I have many pearls of wisdom as my fellow photographers that take my online classes with the BPSOP, and those that shoot with me in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around our planet will attest to.
The one I use the most during the daily reviews/critiques in all my workshops is, “OK, what’s your next shot”? What do I mean by that you’re asking yourself?
For the most part, when I observe a photographer shooting, I see him/her usually take one maybe two shots then move on. WOW, the odds of taking one photo and walking away with what I call a keeper is quite a bit. I wonder what odds Vegas would give it. I’m a pretty good photographer and I wouldn’t necessarily bet on me doing it with any regularity. There’s just too many factors involved and they all have to click (no pun intended) at the same time…unless you’re the type that relies on post processing to “save the day”.
🙁
First of all, before I bring the camera up to my eye, I determine where the source of the light is coming from; to me the most important part of photography. I’ll take my first photo then I’ll look for another POV, which might be getting some dirt on my shirt. I’ll walk around it and look for different ways to say the same thing.
If I’m shooting people in the street I’ll shoot then watch him or her for a different expression, or I’ll move around to change the background or if I have the time I’ll change my DOF to either make everything sharp behind the subject or I’ll quickly change the aperture so the subject is the only thing that is sharp. It’s all about giving myself choices. The more choices the lower the odds get so I can go home with one of those very illusive keepers.
The above photos were taken in about a sixty second period of time. I took the first image of the woman who wasn’t really doing anything except talking to her friends; it was more about the light and the waiter behind her carrying a tray with some backlit drinks on it. That’s what I was going after Still, I though there was something else there so I waited with my camera virtually next to my eye.
The woman lit up a cigarette and began blowing smoke out her nose (move bar under photo). Then the other woman was shielding her face from the sun…BINGO!!!!! I had my shot.
So the next time you go out shooting don’t rely on your first photo being the wall-hanger, because the odds are against you. Think about what your next shot will be and you’ll level the playing field to what Vegas calls…even money!!
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
I’ll bet that when you saw the title of this post you were thinking that I was going to talk about professional model fees…right? Well, you would be wrong…half wrong.
I teach an online class with the BPSOP, and I also conduct my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops around our planet. What inspired me to write this post was a photo that was submitted to me yesterday from my part II class.
This week’s lesson is about creating silhouettes and how important they can be in “making good photos”. A woman submitted a photo she took of her daughter along with a disclaimer. The disclaimer was that her daughter, who from the back looked to be about five, didn’t want to pose for her…and let her take just one shot before skipping out of sight.
Here was my reply…in so many words:
I have four children the youngest being twenty-nine, and I have photographed them since they were born. As soon as they understood the value of money (it didn’t take very long) I began paying them for their time…why not???
After all I was asking them to give up whatever they were doing to help me out. I thought it only fair to compensate them for their time; and it worked all the time.
Twenty-Five cents
At first, around the age of five, I would offer them twenty-five cents; back then that was a pretty good rate. As they got a little older it was fifty cents, then seventy-five, then depending on how long I was going to keep them, I would give them a dollar for thirty minutes…a long time for any kid to stay interested.
A dollar to get wet.
After a few days my online student told me that it worked perfectly, and she had never thought of that; most people don’t.
Again, let me say that I do not consider it prostituting my children, or turning them into money hungry kids, or spoiling their innocence. If anything I think it shows them the value of working for an allowance…beside cleaning their room or giving the dog a bath.
Pay them for their time…but I do suggest you pay after the photo session is completed!!!
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime. On July 30th I begin my 29th year at the Maine Media Workshops. I’ve had the same week since the beginning. It’s the week of the Lobster Festival down the road in Rockland. It offers a completely different set of photo ops than one would expect when coming to photograph the coastline, lighthouses, and fishing villages of Maine. Come join me and spend a week completely immersed in your love for photography.
Most of you have heard this expression that’s been around for a long time. Yogi Berra, the Hall of Fame catcher for the NY Yankees made it famous; that is if you follow baseball. Yogi said, “It ain’t over til it’s over”. I know I’ve said it myself hundreds of times during my nearly fifty year career as an advertising, editorial, and corporate photographer…Why you ask?
Well it’s all about the weather, and why it’s so important in your coming back with a good photo or not..or a photo at all. I teach an online class with the BPSOP, and I conduct my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops around our planet, and I’m constantly hearing the sad cries and complaints from my fellow photographers that say that the reason they didn’t go out shooting was because the weather was forecasted to be bad; or they went home because it got bad.
Well just think about the mailman’s motto that says, ” Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Actually, this really isn’t their real motto, it’s written on New York’s James Farley Post Office, and has no official status.
If I had a nickel for every time it was raining when we were about to go out and shoot for a client and it cleared just at the right time, I would be writing this post from my private island; a blue and frothy drink with an umbrella hanging on one side in my hand…typing with the other
Don’t listen to any weather reports the night before, or even when you wake up. If you have a destination in mind don’t start worrying until you get there; don’t even look up at the sky!
It wasn’t over until it was dark.
In the above photo for Ford, when we woke up the sky was very dark and very gray. As always, I decided to go and set up anyway just in case. Sure enough just as the sun was about to set it came out behind me and created a look I couldn’t have prayed for; and this is the actual way it looked since it was shot before the days of computers.
In the photo taken by one of my online students, the weather started out gloomy and went downhill from there. Still, because she was using her “Artist Palette”, she walked away with this image; taken late in the afternoon in a snowstorm.
So remember what I say, it’s never over until it’s over…as in the dark.
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime. On July 30th I begin my 29th year at the Maine Media Workshops. I’ve had the same week since the beginning. It’s the week of the Lobster Festival down the road in Rockland. It offers a completely different set of photo ops than one would expect when coming to photograph the coastline, lighthouses, and fishing villages of Maine. Come join me and spend a week completely immersed in your love for photography.
Keep sending in photos and questions to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll create a video critique for you.
Since my background is in painting and design, I still consider myself an artist. I just changed the medium from a brush to a camera and I use my camera to style my photographs; creating my art.
What I mean is I move things around in my composition, or I add things or props if I have them or they’re easy to get on really short notice. I rarely see what I want, I photograph as though my camera was a canvas on an easel, and I take pictures of what I’d like to see.
If moving a chair to the left or right…or taking it out altogether makes the composition stronger then I’m all for it. If the waiter has better light on his face if he’s looking in the other direction then I’ll ask him if he would look the other way…and offer to email him a copy.
This type of picture taking is beyond the scope of those that call themselves purists. It’s not the type of purist whose dogmatic approach to photography means absolutely no digital manipulation after the shutter is pressed; I think I could count them on one hand and still have enough fingers to hold a fork.
The kind of purist I’m talking about is the kind that walks up to a scene and shoots it the way it is and criticizes those that don’t. It would be beneath him to add or subtract something…move a chair or a trash can, etc.
I digress.
So let’s get down to the title of this post, “Do you believe it”….what do I mean?
If you’re like me and you consider yourself a painter whose medium is a camera, which you should, and you want to change something just make sure it looks like you didn’t do anything.
I teach an online class with the BPSOP, and I also conduct my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops around our planet. I always tell my fellow photographers that when they add something or move something to take a step back and ask themselves if they believe that what they did looks believable; it’s exactly what I do.
For example, you’re in your kid’s bedroom and a shaft of light is falling on the floor next to the window. You want to say to the viewer that it is indeed a child’s bedroom so you put a pair of red high-top sneakers in that shaft of light, and you put them in a perfect position side by side. This is when you take a step back and ask yourself if your kid would really put his shoes that way or would one of them be laying on its side and the other facing the other direction; this is what I mean by do you believe it.
In the above photo, do you believe it? Was it exactly like that when I walked into the kitchen or did the artist in me paint it differently than the way I was actually seeing it? How about the waiter in Venice?
Do you believe it?
Do you believe he just happened to be standing there?
One last note, The same goes for any post-processing I might do to one of my images. Before I hit save, I lean back and look at it through the eyes of the viewer…I then ask myself would he believe it.
Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
As the people that follow my blog know by now, not all my favorite quotes have been said by photographers. There have been several that have been said by painters, writers, and musicians, all artists in their own right.
After recently reading an article about the work Helen Keller did, I started reading some of her quotes, and one in particular stood out to me as having a profound effect on not only my photography but in my teachings as well.
First, it’s important to give you the true meaning of the word Vision since several of my online students with the BPSOP, and my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop participants can sometimes confuse a word that actually might mean something else; something I have done from time to time.
Btw, I like number three, but so far after nearly fifty years of being a photographer, I’ve never had a heavenly messenger appear in my composition as a vision; which is unfortunate.
🙁
Helen Keller said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision”.
One would have to agree that vision is imperative and what fuels the engine that pushes creativity forward. The sad part is that with the coming of the digital age, some of my fellow photographers don’t rely on their personal vision, instead they count on their computer to create their imagery which over time will make them really good computer artists…and if that’s your thing, to each his own.
What the computer can do is important to this new age, and it should never be said that I don’t appreciate it, but to me it should be used to add the finishing touches, i.e., contrast, lighten or darken, occasional sharpening, etc.. Those things that can enhance an already strong photo made before the shutter is depressed.
This is where vision comes into play, and what you can do to create strong images before the fact. This is all about definition number two, and what I want to write about: “theactorpowerofanticipatingthatwhichwillormaycometobe”.
There are photographers (great photographers) out there, many of them teaching that photograph what they see and never looks for anything else. In other words what is will always be just that. To add or alter anything when composing is strictly against their beliefs, and to that they call themselves purists.
The funny part is that they have no compunction when it comes to sitting in front of their computers and altering the light, color, saturation, shadows, and some even apply some weird trick they picked up in one of the thousands of plug-ins available to them; and then there’s the crop and straightening tools!!!!!
Since I’ve never cropped one of my photos in nearly fifty years I can’t even or don’t ever want to think about that…but I digress.
Don’t photograph what is, photograph what could be, and that’s what my definition of vision is all about. I’m not talking about vision in Fine Art photography in this context, which I plan on talking about in upcoming posts. I’m talking about images that exist in nature and are readily available for all to see if you set your mind to seeing them. This is the kind of vision I’m talking about.
You can actually practice in your spare time!!! How???
Suppose you’re walking down a pier very early one sunny morning and you immediately stop to take a photo of a Vanishing Point created by the converging lines of the two sides of the railings extending out from either side of you.
Without any hesitation you quickly take the shot and now you have created a photo that via a Vanishing Point, leads the viewer down to the end where the two lines meet on the horizon exactly where the sun is coming up; a great photo by all accounts.
Now, you’re standing there and if you’re like me you wish that there had been a fisherman at the end of the pier, silhouetted against a warm, soft, and beautiful sun minutes after breaking the horizon.
Or what if you were walking in a park late one Fall afternoon and you noticed a bench next to a winding path covered with leaves painted by mother nature with every color known to happen during the peak days of Autumn. You bring your camera up to your eye and take a picture; another good photo albeit fairly predictable.
Again, if you were like me and were on your knees up close and personal to the texture and patterns of the leaves, you might have wished there was an elderly couple sitting at the other end of the bench feeding a group of pigeons that were milling around next to their feet.
These are the thoughts that are always running through my imagination when I’m out shooting. I think of various scenarios because it’s a way of exercising my mind, because you just never know when an opportunity might come up. An opportunity that will change a good photo into a special one.
In the above photo, While shooting in Cuba I saw this woman just finishing up posing for other photographers in an old house. I immediately envisioned Degas paintings of the ballerinas. At that memorable moment I led her into another room, had her sit and take off her slippers; it was 1899 and I was Edgar Degas.!!!
Give it a try sometime. Think of yourself as a painter instead of a photographer. Your camera on tripod is a blank canvas on an easel; use it to color outside the lines.
Come join me this coming July 30th at the Maine Media Workshops; for my twenty-ninth year. It’s a great way to completely immerse yourself for a week.
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and check out my 2017 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come paint with me sometime.
Send me a photo and question to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll create a video critique for you.
I was sent to Egypt to photograph the country and it’s people by Oil Tools Limited, a company based in London. The company was going to partner up with the Egyptian government to begin drilling in the coming year; I had pretty much a free hand which made it all the sweeter.
Whether it was the country, the people, or the historical monuments, the company really didn’t care as long as they had enough of each to use for the next couple of years. In those days we called these kinds of assignments Plums.
Early one morning I went out with a group of Egyptians to take their portraits…my transportation? A stubborn, uncomfortable, smelly camel. It didn’t take long for my new friends to figure out that I wasn’t keen on the idea of spending several hours trekking across a very hot desert that even Moses wouldn’t have willingly done; especially when he had to do it for forty years!!!
Getting to the locations wasn’t too bad, at least it was cool since the sun had not come up. I had a real band of comedians that laughed at everything, and would not give each other one second of peace as I was photographing each of them; In the photo above the model kept turning away from the camera.
Finally I told everyone that if they would give me just a few seconds with him I would jump on my camel and shoot while riding…they did so I did!!!!
FYI, the shift in color of me on the camel is what happens when the sun had been up for twenty minutes.
They did, so I did!!!
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my 2017 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Sign up for one of my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, and come shoot with me sometime…but not on a camel.
Sign up for my online class with the BPSOP, and I’ll show you how to incorporate the elements of visual design into your imagery.
Send me your photo and question to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll create a video critique for you.
I’ll use it only when I know that the people reading it will realize that I really do know that it’s incorrect to say it… grammatically illegal!!!
However one must note that one cannot place more or most before better. Why is that? Simple. Better itself means “more good”. So “more better” would be “more more good” which doesn’t sound good.
But I digress!!
Ok, you’re asking yourself how in the world can he (Joe) segue this into something that relates to photography?
When I’m talking to one of my students that take my online class with the BPSOP, or when I walk up to someone that’s in one of my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops someone on the planet, or in the daily critiques during that said workshop, I’ll say it’s “much more better” if you compose your photo so as the subject is way off center…Why?
Well, there are two answers: The answer to the first why is to get a reaction from them since what I say is not grammatically correct. I want the short discussion to be remembered, and I’ll do that any way I can; a brief chuckle before my explanation is just the ticket!
The answer to the second why is that when you place the subject close to the edge of the frame, you’re creating visual tension. Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. Especially those old-school hardliners (usually the officers in their camera club) that live and will die by the ever so silly Rule of Thirds.
So the next time you’re out shooting and you’re in a position to have your subject either somewhere in one of those pesky (Rule of Thirds) intersections go ahead and take the shot. However, before you move on to the next photo, try placing the subject close to the edge of the frame. Realizing you’ve probably been brain-washed, take a leap of faith while getting over the hump.
When you’re sitting in front of your computer place both versions side by side and really study them. Be honest with yourself and decide which one offers the viewer not only decidedly more visual interest but visual tension as well.
Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
I see three triangles with the help of the edges of my frame.
In my latest part I post, I was dealing with distortion. I talked about the difference you get when you stand off to one side or the other while photographing a building, or standing in the middle of it to achieve symmetrical distortion.
In this post I want to talk about the entire composition; thinking about everything that’s contained within the four edges of your frame. I’m talking about both the positive space (the space that has mass), and everything else that would be called the negative space. I call it, “The whole enchilada”, and several years I wrote a post on it.
When I talk to my online students at the BPSOP, and in my daily critiques with those that take my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around out planet, I talk about why we shouldn’t crop anywhere but in the camera.
There are several reasons, one of them is to use the edges of your frame as a compositional tool. If you’re familiar with my teachings, that is incorporating the elements of visual design into your photography, You know that shape is one of the basic elements, and squares, circles, rectangles and triangles are the four basic shapes.
If you were to think about those four shapes when you’re composing one of your photos, it would open up a new door for you as far as creating visual interest and tension. Of course, this would take right-brained thinking to be able to see these elements.
Keeping in mind what I just talked about in my part I post on symmetrical distortion, and add to that thought this post on shapes, and using the edges of the frame as a compositional tool, you’ll come up with images as the one I submit to you now.
In composing this photo of an office building in the Galleria area of Houston for the oil company that took up several floors, I thought about shapes; specifically triangles. By using the right side of my brain, I no longer saw a building (left brain thinking), I saw a triangle. I thought about the triangle I was creating with the building by standing (up close and personal) in the center, and the two triangles I created on either side all with the help of the edges of my frame.
So my fellow photographers, the next time you go out shooting, think about the effects of negative space that borders and defines the positive space ie., your subject, and try to create shapes wit
Visit my website at:www.joebaraban.com, and check out my 2017 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
Send me a photo and question to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll create a video critique for you.
I was walking around the festival when I saw this happening.
I wanted to repeat some of my earlier posts that dealt with photos taken from my Maine Media Workshops to show you some great images that are taken during the week. This coming July marks my 29th year there and I look forward to teaching there every year.
There’s several workshops going on that week so the energy level is way up there. All classes eat all three meals (great food) at the homestead so there’s constant photography chatter and you see people taking pictures all around the campus. Each year starting from the beginning I’ve picked the same week because it coincides with the Lobster Festival just down the road in Rockland; the reason is simple.
Beside what my fellow photographers have come to expect as far as small fishing villages, lighthouses, flowers in peak season, and landscapes in general, the Lobster Festival offers a completely different set of photo opportunities: color, light, design, great people watching and portraiture, and lots of movement; not counting the variety of foods including seafood and plenty of lobster.
As I do in my online classes with the BPSOP and my own personal “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, I show photographers how to incorporate the elements of visual design into their photography. I go out with the class in the mornings as well as the sunset shoots to see what people are thinking and I’ll always talk to each one individually offering advice and perhaps a different way of looking at the same subject.
2015 is not shown because of the recovery of hip replacement surgery.
Since I know that so many photographers have to plan so far ahead for vacation time, I wanted to send a link out now so people have a chance to read the description and sign up:
I miss the good old days when you had to actually think before you pressed the shutter; you had just one click to do it right.
By today’s standards, it was very difficult to do it all in the camera, but since we didn’t know any better it seem the natural thing to do; it was the only thing to do!
I often think back to some of my photos and think what they would have looked like if Lightroom was around and Adobe was not just a type of house in New Mexico. Maybe I would have been dangerous, but i like the way it turned out.
Having said all this, I certainly don’t sit around every day pining for days gone by. I like to rely on Photoshop when something I want to do can’t be done at that moment…the decisive moment when I press down on the shutter and record what is.
What I don’t do and what I tell my online students with the BPSOP and my fellow photographers that sign up for my “Stretching your Frame of Mind” not to do is tell yourself that you’ll just fix it later. Instead of moving to the right to create a better balance between the negative and positive space, or to get that telephone out of someone’s head, or to fix the ridiculously overexposed subject the meter told you was just fine by bracketing, people will sit in front of the computer and deal with it then.
I was shooting a calendar for Shell Oil, and every year owners drive their huge eighteen-wheelers to a designated city in hopes to be featured on one of the month’s pages.
In the past they simply rented a huge warehouse that had a large overhead doors at each end, put up white seamless paper and each rig drove through, stopped, had it’s picture taken and drove out; I wasn’t interested in doing that.
I presented an idea to the art director. The idea was to take portraits of all the owners and try to make it work with a particular month. I sent my producer ahead of time to find me interesting locations I might use as a backdrop. We arrived in Nashville a couple of days early to look at the locations and decide on the twelve trucks we wanted to use. I walked among a hundred rigs looking to pick out the ones that were simply the coolest!
Since I love purple and Manny and his son (who was spending the summer driving around with dad) were great guys I picked their rig to be on the July’s page. We found this great location and went for the 4th of July theme.
What you see was taken on one 35mm Kodachrome transparency, and just one click of the camera.
Visit my workshop at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my 2016 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
Don’t forget to send me photos and questions to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll create a video critique for you.
I wrote a post on it almost four years ago and because of it I followed my own advice. I was in an area in the south of France, and when I got out of my rent car to walk along the area surrounding a chateau, I decided to not use my usual go-to lens and put on something I would never think about using for this type of situation…my 100mm Macro.
It was a fortuitous decision as it turned out giving me what I still consider to be a very unusual depiction of swans that were nestled in a small stream next to this incredible well-known chateau. Although (sadly) it looks like I did considerable post processing work to it, it was shot in the camera, one exposure on one 35mm Kodachrome frame with no post work done to it; this is what Kodachrome looked like, and boy do I miss it!!!!
I know so many of you out there get comfortable with one or two lens that always reward you with good photos. The only problem is that they always look the same, as in the same compression or lack thereof, the same focal length that might be on one of your zooms, or the same dOF because you’re using a lens (like a prime) and rendering the same F/stop to all your compositions.
So my fellow photographers bite the bullet, take a leap of faith and grab a lens you haven’t use in forever, or one you would never use in a situation you’ve been in a hundred times and have been comfortable to the point of being complacent.
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come color outside the lines with me sometime.
Keep sending in your photos and questions to: AskJoeB@gmail.com and I’ll create a video critique for you.
I was shooting the annual report for Apache Oil and Gas, and the company sent me to Egypt to pretty much shoot whatever I wanted that represented the people and country. The reason being that they were going to enter into a partnership to begin drilling there.
The one photo they did want was a photo of a new tower that was recently built in Aswan; a city just south of Cairo. When I got to Aswan, I was driven out to somewhere close to the middle of nowhere, and there was absolutely nothing around except this tower.
Photo #1
As the sun was getting ready to set, I was doing the best I could to try and create an interesting picture out of basically nothing but a tower and some rocks.
In my online classes with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around our planet, never give up! There’s always something you can do and whatever it’s going to be, it’s going to be better than what most people would shoot…why?
Because not only do I show people how to incorporate the elements of visual design into their imagery, but I also give my Did It Do It list for good composition out to my fellow photographers; on that list is pre-visualization.
Btw, I also send them a link to one of my favorite quotes said by Eddie Adams.
Photo #2
As I was thinking and scratching my head, this man appeared out of nowhere and came up to see what we were doing. I thought to myself, “Did I just get really lucky or what??? I told our driver to ask him if he would be willing to be in my photo, and that I was willing to pay him the equivalent of ten dollars in his currency.
Even though that was more money that he would see in several months, he was simply to shy to pose for me; and the money wasn’t really a factor. We finally got him to be in it providing he was far away from the camera…photo #1.
Photo #3
As he became more comfortable, I moved him closer to the camera, knowing where I wanted him to end up…photo #2
FYI, the featured photo above was what I had pre-visualized all along.
When I was done and gave him his modeling fee, his friends decided to get in on some of the action; they were also each paid, but just half…photo #3
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
Keep sending in your photos and questions to: AskjoeB@gmail.com and I’ll create a video critique for you.
Gary, one of my long time blog followers, sent me this photo to talk about. As usual, I like to let my readers know what my fellow photographers had to say. The reason being that there might have been times when the same situation happened to them, or perhaps they had or have a similar question.
Here’s what Gary had to say:
“Hello Joe,
I know your a big believer in light and how good use of light can really kick your photos up a notch. In this photo I was trying to use the sunlight as best as I could to really make it feel like a tangible part of the picture. Also with virtually every part of the image at the same focus (infinity), I tried using atmospheric perspective with the background mountain ranges to create depth. Lastly I tried using the railroad tracks to create some movement in the picture to help lead your eye to the mid ground rock formation. Of course no train ever seems to come at the right time when I am taking the picture :).
Is this a good use of light, atmospheric perspective and line?”
Atmospheric Perspective isn’t necessarily something you try using, it’s something that’s naturally inherent in our daily lives; simply a scattering of dust particles that’s between you, the subject, and the horizon. As photographers we merely work with it or around it, and it’s not always going to be in our best interest…photographically.
The phenomenon has been around since the time of Roman wall paintings. Leonardo da Vinci wrote about it, ” Colours become weaker in proportion to their distance from the person who is looking at them”.
For me personally, the fact that the farthest away objects takes on the color of the haze is not appealing and as a result I usually try to avoid it.
I’m not sure Line comes into play here as there’s not really any leading or directional lines, or a Vanishing Point that moves the viewer around the frame. It’s the depth from front to back that’s moving the viewer from front to back.
One last note…I’m not sure the viewer would ever see the train tracks unless you mention that they’re there. Since you won’t be around to explain your thought process, it would need to be a “quick read”.
I like your photo, as it has a certain quiet mood created by the de-saturation (caused by the scattering of water vapor) occurring from front to back.
Thanks for the submission.
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
Keep sending in your photos and questions to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll create a video critique for you.
As most of you that follow my blog know, I teach three online classes with the BPSOP. In my part I class, I show my fellow photographers how to incorporate the elements of visual design into their imagery: Light, Color, Line, Shape, Texture, Balance, Form, and Pattern. We also work on the relationship between negative and positive space, ways to create depth , and the power of a Vanishing Point as a tool to move the viewer around the frame.
At the end of the four week class, they walk away with what I call an Artist Palette that has all these elements on it. Now, they are armed with the tools to “make pictures” instead of taking them. They can now begin to “see past their first impressions”.
The left side of the brain (the analytical side) says it’s a tree, but what else is it? The tree is the completed puzzle, but the pieces of the puzzle are the patterns, the lines, the texture, the way the light hits it, and the color of the leaves; this is what the right side of the brain (the creative side) sees. Besides talking about this in my online classes, I also talk about it in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around our planet.
I just completed my part I four week class and the images that the class created are amazing. I would safely say that it’s one of the all time best classes since I began teaching at the school almost six years ago.
I’m certainly impressed, and I hope you are as well. If there’s too many, think of all the ones I’m not showing…just keep the mouse on the arrow and let it roll!!!
