COMPOSITION IS EVERYTHING

One of the three most important elements of a great image is composition.What should I include? What should I exclude? Should it be vertical, horizontal, or diagonal? How do all the elements best work together? What's my main subject? What about the background? What about my subject in relation to the background? And the list goes on.

When the composition is good, the viewer knows it. Most viewers don't say, "Wow, great composition!" It just feels right.

Sometimes, when I simply cannot get what I want, I try to get it as close as I can, knowing that I will end up cropping the image later--after all, we're stuck with a rectangle canvas called the viewfinder, and not everything fits perfectly within those four corners.

This scene was one of those difficult images to "get." The factors that contributed to the difficulty was the low light around the small stream, the size of the mushrooms (about 3/4" in diameter, if that!), and the location of the mushrooms. My tripod and I looked like contortionists before it was all over!

After several attempts at repositioning my tripod, I finally got something that worked for me. I wanted the small mushrooms toward the lower right-hand corner of the frame--the old stand-by Rule of Thirds, plus they were facing left. I also had to position myself in just the right place. I wanted to place the running water behind the mushrooms in order to separate them from the background. The light blues of the running water behind the orange of the mushrooms made for a good color combination--and, the color of the water really made the mushrooms "pop."

I was with a student at the time, during one of my 3-Day Rocky Mountain National Park workshops. It took both of us several minutes to find the right composition, best focus for our purposes, and exposure.   

The lesson here: If it's worth creating, it's worth the time (and physical abuse!).

Don't take pictures; create images.

  

    

Eli Vega--8 Days in Switzerland

Eli Vega--8 Days in Switzerland

Eli Vega: 10 Years In Colorado

Eli Vega: 10 Years In Colorado

ZOOS STILL HAVE CAGES

Zoos have come a long way during the last several years. However, some animals are still behind cages. They're now much larger cages, but still cages. And, unfortunately for photographers, cages have chain link fences, which can pose problems for us. Solution? Well, we can't tear down the fences, but through careful use of f/stops and focusing, we can make them virtually disappear.

Here is one example. I was photographing "Hank" at the Denver zoo, who, along with his other roommates, is behind this giant, enclosed chain link fence/cage. Hank was several yards from me, perched on a tree branch, and the fence was 3-5 feet from me. I was shooting at 300mm.

I used my tripod (yes, even at zoos), set my f/stop setting at f/6.3 (shutter speed was at 1/60). By doing so, not only did I convert the background to a backdrop, but I also eliminated the fence/cage. Can you see it? If you try really, really hard you might be able to notice--but it became part of the background--almost invisible. Try it. You'll amaze yourself. Have fun at your local zoo!



PREPARING FOR THAT "MUST" SHOT

Scenario: I had seen many photos on-line of this famous natural arch in Utah, in Canyonlands National Park, called Mesa Arch. I'm sure some of you have seen photos of it too. At early sunrise, the underside of the arch lights up in this awesome orange/red color, which is nothing other than light from the early sun light being reflected on the underside of the arch as it is reflected from the face of the cliff below.

Preparation: I went to the arch the day before my plan to "shoot" it. My purpose of scoping it out beforehand: to know exactly how to get to it and how much time it would take--I didn't want to miss that magical early sunrise timing; see what challenges I might have; pick my #1, #2, and #3 spots from which to shoot--I knew there would be other photographers there; get a feel for what f/stop I would need; check out focusing challenges; etc.

Exhibition: I got up at 4:15 that morning (it was a 1-hour drive); when I got there, very early, there were already six photographers there! Luckily, my #1 spot was still barely available. I had to sort of squeeze in between two other photographers, but right at where I had picked my #1 spot the day before. I put on a warming (81B) filter to warm up the colors even more so; I already knew from the day before which lens was going to work for me (my 17mm-50mm); I already knew my composition, so I got that set; I took my lens/camera off auto-focus and manually focused at a point I thought would give me the best depth of field (at f/32). I took a couple of test shots to get a preview of my depth of field, exposure, color, and composition. So, I had all the key variables in place. The only thing left was wait for the sun to do its thing with that famous arch, knowing that I was going to bracket my shots--always a must when shooting high contrast scenes.

Technical prep:  f/32; 17-50 lens; manual focus; camera sturdy on tripod; composition set; warming filter; bracketing.

                                  Final Result (very little fine-tuning afterward)

My Animoto Video

My Animoto Video

A LESSON ON EXPOSURE
(or how to not fight your exposure meter)

When I find lighting situations with high contrast, rather than worry about how I'm going to properly handle the wide range of "stops" within the scene, I take advantage of the wide range to give me more artistic images. I don't try to replicate life, but interpret it.

For this image, instead of using my matrix metering (which would have "flattened" out the lighting and color), I spot metered off the foreground flowers, then bracketed around that reading in order to get that "in your face" color with a subdued backgrond. If I were a painter, this is the effect, the feeling, I would want to convey. This image is on my website. Enjoy.

I call this "Out of The Shadows."