LocalNavy433 Photography

Hello and how the hell are you?  If this is your first time here thanks for stopping by.  In this blog we are going to talk about the most important aspect of Landscape Photography would be composition.  This will either make or break your image in the long run.  You can totally get a great photo at anytime but is that image going to be a snapshot or is it going to be a well made image.  When I first hear about this I was like I take awesome photos and I don’t need to work on how my compositions look the photos I am taking are getting all kinds of likes so I am good right.  The issue that I was having was a false sense of security because my images were getting a lot of likes really put me in the mindset that I was getting the job done.  I was wrong with that mindset and I will explain why in this blog. 

The first step was seeing what the people were talking about how I needed to work on composition to really make my images pop more.  There is three major elements that you need in a really good image.  The three components to a good comp is the foreground, mid ground, and background.  Without those three parts the photo you are taking is a snapshot.  The subject of your image is in one of the three parts or layers to an image.  I love using these three layers to my photos and while some of my images get busy there is still the three layers in the images. The foreground has to be something that is going to catch the viewers eye but not keep them there. 

This means that your image/comp has to have visual flow to it as well.  This is achieved by choosing the three layers that lead forward and backwards through the image.  I love to use leading lines in my images they work so well to help achieve this.  Then I also use the rule of odds to get this to work for me as well. There are so many different elements to think of when putting together a comp that it is hard to keep track of when out in the field.  I tend to lean towards shooting with gut more than any of these rules.  If something looks good I will take a photo of it.  Once I see the photo on the back of my camera I will then try to refine the comp and talk to myself about what I liked in the first place.  I will then move up or down left or right to make the photo run smoothly together.  This process is something that goes against what is being taught out there.  

You see most landscape photogs are teaching that you should not even bring out your camera until you see and work on the comp for a while.  I don’t believe this to be true because I have done this and by the time it was all said and done I was happier with the first image that I took.  Now even though I pull out the camera and take the shot there is always something that can be done to refine the comp overall.  Looking at the edges of the frame to make sure there is nothing that will take your eye away from the subject at all. This one tip will help you refine what you put into the photo and what is left out.  The more that you do this while on location the less you have to clean up in post.  The trick to most photography in todays age is you have unlimited amount of time to take a photo while on location.  Take as many images as you want while standing there.  The sky is the limit so to speak we shoot digital so you are only truly limited by the amount of space left on your SD card.  

The last point that I want to make about taking a snapshot or a refined comp is well to be blunt nothing is wrong with taking a snapshot.  That snapshot is going to be reference to where you found the comp and how it looked at the time you shot it.  The snapshot is a tool that I use to get me started in refining the comp that I found with the snapshot.  I would not have brought the camera up and took the photo if in my heart I never thought there was an image there.  When I was a bus driver the trainer would say keep your head on a swivel because you never know what is going to happen.  I took that into my photography and I am always looking for an image.  If something catches my eye I am taking a photo of it because if I can refine that snapshot I will have a killer images from that.  Thanks for stopping by and enjoy from St Johns AZ y’all