Composition
by Michael Frye | Oct 27, 2019 | Composition
Dogwoods in autumn, Yosemite. 118mm, 1/2 sec. at f/16, ISO 1600.
Are you good at picking your best photographs while you’re in the field? Do you always know which ones are going to be your favorites, or do you sometimes find that the ones you thought were going to be great aren’t, while others turn out to be better than you thought?
I’ve been making photographs for a long time, and usually have a pretty good idea of when a photograph will work and when it won’t. Sometimes my field judgements are pretty good, and the images that I most look forward to seeing on a bigger screen turn out to be my favorites. But other times I’m surprised. A photograph I was anxious to see on a large monitor turns out to be disappointing, while another one ends up being a favorite.
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by Michael Frye | Jul 11, 2019 | Composition
Ridges and peaks above the fog in the Sierra Nevada foothills, California (170mm)
One of my most popular posts was about creating a sense of depth in landscape photographs. In that post I talked about the most common formula for creating depth: a near-far juxtaposition with a wide-angle lens. And then I looked at other, less-common ways of creating depth, like atmospheric effects, perspective lines, and using an elevated vantage point to show a foreground, middle ground, and background. (If you haven’t read that post I recommend doing so; you’ll find it here.)
Creating a sense of depth in a two-dimensional medium like photography can be challenging. There’s no question that the wide-angle, near-far formula works, and in general it’s easier to make photographs with depth using shorter focal lengths rather than longer ones. Telephoto lenses are often better suited to compressing space, and finding two-dimensional patterns and designs out of a three-dimensional world.
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by Michael Frye | Jun 23, 2019 | Composition
Storm clouds over Half Dome and Nevada Fall from Glacier Point, Yosemite
When we look at a photograph our eyes are usually drawn to light areas, bright colors, and contrast. Therefore I always try to avoid having bright spots, vivid colors, or anything contrasty and eye-catching along the edges of my photographs. I’d rather put the most visually-prominent elements closer to the middle of the picture, to draw the viewer’s eye into the frame, rather than out of it.
I was very conscious of that last Monday when composing the photograph above. Thunderstorms had formed over the Sierra crest, so Claudia and I drove up to Glacier Point, hoping to photograph some interesting weather. We arrived just as a thunderstorm was approaching from the northeast, bringing dark, dramatic clouds. There was no sunlight, but the sky had great textures, and lent a nice, stormy mood to the scene. I used my widest lens (16mm) to include as much of that brooding sky as possible.
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by Michael Frye | Jun 7, 2019 | Composition
Redwood and rhododendron in the fog, northern California. 90mm, 1.5 seconds at f/16, ISO 400, polarizer.
When teaching composition I emphasize simplicity, because I think the single most common mistake people make is including too much in the frame. I tell students to ask themselves, before composing a photograph, what caught their eye in the first place, and then try to include only that, and nothing else. Pare the image down to its essentials.
The more specific you can get the better. In other words, if a tree caught your eye, what is it about that tree that you find interesting? It’s shape? It’s color? The juxtaposition between the tree and something else? Part of the tree rather than the whole thing? Does something about the tree convey a feeling to you? If you can identify exactly what drew you to a subject or scene you’ll know what you’re trying to say, which is the first, essential step toward effective communication.
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by Michael Frye | May 26, 2019 | Composition
Dogwood and golden reflections, Yosemite. A telephoto lens (116mm) helped simplify the scene by isolating one small section of branches against the water. 1/4 second at f/22, ISO 100.
Claudia and I are up in the redwood country, scouting for our upcoming workshop. I’ll post some photos from this area later, but in the meantime here are a few more dogwood images from Yosemite.
One of the biggest challenges when photographing forest scenes, including dogwoods, is simplifying and organizing all the chaos. Trunks, branches, leaves, and shrubs are scattered about, growing where there’s sunlight and suitable soil. There’s an order to all that, but it’s an organic order that doesn’t translate easily into visual order. To find compositions that make sense, you have to look for ways to simplify these scenes.
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by Michael Frye | May 7, 2019 | Composition
Dogwood and late-afternoon light along the Merced River, Yosemite
While the big wildflower blooms in southern California are now well past peak, spring keeps progressing into cooler regions, like the mountains. It’s been a good year for dogwoods, and Claudia and I have had a few opportunities to photograph them over the last couple of weeks.
Most of my dogwood photographs have been made with telephoto lenses in soft light. The scene above didn’t fit that description at all, with a close foreground that seemed to demand a wide-angle lens, and late-afternoon sunlight streaming down the river, creating lots of contrast. But the backlight looked beautiful – and besides, I’ve photographed dogwoods many times, so I was in the mood to push myself and do something different.
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