This week I am going to share with you three images to illustrate another point or technique in photography. I would rather call it a dilemma, to be honest.
for a subject like this that is mostly vertical, a portrait framing could be the best choice
horizontal or vertical
As I mentioned in a previous post, I always take more than one photo of every subject. And, sometimes, the simplest way of producing different images is by just changing the orientation of the camera.
We have to distinguish between a vertical photograph, what we call portrait format, and the horizontal one, usually called landscape format.
even though, with the landscape framing you can also show more of the scene, albeit risking losing the main focal point (the rainbow)
These terms can be confusing, but they are only ways of referring to the orientation of the image, not the subject being photographed.
They are called thus because, more often than not, portraits are best depicted by vertical images and landscapes by horizontal ones.
Yet, adding some interesting element in the foreground of your picture can help you decide which of the two formats would work better for this particular subject.
this river is near Torphins, where I spent a couple of days with a family. I found them thanks to this online community called ‘welcome to my garden’I’m not into water sports and I don’t like swimming in very cold water, but I went for a quick swim in the river anyways.for a couple of days, I cycled on the east coast of Scotland heading southI was surrounded almost all the time by the sea on my left and fields with all kinds of cropsthen, I spent another couple of days in someone’s house in St Andrew’s, which suited me very well to rest and relax
this highland route I’ve been cycling for a few days has some stunning views!many of the streets of Aberdeen still have this very irregular cobblestonesgetting to the top of this road was the hardest climb so far in this trip. there were ramps of up to 25%!finally made it to the coast and the tracks here were really nice and smootheven though there were fields everywhere, I still crossed some forest areas
after staying a couple of days in a hostel to recover from the extreme effort of the first week, it was good to be back in natureview from my tent by the shore of Loch NessI still don’t really know how I do it, but I seem to always find good places to pitch my tent in the wild
beautiful view of one of the valleys in the highlandsblack spout waterfall, in PitlochryI had only seen this, the Shepherd training his dog to control the sheep, on movies before, so I watched for a few minutesLoch Nesseven though I looked, I couldn’t see the monster in the loch. there were many of these birds flying around the shore and moving constantly, thoughhighland bull that I could see on paintings and posters in many places but that I only saw in a field after a week cycling in Scotland
I love cycling small and quiet roads, but, sometimes, when you see these long straight upward ones, it makes you wonder when will it end…when I got to the top of these woods all I could see were treesthere was a park race going on in this forest
some cycle lanes are old railways, some others go along the still existing ones. this one heading towards the highlands
This week I wanted to share a different set of images. I took them all the same evening and I thought I could use them to explain two ideas: the golden hour and walking/working the scene.
the first picture of the set is not very interesting, but helps getting in the mood and finding the right spot.
the golden hour
Basically, and to keep it simple, the golden hour is that bracket of time before sunrise and after sunset when the light from the sun hits the clouds and produces, arguably, the best and most dramatic light for landscape photographs.
when the sun is very low you may get some nice reflections, but there usually is too much contrast and you end up getting a silhouette, which is not what I wanted
As a rule of thumb, I’d usually get ready with my camera and explore the area and the sky as I did this day, an hour or so before sunset.
changing my framing and not getting the sun in the picture produced a mode balanced image, and quite abstract this time, but still not dramatic enough
Then, I’d wait until I can’t see the sun anymore and start taking the photos I was hoping for, if the clouds and light are good enough. Which, of course, you cannot really predict. Although, with experience you can kind of anticipate sometimes.
the sun is about to disappear and the foreground works well as a reference point, but I was hoping for something with even more visual impact
working / walking the scene
This is an essential technique that I tell my students and, of course, do myself all the time. I always take more than one photo of anything that attracts me.
this is more like it! Although, I knew it could be improved with yet another common technique: reflections.
But it’s more than just taking a few pictures one after another. I also move around my subject as much as I can, which in the case of landscapes can be very limited, and change the zoom or point of view of my camera. A small movement of my position or the angle the camera is pointing to the scene can make a big difference.
so, I got closer to the shore, to one of the many puddles on the sand as the tide receded and lowered the camera to emphasise the reflection in the foreground
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