Monument Cove and Otter Cliffs in Maine’s Acadia National Park. The curve of the shoreline in this photo adds a peaceful line that leads the viewer’s eye to the cliffs.
Lines, real and implied are an important component in any photo’s composition. Lines can be straight (horizontal, vertical, or at an oblique angle,) or curved. All lines work to divide your image into distinct parts, so you need to study your compositions carefully to see how these divisions work. Do they cut an image in half, creating a static feel, or do they divide the image into unequal parts which can provide an asymmetrical balance and more dynamic feel?
In general, horizontal lines are relatively calm. Vertical lines possess more energy, and diagonal or oblique lines are the most energetic of all. Lines also take the viewer on a journey through your photographs, as they provide a natural path for the viewer’s eye to follow while looking at your photo. Diagonal lines in particular, move your viewer along at a quick pace. Curved lines also give this sense of motion to a photo, but in a more peaceful, gentle way than a straight diagonal line.
Dawn over the Atlantic Ocean at Wallis Sands State Park in Rye, New Hampshire. I repositioned my camera for this photo so that the lines in the rock were at an oblique angle to give the photo more energy.
Whenever I’m composing a photo, I’m constantly repositioning my camera to take advantage of curved lines, and to change vertical or horizontal lines to oblique angled lines. The only exception to this is that I generally try to keep my horizon line or the vertical lines of trees, plants, and buildings straight (although purposely angling these lines can add more energy to a photo, and I’ll often choose that energy over a straight horizon line in an adventure photo.)
I get a lot of questions regarding metadata, so I thought I would throw together a quick tutorial explaining how I generally handle exporting images with metadata. If you have any questions feel free to email or leave a comment below.
Our hometown of Louisville, Ky is going crazy right now. Roads are clogged with traffic, restaurants have long lines, and limousines are everywhere. Tourists are everywhere, getting ready for the huge party that is dubbed "the most exciting two minutes in sports". Talk about photo opportunities!
I passed by a local Real Estate office to admire their beautiful garden bed filled with a variety of tulips and thought I would create a few images. In processing I toned down the bright red tulip behind the left petal with the clone tool set to approx 30% opacity. This is very easy to do using a simple layer and mask:
Bring your image into Photoshop and then create a duplicate layer by hitting Control J or Cmd J for MAC. It will show up as Layer 1. You can now clone as you normally would using the Clone Stamp Tool without worrying that you will clone on your subject because if you do you can easily clean it up with a layer mask. To do so add a regular layer mask to Layer 1. The Layer Mask should be filled with white. Now select a soft brush so that it feathers the paint slightly. Make sure that the foreground (the top color square- which is the color you will be painting with) is set to black. Touch up as needed. Note you can paint with white if you revealed too much from the bottom layer.
In landscape photography we often discuss the many different ingredients that go into making a successful image. Things like composition, color, mood, light, and of course subject. And while these are all essential parts, the aspect I think is underestimated and not talked about enough is the relationships between these elements.
• How does the subject interact with the rest of the composition? Is the main “character” easily defined? Imagine a movie where you couldn’t tell who the main character was, or a song that did not have a recognizable melody. How quickly would you lose interest?
• How does the color influence the balance and design of the image? Saturated color is great, but only when a harmonious relationship exists with some other part of the composition, otherwise it loses its ability to convey a strong message other than “here’s a lot of color”.
• Are the tonalities balanced in a way that leads the eye in a meaningful way? Light is a powerful force in our search for evocative landscapes, but are you controlling the light through careful composition, and removing what may be distracting?
These questions are all based on relationships and how we use them in landscape photography. I’ll be covering these ideas in-depth in an upcoming article, but for now think about these concepts the next time you are out with your camera. Even simple things like using a longer focal length can have a dramatic impact on your ability to create stronger relationships. Avoid the temptation to capture it all, and use 70, 80, or even a 100mm focal length to narrow down your field of view and work with basic shapes, lines, and color. This technique will help you recognize relationships much easier, and your images will gain clarity because of it.
“We photograph something for two reasons: for what it is, and for what else it is.” – Minor White
Check out Robert’s website for images, workshops, webinars and more: LINK
One of the hardest things for many photographers to develop is a sense of creativity. You might be the most technologically proficient person with your gear and know how to edit photos better than the best Photoshop gurus out there but what about making interesting pictures?
Creativity, according to John Cleese is not a talent, but rather a quality that can be learned by the biggest imbecile… fortunately for me. So while you might have the technical know how, where do you rate on the creative scale?
Check out this video by the very talented and humorous John Cleese. Many of you may know him from Monty Python fame, but what you may not know about him, is that he is a highly educated, imaginative, and persuasive writer and educator. Maybe this video will help you to unlock your own creative abilities and also allow you a little laugh or two. Its a little over 30 minutes long, but full of useful info regardless if you’re a photographer, an artist, an engineer or a teacher!
Note: This is the second post in a series about User Experience for photographers by Ted Stark. You can see the first article here.
In life, people are barraged with choices. Ask any person, how many choices they want and they will say “a lot” (or some derivative of that). Physiology tells us that people equate choices with control. Choices are not always sensible. And control (or the illusion there of) is fleeting.
This is not a new concept. Applied to websites, users have tons of options (or choices). Everything from how many items are in a menu, to seeing a year’s worth of blog posts in an archive. On most photography websites, there are ample choices in terms of photographs on display in a portfolio or for sale.
But, there’s a limit to the effectiveness of “a lot” of choices.
How people decide is a topic that many researchers delve into. During their graduate studies at Stanford, Sheena Iyengar and a colleague posed as store employees manning a booth where they offered samples of fruit jam. Half of the time, store customers were presented with six choices of jam and the other half were presented with twenty-four. This study is now known as the “jam” study.
Iyengar and her colleague wanted to know how likely people were to sample based on the number of jam choices available. Additionally, they were curious if there was a correlation between number of jam choices and a customer’s decision to purchase one of the sampled jams from the booth.
With twenty-four choices, sixty percent of passersby stopped and sampled. Only forty percent of passersby stopped when only six choices were available. Probably not surprising, right?
When Iyengar and her colleague looked at how many people actually purchased jam based on the number of choices they encountered at the sample booth, things got a little more interesting. Customers who encountered six choices for jam, purchased thirty-one percent of the time. When customers faced twenty-four choices, it resulted in a sale only three percent of the time.
I find the one of the big reasons photographers do not want to shoot in RAW mode is that they fear spending too much time on the computer. One of the great things about Adobe Lightroom is that it gives you several ways to be very efficient in managing your digital photo archive. One part of Lightroom that all photographers should master is the develop module. While most shooters love the ability to easily make tone and color corrections to their images in this module, the ability to create develop presets and to apply changes to many images at once make “developing” in Lightroom one of the biggest time savers that digital photographers have in their arsenals. And in my opinion, the less time I spend on the computer, the better.
One of the things I really enjoy about photographing wildlife is “the chess game”. What I mean by that is when I am photographing an animal I am always thinking a few moves ahead. So I can be sure to be in the right place at the right time. I try to get in the animals head, to figure out what its next move is going to be. This is why it is important to spend time with a subject. The more knowledge you have about an animal, the better you will be at anticipating its next move.
Many different behaviors and actions are preceded by visual cues. Some examples are. If a duck, goose, loon, or swan dips its head in the water and runs water down its back it is going to rear up and flap its wings. If a coyote or fox stares intently at the ground and turns its head side to side, it is likely getting ready to pounce on a vole. If a bird turns toward the wind and defecates it is more often than not going to fly away. During the rut a male deer, bighorn, elk, or pronghorn, will always do a lip-curl after it “checks” a female. Knowing your subject and paying attention to these visual cues will help you to anticipate the action and get some of these exciting action shots.
Sometimes it is good to leave a little to the imagination. Some of the most intriguing movies or books are the ones that make you wonder or keep you guessing. I remember an image of a wolf that I saw a few years back. The wolf as walking into the frame with its head turning back as if something or someone was following it. The entire body of the wolf was not in view and I wondered if it was hurt, what had happened to it. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that the image has stayed with me for years–it had impact. Why? It didn’t tell the whole story. Have we as photographers been so trained that we feel the image needs to be complete, that it needs to tell the whole story. Imagination is a very powerful thing and maybe adding a little by taking away a little is a good thing.
Scott Goldsmith: The Kentucky Derby
May 4th, 2012 by Chris KlaphekeOur hometown of Louisville, Ky is going crazy right now. Roads are clogged with traffic, restaurants have long lines, and limousines are everywhere. Tourists are everywhere, getting ready for the huge party that is dubbed "the most exciting two minutes in sports". Talk about photo opportunities!
Tags: horses, Kentucky Derby, Scott Goldsmith, Vision
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