though to use a relatively small aperture (I shot this at f/9 but wish I had shot at f/11 or smaller) when photographing a broad reflection to be sure that the surface will all be in focus. Remember too that you can use a polarizing filter to enhance the saturation even further by eliminating surface glare on the reflective surface (as long as the surface isn't metal).

Keep an eye open too for unusual reflective surfaces. While hanging out near the Eiffel Tower one day I noticed some interesting reflections in a dark-tinted tour bus window and spent about 15 minutes photographing them from various angles. I think I had more tourists looking and me and wondering what I could possibly be shooting than looking at the tower.

Next time you're out by a pond or walking past a large picture window, see if you can't find a shot of just the reflection. You may find out you don't need the actual subjects at all!

Sports Photography: Off with Their Heads!

It probably goes without having to state it as a rule, but generally it's not a good idea to chop peoples' heads off in pictures. That said, I run hot and cold when looking at this photo: sometimes I like the action being aimed at the feet (it is soccer, after all), but other times I wish I'd twisted the zoom back faster (I was shooting very tight with a 70-300mm zoom) and included the entire players--heads and all.

The risk you run in composing off-beat images like this is that people will think you made a mistake and that you didn't mean to shoot it that way. And, of course, in this case they'd be exactly right: it wasn't a planned shot, it was just a matter of the action happening faster than my hands could react. But still, in looking at the 100 or so photos I shot during the first half of this game, this is one of the ones I like the best. I like the feet in motion, I like the ball being right on the side line and I like the shadows behind the players. I'm not sure that including their heads would have added anything to the shot. I'm sure the parents would love to see their little darlings' faces, but since I don't know the players, it's not a concern.

So is cutting off the heads always a mistake? You decide next time you're out shooting sports--shoot a couple of shots without heads (it's probably tougher than you think when you're actually trying to cut off the heads) and see if you like the results after. I'm not sure I'd go out looking for headless soccer players in the future, but I would still keep firing if a shot like this ran into my viewfinder. And by the way, you're seeing the show exactly as it was taken--this isn't a fake crop, though I'm sure someone will think it is. See, you can't even confess to mistakes without people calling you on it!

Don't Get Hung Up On One Shot

I've talked about this before but one of the things that I'm most guilty of when I'm out shooting is getting hung up on shooting a subject from just one angle or using one design choice. Instead of exploring and experimenting, I tend to get focused on getting the shot just right and I obsess over things like focus, depth of field, lens choice, etc. These are good things to obsess over, of course, but you also need to know when to walk away from a particular shot or composition and see what else is going on around you.

In yesterday's posting I showed you the lion's-head doorknocker that I found on the front door of the local historical society museum. I did scout around for 1o minutes or so before I decided that the knocker was going to be the shot and I had some alternative shots in mind. But the lion's face is what I wanted and so I devoted about a half hour to getting exactly the shot I saw in my mind's eye (the black face surrounded by that very bold blue, with some hint of the windows above in the frame).

Knowing that I have a tendency to spend too much time on one shot though, at a certain point I just plucked the tripod off the front step (I was standing on the lower of the two steps when I shot yesterday's picture) and went looking for another shot. As I backed up down the front sidewalk, I noticed that I could probably frame the doorway with the overhanging branch and so I set up the tripod again and shot that. I also shot the door from the left and from the right and got down low on the lawn and shot up at the door from a more extreme angle.

I like the shot here, it's OK (I don't like the fact that the window frame on the lower left is leaning in too much and I would have needed a perspective-control lens to fix that--a lens that I don't own), but I much prefer the close-up of the lion's head. Still, by taking the time to really "work" a subject from many angles, you get the chance to test your conviction to what you think is the best shot. I'm satisfied that the doorknocker is the best shot, but I'm glad I took the time to prove it to myself.

Get Positive Impact with Negative Space

I'm a firm believer that every tiny bit of the frame should be working toward the benefit of the whole. If there is something in a frame that isn't working--try to get rid of it, either by cropping with your zoom lens or by changing your vantage point. But there are times when using empty areas, what artists call negative space can be a useful and provocative part of your compositions.

There are actually three elements in any design: the positive space (that area where your subjects lives), the negative space (any substantial blank area in the frame) and the border. Your job is to create a pleasing interaction of these three elements.

Negative space can be used in a number of ways to help build a powerful composition. One way that negative space works is to simply create emphasis for the positive space (again, your subject). By photographing a horse on a hill with lots of sky behind it, for example, the eye naturally lands on the horse because it's the most interesting thing in the frame. Very importantly, blank areas in the frame can also be used to create a sense of balance. If you're photographing a tall ship in silhouette at sunset, for instance, you can balance the dark mass of the ship with a large bright area of sunset sky.

Yet another way that negative space can be exploited is to create a sense of distance and space. In the shot of the fishing boat, by using the negative space of the blank water so strongly at the bottom of the frame, it exaggerates the space between where I was standing and the boats. The eye can't help but travel up through the path of blank canvas and arrive at the boats. And by giving the eye such a long area to travel across, the brain has a better handle on the distances involved. You get a much better sense that I'm standing on the shore observing the boats.

Whenever you find an interesting object or subject to photograph, see if you can't find an area of relatively blank space--water, a lawn, sky, a big shadow--to help create a more interesting composition. Nothing can be a very powerful creative tool.

Photographing Architecture: Let Extreme Angles Work for You

One of the problems of photographing buildings, especially tall buildings, is that very often the only place to shoot them from is standing right in front of them. Being so close means that you're only left with one angle: looking straight up. But looking up at a tall building with a camera creates something called the keystone effect that causes the building to look like it's falling over backwards, or at least leaning pretty severely. You can even get the same effect by laying on the ground and shooting up at a tall person with a wide-angle lens.

In most photo books (including the ones I've written) you're told that the solution is either to back father away from the building (the simplest solution) or to drop several hundred dollars on what's called a perspective control or "PC" lens (the more exotic solution). If you happen to love photographing tall buildings, a PC lens is actually not that bad of an investment (that is, if you own a DSLR), but it's really a specialty item and only a handful of pros that I know actually own one.

But there is another very creative way to handle tall buildings and that's just to go with the flow--exploit the wildness of the extreme angle and exaggerate the lean. In the shot of the old New England clock tower shown here, I made the lean even more extreme by letting the tower run diagonally through the frame. Instead of looking like a mistake, the shot now looks more like a dramatic magazine cover (or maybe a still frame from Hitchcock's Vertigo). The great thing about working with buildings like this is that you can do it with even the simplest of point-and-shoot cameras. The closer you get and the more extreme the angle, the more dynamic your composition will be.

Also, set your camera to the aperture-priority exposure mode if you can so that you can select a small f/stop (large number) and get maximum depth of field to keep the entire tower or building in sharp focus.

Turn Around and See What's Behind You

One of the flaws that I am most guilty of in photography (I have flaws?) is getting obsessed with one subject or one area of a location to the exclusion of other interesting possibilities around me. I'll often get so intent on getting a good shot of a particular object or detail, for example, that I forget to lift my head and look around and see what's to the left or right or, more often, behind me--and it's an oversight that has caused me to miss some great shots.

The day I took this photo, for example, I was photographing some old steam locomotives and trying to find an angle that would show the ruggedness of the hulking old engine (and considering that nearly the entire engine was painted jet black, it was a bit of a challenge, too). Typically, I was working at the end of the day and the sun light, which had just pierced through an overcast sky, was shifting and fading quickly, so I kept shooting and refining the shots until the light was no longer sculpting the edges of the engine. I worked one particular shot for about 10 or 15 minutes and barely lifted my head from the viewfinder other than to step forward or back a few feet or to check camera settings. Also, because I was standing on oil-slicked railroad ties and rails while I was shooting, I was also concentrating on keeping my body vertical.

Finally the light was a bit too far gone and I'd run out of ideas and angles and I turned to start walking back to my car. Wham! There right behind me was this extraordinary old water tower up on a hill and silhouetted against an incredibly tumultuous sky. It was the clouds in the sky, in fact, that had been playing havoc with the lighting on the locomotive, but it never occurred to me that the sky itself might hold a great shot. And to be honest, I never even noticed the water tower until I turned around to leave and looked up--and almost simultaneously heard my girlfriend say, "That's a pretty shot." (This thing where she notices great shots that I don't see happens a lot, trust me.)

I had just enough time to pop off exactly three shots before that nice edge of light slipped off the left side of the water tower and the sky returned to the on-again, off-again dismal gray mass that it had been. The moral of this tip, I guess, is to remember to take the time to lift your head and look around even if you have to force yourself to look away from your main subject. Don't get so focused that you fail to look around--especially when the light is changing fast, as it does at the beginning or end of the day. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a friend along to look out for things that you might be missing. I'm lucky, I travel most of the time with someone has an artistic eye and who is always spotting things that I don't see--and that's not a bad quality to have in a travel companion.

Trust Your First Impressions

One of the things that I wrestle with a lot in photography is designing the image: where to put everything in the frame so that the image is as powerful as it can be. And I go through that decision-making process whether the subject is very simple (like the train station here) or a more complex subject. The question that I battle with from shot to shot is just this: Is this the best composition I can come up for this particular subject?

Often I'll spend a considerable amount of time walking around the subject and trying to find just the vantage point, or experiment from several vantage points with a few different lenses. But other times, as with this shot, I really wasn't looking for a prize-winning photo, just a good shot to remember this building. (I was actually there on a scouting trip, making plans for a future shoot.) Also, the late-afternoon light was fading fast, so I didn't have time to ponder the situation for very long--and that's a situation you'll run into a lot, especially when you're traveling and only in a place for a short time.

In this case, I went with the very first impression I had of the building: I took a straightforward shot from almost the first spot where I decided I wanted a shot of it. And while I might normally avoid such an obviously symmetrical design, I kind of like the way the building dominates the shot and divides the frame in half both vertically and horizontally. Also, if you look to the sides, you'll see a building on the left and a train on the right that fade into the distance with almost identical vanishing lines (lines that would lead to a vanishing point if you were able to follow them further). In fact, it was the symmetry of the shot that caught my eye. I did help the symmetry a bit in Photoshop by cropping tighter and rotating the shot a tiny amount to level the base of the building to the bottom line of the frame.

Sometimes going with your first impression is the very best choice. After all, something about that vantage point is what caught your eye. Of course, if I had more control over the situation, I'd prefer that the cigarette butt thing on the left and the a/c unit next to it weren't there, but like I said, this was a very informal shot. Trust me, if they were paying me to shoot this, I would have moved a big pot of flowers in front of that a/c unit!