The Fairy Glen on the Isle of Skye, Scotland
Introduction
The more I am part of the photography world, the more obvious it becomes to me that the best pictures are often intrinsically simple in their composition. This leads me to ask the question; can we learn something from the way amateur photographers’ take pictures? What do I even mean by this? Before you read this, you might want to read my previous article, which links into this topic nicely: ‘Shooting For Realism' Let’s discuss…
Simplify Your Images
For me, there is a sense of being careful that my pictures don’t become too “photographer-y”. (Stop me if I am getting too technical here). Of course, what I mean by this is, the pictures becoming too complex and technical feeling, predictable or forced in terms of their compositional makeup, or that they indeed follow trends or cliches. In essence, trying to be too clever can be to the detriment of the final result. I see this all the time especially in landscape photography. The picture is obvious and clear, but we have to put a large rock in the frame, or some other obstructive element in the foreground that simply doesn’t work for the scene; or worse, get’s the the way of viewing the landscape behind it. It can even be that the image becomes too “fore-groundy”. This becomes a counterintuitive process to creating a competent image with balance.
Simple Compositions send a clear, undiluted message to the viewer about the landscape and what we wish to convey
Background
What caused me to notice this phenomenon? Although I have not done this for some-time (and I will tell you why later), I used to compare the pictures I had of locations to others on Instagram and the like. What I noticed, was that amateur’s pictures, whilst often having mangled colour, or large blown out highlights in places, their compositions were simpler, and worked better than some of the pictures I or other pros (or semi-pros) were taking of the same locations. I noticed this with other people shooting for instagram and the like. Sometimes the ‘uneducated’ travel photographer, who comes at photography from ‘this is a pretty place, I am going to try and become an influencer’ actually is making better pictures than the ‘trained photographer’ who aims to flaunt their compositional know-how at each scene; of course, save for the points about exposure, colour and the like made previously. Occam’s Razor suggests that the reason for this is simply because they don’t have all this ‘technical’ mumbo-jumbo in their head when they take a picture. They are clearly just wishing to have a captivating scene immortalised in front of them. In some way’s their intentions are simpler than us; they aren’t trying to be clever, like we sometimes get caught up in. Can we learn from this? I have discussed this topic with many prominent shooters and I think we can take something from this, and be mindful of it in our shooting.
That Annoying Foreground Object Craze
Believe me, this is a very real phenomenon, and most of us have been guilty of it at some time or another. For me, it began in the hayday of the website ‘flickr’ which I am very fond of until today, despite the horrid changes the current owner has made, (including max upload of 1000 images and prevention of downloading high resolution images). Often the most common culprit, is a small foreground rock, made to look large by shooting close with a wide angle lens. Take the picture at the start of the article. The craze states I would travel down to the rocky area in this scene, then place a random large boulder right in front of my lens, and shooting it that way (usually on a third). It feels clever, but is it? Isn’t the scene as I have shown, about the interplay of light and the place itself, rather than an arbitrary rock I found which I then place in the shot, blocking the view of the place? If we take this particular scene, I think it works best at elevation: looking down on the scene. That’s the shot here. A nice arrangement of the cloud around the scene aid’s composition here; there is a space around the rock formation on the right. The light is hitting the correct parts of the scene, nothing is blown out, colours look natural. I’ve ultimately avoided this ‘problem’ in this scene by keeping it simple, and also by my choice of focal length. I shot this with a 24-70/2.8S lens, at 24mm. A wide focal length, for sure; however not ultra wide. It is much easier to fall into the ‘too foregroundy’ trap with an ultra wide angle lens. I would urge you to think about what the scene requires before commiting to a focal length and foreground. Let’s look at the picture below and be critical with it:
Kilchurn Castle, Scotland
Because I have shot this with too wide of a lens, there is far too much foreground for my liking. Also, the relationship between the size of the rocks in the foreground, and the size of the castle is exaggerated, making the castle appear extremely small in the frame. (This is a shot about a castle, right?). What do these rocks say about the image? Answer: nothing really. I just do not shoot like this now. To give you an idea, this was shot with a 20mm lens on 35mm format. My intention was to show some foreground. It would have been done better with a 35mm, and standing back from the shore much more. Or go telephoto. But this? It doesn’t work for my eyes now. NB: I intentionally left the distance to drift out of focus. In the below shot, the foreground makes sense to the overall image. I could however, chop through the water to produce a 4:5 picture also:
Black Linn Falls, Perthshire
Wide Angle Lenses and Foregrounds
Some shooters get so excited about foregrounds they forget the rest of the scene; it becomes about the foreground only. This is a photographer phenomenon, amateurs generally don’t think like this. (It’s mostly a good thing too). This is a very easy trap to fall into in landscape / outdoor photography, or even astrophotography. I am of course not looking to shoot boring, uninteresting foregrounds either, however this becomes akin to the musician playing for the song, rather than to show off their technical virtuoso. It absolutely becomes about a balance of elements in the scene. The predominant place we want the eye to arrive at, and how it gets to that point is important. For the most part, the best images are inherently simple in their compositional makeup. I have pushed back from using ultra wides in recent years. Oh of course, I own them. but they are no longer the go to lens. I prefer shooting around 20-50mm for most of my landscape photography. 24mm is a favourite focal length of mine and has been for many years now; it gets used the most often (this has actually always been my favourite focal length for landscape, despite this noted phenomenon). In my shooting I do go as wide as 14mm, however I am careful of it’s use and when I do use this type of lens, my overriding aim is to produce a picture that has the feel of 24-35mm, without that distorted look that can occur due to this ultra wide perspective. This really is a trick to using focal lengths from 20mm and wider. Scene objects can get very warped when we take an ultra-wide view of the scene. Sometimes it is best to question our use of focal length in these circumstances. Sometimes it is best to take a slightly tighter slice of the scene. Photography is about what we don’t show, as much as what we do. Shooting a little tighter, with more normal and less extreme focal lengths, such as 20-35mm can aid a stronger composition, whilst reducing the ultra wide angle feeling in our images.
Make the Foreground Make Sense
If we are going to add in a foreground element, especially if it will partially obstruct a view or the like, we should make sure that it is warranted in the image. The feature should make compositional sense to be there; otherwise we are just sticking rocks in our images to fill spaces and satisfy our ego. When done correctly, and the image is about the rock formation, it makes complete sense to do. We need to think to ourselves “what is this addition saying in the context of our composition and image”.
When it makes sense to block some of the view. The picture is about the rock formation in this case
Final Thoughts
Despite the fact I added a few extra words to the dictionary today, it is my thought that we can learn something from the way amateurs take pictures. Don’t get me wrong here; we aren’t wanting to copy our someone who can’t get the horizon level in an image, but in other aspects as we have discussed here, we might consider simplifying things. When we are shooting it is very useful to try and distill the scene down to it’s most basic elements, being very careful to exclude anything in the scene that does not add to the overall picture and make it stronger, compositionally. If we approach the scene as it it were the first time we have ever been there or shot it, will allow us to learn, develop and ultimately produce pictures with better meaning and flair.
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Steve