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.

S-t-r-e-t-c-h Your Vision with an Ultra-Wide Lens

OK, time for a pop quiz: The most obvious reason to own a really wide-angle lens is to take in really big spaces in one shot--right? Wrong! Well, only partly wrong actually. Yes, you can use a wide-angle lens to capture a wide, sweeping view like the Grand Canyon or a mountain range. The problem with shooting views like that with a very wide-angle lens, however, is that everything in the shot gets smaller and the view tends to lose grandeur rather than gain it.

In reality if you want to take in expansive landscapes or scenics you're better off shooting a series of images with a normal or moderate telephoto lens and stitching them into a panorama. Panoramas shot with a normal or slightly telephoto lens usually offer a much more realistic interpretation of a wide view or vista.

So what's the point of owning a super-wide-angle lens (a super-wide in 35mm terms would be anything wider than about 21mm and as wide as 10mm or so)? For me, the beauty of a super-wide is its ability to stretch and elongate objects or to really exaggerate the spaces between parts of a scene. If you photograph a row boat sitting on the beach using a normal lens, for example, the boat will look pretty much like it looks to you without a camera in front of your face--the proportions will seem very natural. But if you photograph that same boat (shooting from a very close perspective of, say, a few inches from the bow) using a super-wide lens, the boat will seem much longer than it really is and its exaggerated shape will dominate the design of the image.

I used exactly that idea photographing these giant saguaro cactus outside of Tucson, Arizona. Using a 10-20mm Sigma lens I knelt down and, from a vantage point just a foot or so from the base of the catci, I shot almost straight up at them. The already-tall saguaro now tower over their environment. It's not a method (or a lens) that I use all that often, but when I do I'm always jazzed by the interesting look it creates.

As I said, you can also use a very wide lens to exaggerate the spaces between near and far--which can be quite an effective tool in landscape photography. If you're photographing a farm scene with a tractor in the foreground and a dirt road leading to a barn behind it, you can move in close to the tractor and it will dominate the shot, making the road seem long and the barn seem much more distant. That type of spatial stretching provides a great feeling of presence in a landscape shot, making the viewer feel as if they're experiencing the spaces involved.

One other great use of a super-wide lens is shooting in tight quarters--hotel rooms, small museum rooms, etc. It's nice to have a lens in your kit that, even though it will distort the dimensions (and probably the shape) of tight spaces, at least lets you include everything. Often too the inherent distortion created by the an ultra-wide-angle lens adds to the intrigue of the shot.

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.

Design with Contrasting Colors

In yesterday's post I talked about visiting a steam-train depot in a rural part of Connecticut on a scouting trip. I was at the location trying to decide if I might want to put the steam train on my shoot list for an upcoming revision of my book The Joy of Digital Photography.

While I was poking around the depot I spotted a bright red caboose that no photographer could resist. Unfortunately, while the train car itself was very pretty (see photo below), it was sitting in a somewhat mundane setting with a lot of clutter around it and a blah white sky above it. No shot there.

But one thing that really caught my eye, however, was a series of bright yellow handrails (I think they were hand rails, anyway) contrasting against the shiny red paint of the caboose. Color contrasts make great design subjects because they startle the eye--causing our brains to ping back and forth from one color to the other. Often color contrasts work best when you have a hot color (a red rose) against a cool background (green foliage), but as you can see, even colors that are close to each other on the spectrum, such as yellow and red, can be equally exciting.

All that you really have to do to make color contrasts work is to isolate them--crop away (in the viewfinder) anything that detracts from the intensity of the contrast. In this case I was lucky, the yellow handrails were more or less surrounded by bright red paint, but I still cropped the shot in such a way that the yellow line ran the length of the frame, intensifying the contrast. And again, I was lucky that the line had such a nice natural curl and that there was a strong vertical line of rivets alongside it.
Incidentally, I think this is the beauty of informal scouting trips to new places--you never know what you'll find. While I went looking for photos of trains, I came back with a really cool abstract I could never have envisioned before starting out.

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!

Be Aware (and Beware!) of Shapes

When I was a sophomore in high school, one of my favorite classes was, surprisingly, geometry. I say surprisingly because most of my friends that were a year ahead of me convinced me that the class would be a nightmare that would lead only to frustration, boredom and ultimately many moments of humiliating failure. They also convinced me that the teacher (Mrs. Pitt) was a cross between the Wicked Witch of the West and a Marine drill sergeant.

In fact, geometry became one of my favorite courses and Mrs. Pitt was one of the best and most fun teachers I've ever had. I think the reason that I liked geometry is partly because I had a great teacher, but also because I really enjoyed learning how shapes were constructed and how they could be combined in interesting ways. I also began to get an insight into how some artists like M C Escher were able to take relatively simple shapes and create extraordinarily complex designs. Once I discovered the fun and power of shapes, I began to find--and photograph--them everywhere in both the manmade and natural world.

I still love looking for and photographing shapes. And as silly as it sounds to say it, shapes come in all kinds of shapes and sizes--some easy to spot, some a bit more difficult. Some shapes, such as circles, squares, diamonds, rectangles, cones, triangles are obvious and predictable. (Take a look around the room you're in right now and you can probably spot a half dozen distinct shapes within a few feet of where you're sitting.) Other shapes--particularly those in the natural world--are also distinct, but are often more freeform: leaves, spider webs, lilypads, frog's eyes and even a big old trout all have recognizable shapes. And some natural shapes even do some wild shape-shifting: clouds, sand dunes, ripples in a sandbar, etc.

Often too, a shape can have significant meaning: how much more threatening is a snake coiled to strike than one stretched out and sunning on a rock? And everyone knows to be wary of electrical danger when a lightning bolt shape is used on a sign.

Whatever the source of the shape, the more you isolate it from distracting surroundings the more powerful and dynamic it becomes as a design element. The key to isolation, of course, is just getting closer: walk closer, use a zoom, or pick up the object (not the snake, I hope) and bring it home to photograph it. Repetition (like the repetition in the Iowa farm buildings shown here) is another way to emphasize shapes. By including three rounded buildings instead of just isolating one, the shape becomes more of a theme than just an individual structure. Another way to isolate shapes, of course, is with by turning the subject into a silhouette. I've blogged about creating silhouettes earlier but I'll talk more about them in a future posting.

Finding shapes is a good self-assignment, so next time you're out looking for something interesting to shoot, forget the specific subject and instead hunt out the shapes from which they're made.

Build Your Compositions Like a Story

A good landscape photograph tells a tale of the place it describes. And like all good tales, your landscapes should have a catchy beginning (the foreground), an interesting center (the middle area) and a memorable ending (the background). Not every landscape lends itself to this somewhat formulaic treatment, of course, but until you are very confident of your design skills, applying it will save you a lot of time and provide you with a solid starting point from which you can improvise.

Also, by using these classic building blocks you not only provide yourself with a handy framework for organization, but you demonstrate that you are in charge of your compositions. Rather than just tossing together a random smattering of elements—a barn here, a silo there, some trees over there—carefully arranging your images in layers demonstrates that you knew precisely what you were doing. In other words, it shows that you had a plan, Stan.

Just how much emphasis you give to each of the three regions of a particular design is a decision you’ll have to make for each scene—and honestly, that’s one of the toughest concepts to master in landscape photography (you thought this was going to be easy?). In this garden shot, taken at the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park in New York, creating three levels of design was easy since I just borrowed three elements from the garden design: the foreground bed of wax begonias, the taller cannas in the middle and that interesting tree at the top of the frame. I used a tripod to compose the scene and it was worth the effort of carrying it; when you start to compose landscapes carefully, it's nice to have a tripod to help you frame things.

Eventually concepts like this become second nature and you’ll use them more by instinct than by forethought, but again, knowing they exist and consciously practicing them will help you compose scenes faster and with more confidence.