Composition Tips - Varying Your Scenic Shots

This post is written by Guest Contributor, Janet Ochs Lowenbach. If you are also interested in writing a guest blog, please reach out using the form in the Contact page.

If you want to take strong outdoor photos, consider these very basic principles. Anything you see, you can photograph. If you see a reflection of trees in a pond or sun on the water, a pink sky, even a rainbow, the camera can capture it. But you have to play around to get a good shot. Do you focus on the trees that make the reflection? Or on the surface of the water? Do you meter for the trees or the river? The answer is to experiment. With the digital camera you have endless numbers of pictures available for free, and you have a screen to evaluate your attempts. So test out your composition, metering, and focusing.

Also make sure you vary your camera angles. Don’t just shoot straight on. Lie on the ground, and shoot up. Stand up and shoot down. Shoot past a wall. Shoot over a foreground object. Shoot under an object (a branch) shoot though something that leaves a hole in the middle - (this is called a frame within a frame). These approaches will differentiate your work from that of others. They will add depth and drama to your photos.

There is a formula I use to make sure I remember to vary my shots: up, down, over, under, past, and through. Also shoot wide and far away, then shoot close to gain a microcosm of your world.

The picture below captures the beauty of the reflections, and the building is off to the left, consistent with the rule of thirds.

What is the Rule of Thirds? Place the subject one third up, down, or sideways from the edge of the picture - rather than in the center of the shot. To understand the concept, draw an imaginary tic-tac-toe board over your viewfinder. Place the subject either on one of the lines or at the intersections of the lines. Don’t center it.

Compare this photo with the first picture. It lacks the movement of the vegetation on the water, and the subject is in the middle, rather than in one of the third spaces, making the picture staid and motionless.

Include objects in your photos, person, a car, and animal to add drama, depth, and perspective.

In the next picture, the reflection becomes dominant and the figures to the right add scale.

Lines, patterns, and shapes are the tools of the photographer.  This picture is more dramatic than the others because of the drama of the trees whose lines pull the eye of the viewer into and through the picture. In fact, the vegetation to the bottom and the tree on the right and left almost surround the water.

Try to be different. Remember, don’t shoot straight on.  Shoot up, down, over, under, by and through. This next picture is strong; it is a very different way of viewing the waterscape.  With its leafy foreground, it adds depth and drama to the scene. It also tells a story; the red leaves say that fall is coming.

For me, photography was always about the story and the message hidden in the picture and that is what I try to look into the photograph.

Happy Shooting!

Photography Composition Tips - Combining Elements

This post is written by Guest Contributor, Janet Ochs Lowenbach. If you are also interested in writing a guest blog, please reach out using the form in the Contact page.

Composition is a very important element of photography – it refers to the arrangement of the elements of the photograph – the objects, the lines, the light, the sense of motion. Composition is a general word beyond photography too, and it refers to “The act of composing … or the state of being composed…the union of different things or principles into an individual whole…”

What is important here is that the way you create a composition differs with the art form. With art, you create and combine elements, you generate objects you have developed from your imagination and combine them on the page.

But with photography, the process is more an act of subtraction than creation. The world we look at is too noisy, too filled with parts. The photographer selects those parts that tell a story, create a mood, and draw in the eye, and he discards the rest.  It is not always easy to see the photograph when looking at the world through the viewfinder.

Here is an example. I traveled to view seals off the coast of California. There were many problems with them. They smelled terrible. Most just lay there barking and doing nothing. There was no discernible story or pattern in the scene.

The first photograph shows you what I saw as I neared the cliff.

The second photograph shows that as I got closer, I eliminated many of the seals, but there was still no message and no impact.

Finally you see the photograph I ended up with. A white seal (I call him Uncle Charlie) surrounded by a triangular shape of black seals. I walked around the scene, getting closer until I could focus on objects that were combined in a dramatic and pleasing shape and on elements (the triangle) that drew in the eye.

The triangle grounded the picture. Charlie’s expression was dramatic and caught your eye. It created a photograph from lots of indistinguishable shapes.

Sometimes you see one thing when you take a picture and another after you look at it. I was looking for contrast in the photo, and in this shot Charlie’s shape contrasted with the black seal lifted up behind him.  Bu t in time, the black figure grew in importance; perhaps I had seen him subliminally. He was a giant black, roaring anti-seal, a shape that gave power to the shot.

Perhaps you would like to try this exercise. Take a scene and photograph it. Then walk around and through it and see how you can improve what you see by eliminating unnecessary elements that obscure the power of your photograph.  Feel free to share these with us.

Things To Remember While Shooting At The Beach

This post is written by Guest Contributor, Janet Ochs Lowenbach. If you are also interested in writing a guest blog, please reach out using the form in the Contact page.

When you take out the rafts and sun hats, don’t forget to bring along your camera, because summer is an excellent time to take beach scenic shots. If you choose the right time, and are careful to protect your camera from the elements, you can get some beautiful photos to add to your portfolio and your wall.

First: the warnings. Sand and salt spray can play havoc with your camera, so use your head.  Don’t open your camera any more than you have to: change your memory card at home. Keep your camera shaded under a blanket or umbrella not like a sitting duck baking in the hot sun. Don’t change your lenses at the moment your friend is shaking out a towel. And if sand or salt get in, immediately and carefully attempt to blow it or wipe it out.  If you are not sure you have removed the offenders, take your camera to your repair shop.

If the weather is too harsh, consider leaving your camera at home and bringing a sealed disposable or simple underwater camera. Or, you might use a plastic bag over the camera body drawn forward and secured around the (open) lens with a rubber band.

Be careful with the lighting. Beach (and snow) scenes are so bright they fool the camera into underexposing.  Do set the exposure properly either by reading off your hand or an 18 percent gray card and shooting on manual. Or simply open up one or two f stops to increase the light. You can check the pictures on the camera back if you have a digital camera and compensate accordingly.

Don’t just stand there and shoot into the waves: Look for different ways of seeing, other kinds of lines that lead the eye to the subject, and different ways to revealing the subject. Ask yourself what story you are trying to tell about the waves —are they symbols of a gentle nature? A ferocious adversary?  Then try to demonstrate your answers.  You've been unaccustomed to thinking like this, but such thinking will help you produce out-of-the-ordinary pictures.

Look for the quality of light. Don’t go out at noon and blast away. Go out in the early morning even before sunset or in the late afternoon, when the sun is low in the sky.  At night, you will find a warm, reddish light that makes your photos glow with fire and emotion.

Composition is important. You don’t want your subject smack in the middle of the photo. Picture a tic-tac-toe grid over your viewfinder. (This is the rule of thirds.) You want your subject not in the center but at one of the points where the lines intersect.

Walk around the shot, face the waves, move closer and shoot sideways so the water fills the frame and you have land and water as the background. Shoot small things — the bubbles in the water as it pours over the shore, footprints on the sand, a dried out crab shell. Look and look and try to find something different, something that speaks to you and helps you speak differently to the audience.

In the pictures below, I encountered a log on the shore — unusual for the scene and a way to vary the lines and the lighting in the photo. In the first shot, it appears in the lower third of the photo to the left. In the second it is backlit and appears in the lower third to the right. The lighting is pastel.

The third shot attempts to show the power of the waves.

Sometimes unexpected things happen, as when my dog ran into the picture. If you expose for and set up a scenic shot, wait for a minute. A bird may fly across the sky; a person or dog may run across the view. This can only make things better.