In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | May 20, 2010 | Critiques
“Springtime in Potter County, PA” by Brad Bireley
Note: I’ve decided to do these critiques every other week from now on, instead of every week. I enjoy doing them, and they’ve been popular and well-received, but I’d like to devote more time to discussing other things that I think will interest you, the readers. Stay tuned!
This week’s photograph was made by Brad Bireley in Potter County, Pennsylvania. By having his image chosen for this critique Brad will receive a free 16×20 matted print from Aspen Creek Photo. If you’d like your images considered for future critiques you can upload them to the Flickr group I created for this purpose.
The soft light of an overcast day was perfect for this photograph. The even illumination helped simplify this complex scene, while sunlight would have created confusing splotches of light and dark. Soft light also helped bring out the beautiful, subtle colors. The varying shades of green, gold, red, and white create a pleasing and varied palette, with a nice warm-cool, red-green color contrast.
Overall the composition is well seen. Brad focused on the area with the most interesting color and texture. He put design before subject and didn’t feel compelled to include the tops or bottoms of the trees out of some misguided attempt to show the whole subject.
The lines of the tree trunks provide structure and prevent the image from becoming a random mish-mash of leaves. The thousands of tiny spots created by the leaves and blossoms add texture and another subtle, repeating pattern, almost like a pointillist painting.
Two small things, however, bother me about the composition. First, the branches in the lower-left corner are slightly out of focus, and their shapes don’t mesh with everything else. Luckily it’s easy to crop a little off the bottom of the photo to eliminate those branches.
The other problem is the bright patch of sky in the upper-right corner. Bright areas draw the eye, and this one pulls viewer’s attention away from all those interesting colors and textures and right out of the frame. Unfortunately, this patch of sky isn’t easily cropped, as trimming the top would also cut off some interesting forks in the upper branches of the left-hand tree.
In search of a solution, I tried darkening the upper-right corner, and several different crops. At the end of this post you’ll find four alternate versions of this image. In version A I darkened the upper-right corner as much I could without making the image look fake and unnatural, but didn’t crop anything. In version B I trimmed a little from the bottom and just enough off the top to eliminate the brightest part of the sky. With C I lopped off all of the sky, and in D also cropped the left and right edges to fill the frame with texture.
I like tight compositions, so I’m partial to Version D, but honestly it’s a tough choice. Let me know what you think!
Technically this is well-executed: the exposure is perfect, and everything is in focus except the small vertical green branches in the lower-left corner I mentioned earlier. The overall contrast looks just right, with small areas of pure black and pure white, just enough to give the image some punch, but not enough to make it look harsh.
Brad said that he didn’t do much to the scan, perhaps adding a bit of saturation. I think a color balance adjustment would also help, as the image has slight blue/purple tint, visible in the branches on the right side of the frame. (I adjusted the white balance slightly in the versions below.)
Despite my nitpicking this is a beautiful photograph, with great colors and textures. Thanks Brad for sharing your image! You can see more his work on Flickr.
As part of being chosen for this week’s critique Brad will receive a free 16×20 matted print courtesy of the folks at Aspen Creek Photo. If you’d like your images considered for future critiques, just upload them to the Flickr group I created for this purpose. If you’re not a Flickr member yet, joining is free and easy. You’ll have to read and accept the rules for the group before adding images, and please, no more than five photos per person per week. I’ll be posting the next critique in two weeks. Thanks for participating!
—Michael Frye
Version A, with the upper-right corner darkened
Version B, with top and bottom edges trimmed
Version C, with the sky cropped out completely
Version D, a tighter crop
by Michael Frye | Apr 25, 2010 | Advanced Techniques, Photography Tips
Half Dome and Upper Yosemite Fall with a lunar rainbow
In Friday’s post on my other blog I described some of my experiences attempting to photograph lunar rainbows, but here are some tips for capturing your own moonbow images.
The moon will become full at 5:19 Wednesday morning, so Tuesday night will provide the brightest moonlight, and the best chance to photograph a lunar rainbow this month—if the weather cooperates. Unfortunately the forecast calls for rain. If the predictions are faulty, and some moonlight manages to break through the clouds, cool temperatures will probably limit the amount of spray on Upper Yosemite Fall, so Lower Yosemite Fall may work better. For the upper fall, you might be better off waiting for the next full moon on May 27th. For detailed information on times and places to photograph lunar rainbows in Yosemite, see Don Olson’s site.
For those who aspire to capture lunar rainbows, here are some tips.
Equipment
Any digital SLR will work, but full-frame sensors usually produce less noise and work better for the long exposures required at night. A sturdy tripod is essential, plus a locking cable release or electronic release. You’ll want a good flashlight or headlamp, a watch to time long exposures, and a cloth for wiping spray off the lens if you’re at the lower fall. Long exposures drain batteries quickly, so make sure your camera battery is fully charged—and your spare too.
Focus and Depth of Field
To make exposure times reasonably short, you’ll have to keep your aperture wide open, or close to it. That means you won’t get much depth of field, so try to exclude foregrounds from your compositions. This shallow depth of field makes focusing critical. It’s obviously difficult to focus manually in the dark, and autofocus won’t work either. In the past I’d just manually set the lens at infinity, but many lenses now focus past infinity, making the correct focusing point difficult to determine. The solution is to find something distant that’s bright enough to focus on, like the moon itself, car headlights, or perhaps a bright light that you place far away. Then focus on that bright spot, using either manual or autofocus. The most precise method is probably focusing manually during a zoomed-in look in live view. Once you’ve set the focus, turn autofocus off and don’t touch the focusing ring—leave the lens set at this distance for all your images. You might even tape the focusing ring so it doesn’t move. (more…)
by Michael Frye | Apr 16, 2010 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Redbud and oaks, spring 2007
The redbud in the Merced River Canyon are a bit past peak, with many starting to leaf out, but at least half are still in prime condition, so good photographs of them can still be made for at least the next few days. Meanwhile in Yosemite Valley the deciduous trees have buds but no new leaves. The April snowstorms have delayed the appearance of the vivid green leaves of the cottonwoods, alders, maples, and oaks. I expect we might see that green around the end of the month. The dogwoods will probably also be late; while they typically start blooming around the end of April, they might blossom a week or two later this year.
by Michael Frye | Apr 14, 2010 | Critiques
Cataract Catwalk” by Paul Porter
This week’s photograph was made by Paul Porter at Mount Tamalpais State Park, north of San Francisco. While last week’s image was a model of simplicity, this scene is much more complex, with cascades, rocks, trees, and the boardwalk railing. I think Paul did a great job of integrating all those elements together and creating a strong composition.
The foreground water is the dominant feature—it fills up almost half the frame. The converging lines of the stream point toward the waterfall at the top, leading our eyes there and creating a nice near-far juxtaposition. That prominent foreground and it’s leading lines hold all the complex elements of the scene together and make a coherent statement out of what could have been a visual mess.
The walkway railing is a man-made object in an otherwise natural scene, and it’s color, lines, and shapes are different from everything else in the frame. Yet despite all that it’s fairly unobtrusive, and you could even make an argument that it adds interest and a human element, allowing viewers to imagine that they could be part of this scene.
One thing that does bother me slightly is the tree trunk in the upper-right corner. Any object that lives on the edge like this can be distracting, and it’s worse if it’s partially cut off—that is, not completely in the photograph or out of it. In this case it’s easy to crop a bit off the right side and eliminate it, and I’ve uploaded another version to show what that looks like. I also trimmed a little off the bottom as well, as after cropping the right edge the bottom of the image seemed a bit too elongated.
Right and bottom edges trimmed
The focal length was 18mm on an APS-size sensor (equivalent to about 28mm on a full-frame sensor). Since wide-angle lenses like this include so much of the scene, it’s easy to allow extraneous elements to creep in and clutter up the image, and it can be challenging to keep the compositions simple. But the strength of short focal lengths is creating the kind of near-far juxtaposition that we see here. Wide-angle lenses make distant objects seem smaller, thereby exaggerating the apparent size difference between near and far, and creating an illusion of depth.
There are two keys to creating that sense of depth with a wide-angle lens. First, you have to put the camera close to something in the foreground—usually no more than five feet away—otherwise everything will look small and distant. Second, you need to keep everything in focus. Paul did both of those things here: the foreground rocks and water appear to be less than three feet from the camera, and everything looks sharp, at least in this small enlargement. Even though this image isn’t the kind of sweeping grand landscape we usually associate with that near-far juxtaposition, there’s a palpable sense of depth and distance between the rocks and water at the bottom of the frame and the trees and fall near the top. You almost feel as though you could walk—or rather wade—into this scene.
Telephoto lenses do the opposite—they compress space and make objects look closer together than they really are. This is great for creating patterns, as you can bring similar lines and shapes into close visual proximity even when they’re physically far apart. From this spot, for example, you could use a longer focal length to zoom in on the trees and waterfall and the top of the frame, working with the patterns created by the trunks and strands of water.
The soft, overcast light was a perfect complement to this scene. Sunlight would have been a contrasty nightmare. Aside from creating severe exposure problems, splotchy highlights and shadows would have added complexity and confusion. Even with the overcast conditions Paul said that he needed to blend two exposures together in Photoshop, since the upper falls were quite a bit brighter than the shadier foreground. This post-processing looks very well done. The merge is seamless—you’d never know that two images had been combined. (I discuss exposure blending in my Digital Zone System article for Outdoor Photographer, and in more detail in my Digital Landscape Photography book.)
The overall contrast and saturation look great. In fact Paul said that he reduced the saturation in some areas after some of the adjustments he made “created a little undesired over-saturation.” The only thing I could quibble with about the processing is the white balance, which to me looks a little blue. This is especially noticeable in the water. To correct this, I used the eyedropper tool in Lightroom and clicked on the water to make it neutral. This worked well for the water, but made the greens a bit too yellow for my taste, so I tweaked the greens to push them closer to their original color. Here are both of these versions for comparison.
Paul used a shutter speed of 1/2 second for both exposures. This looks about right—slow enough to give the water that silky, flowing look, yet fast enough to prevent the water from losing all texture. There’s a nice contrast between the smooth water and the rough textures of the mossy trees and rocks.
Overall this is very well done—nicely composed, technically well-executed, and skillfully processed.
Thanks Paul for sharing your image! You can see more of his work on Flickr.
If you’d like your images considered for future critiques, just upload them to the Flickr group I created for this purpose. If you’re not a Flickr member yet, joining is free and easy. You’ll have to read and accept the rules for the group before adding images, and please, no more than five photos per person per week. I’ll be posting the next critique on April 20th or 21st. Thanks for participating!
by Michael Frye | Apr 7, 2010 | Critiques
“Outward Momentum, Panther Beach, Davenport, California” by Sudheendra Kadri
This week’s image, by Sudheendra Kadri, was made at Panther Beach in Davenport, California (just north of Santa Cruz).
What initially caught my eye was this photograph’s zen-like simplicity. The entire image consists of only a few lines and shapes. The dominant visual element is the curving X of the stream, resembling a whale’s tail, which in turn is flanked by two triangles of darker sand, then topped by a band of water and lighter expanse of sky. The small dark rock in the center of the frame could be a distraction under different circumstances, but here I think it’s a nice touch, adding a subtle focal point.
In photography, less is usually more, and this image provides a great example of that. The simple, graphic design grabs our attention in a way that more cluttered compositions don’t. But simplicity isn’t simple—in fact it’s quite difficult. The universe wasn’t constructed with photographers in mind; much of the time the world seems to consist of random clutter, with bits of junk and debris thrown in for good measure. The photographer’s job is to find order within that chaos (to paraphrase Robert Glenn Ketchum), to see designs and patterns in the random configurations of the universe.
I talked about seeing abstractly—focusing on lines, shapes, and patterns, rather than thinking about the subject—in my critique from March 24th. I also discuss this in my Digital Landscape Photographybook, and in every workshop I teach. I must think it’s important! Sudheendra said on Flickr, “The way this stream turned sharply before meeting the oncoming waves caught my eyes and I thought this would bring some nice curves and lines into this frame.” So clearly he was thinking abstractly, and that mindset allowed him to see the potential of this scene.
This image’s simple design could only have been created from a particular point of view, which looks like it was the middle of the creek! I asked Sudheendra about that and he confirmed that, yes, he was standing in the water. I guess photographers sometimes have to sacrifice for their art.
The dusk light allowed a 30-second exposure that smoothed the foreground water, giving it that porcelain glow and increasing the level of abstraction by lessening the water’s texture. That soft, glowing, dusky light can be effective for many subjects; the great John Sexton seems to use it almost exclusively.
Sudheendra wrote on Flickr, “Shot after sundown, initially I liked the blue-hour colors, but once I saw how it looked in black and white, I wanted to stick with it.” I think that was a key decision, and a good one. Here you can see the color version that Sudheendra sent me for comparison (I added a little contrast to the file to make it closer to the black-and-white version). While the blues and pinks have some appeal, to me the black-and-white image is stronger. By taking away the color the image becomes that much more abstract, focusing our attention on just the lines and shapes, and emphasizing the strong design. We also notice the glassy texture of the foreground water more.
Even if you intend to make the final image black and white it’s usually better to capture the image in full color, as this gives you more options for making that conversion and translating the colors into shades of gray. (With Raw files that’s the only choice—they’re always in color—but some cameras can process JPEGs into black and white.)
Starting with that color image you can use the “Grayscale Mix” in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, or a black-and-white adjustment layer in Photoshop, to alter the tonal relationships between different colors. A classic example is a red apple next to a green apple. A straight black-and-white conversion would make both apples appear medium gray. By adjusting the Grayscale Mix you can make the red apple lighter and the green apple darker, or vice versa. In this “Outward Momentum” photograph, lightening blues would make the foreground water a lighter shade of gray, while darkening magentas would lower the tones of the sky near the horizon. (I discuss these concepts in more detail in my Digital Landscape Photography book.)
But before making these adjustments you have to decide when to convert an image to black and white, and when to leave it in color. Any photograph that lacks color to begin with—a snow scene, or gray tree trunks against gray rocks—is a good candidate for black and white. But other situations are less obvious. To me the question to ask is whether color is adding to photograph’s message and mood, or distracting from it.
In Sudheendra’s photograph, although the original colors are interesting, it turns out that they actually take attention away from the strong, abstract design, which is really the point of the image. As a contrary example, my photograph from Tunnel View that I posted on this blog on February 9th, isn’t particularly colorful, so I tried it in black and white, but decided that the subtle colors, particularly the gold hues in the clouds, actually enhanced the mood, so I kept it in color.
Overall Sudheendra’s photograph is very well done. The only improvement I can think of is to darken the sky a bit, especially near the top, as it’s a bit bright and tends to pull the viewer’s eye out of the frame. But that’s a small thing.
Thanks Sudheendra for sharing your image! You can see more of his work on Flickr.
