Composition Help

[macca61]

Hello everyone.
I have been a member here for a number of years but have always been a browser rather than an active participator. I have always found the critique of photos enjoyable and helpful, so I decided to contribute and learn.
The attached photo is typical of a number of photos I take. It is a scene I enjoy but does not have a single strong focal point and because of this I struggle with the composition. All comments, critique and help on the composition or any other issues is appreciated.
Thanks
Allan

[Donald]

I'll start the feedback, Allan.

You're not thinking like a photographer.

What does that mean? Like you, I live in a place that affords me beautiful scenery. And when we stand in a place with a view like this our worries and concerns seem to melt away with the majesty of the scene. What we are experiencing is everything about the place - the view, the smell of the air, the silence, our sense of well-being. It all feeds into our experience. However ........... when you try to transpose all that into a rectangular, two dimensional image it doesn't work.

What you see as you stand there is a view that is much wider than what we see in this image. Also, your eyes are very selective in what they take in: they edit out what's not so interesting and just see what is interesting. The camera doesn't discriminate, it captures everything within the frame.

So, to make this into a photograph that you want to represent the feeling you had as you stood there, you have to think like a photographer. You have to see the scene in front of you in terms of a rectangular frame devoid of every other emotion. And compose your photograph accordingly.

And ........... a final thought (and you have identified it yourself). Some scenes are wonderful and fill our heart with joy, but they don't make good photographs. The best thing to do in that situation is pack the camera away, forget about a photograph and just imprint what you are seeing and feeling onto your brain. And that will be your memory.

[Round Tuit]

I don't see the photo!

[Manfred M]

I don't see the photo!

I have no problem seeing it, André. I suspect it might be your browser setting.

[royent]

I don't see the photo either on firefox

[DanK]

I don't see it either, and I have tried with four different browsers: Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Vivaldi. I have a bunch of add-ins in Firefox, but Edge and Vivaldi are plain vanilla installations, and Chrome is close to plain vanilla.

Allan, how did you post the image?

[Manfred M]

It's posted as a CiC image. I know we've had this issue before and Sean was unable to replicate / find the issue. Let me repost Allan's image:

[DanK]

Manfred, thanks.

I'll offer a few comments, with the caveat that daytime landscapes are the genre with which I have the least success.

The starting point for me might be: what do you want the viewer's eye to be drawn to? My eye was immediately drawn to the foreground at the bottom left. It's brighter and higher in contrast than most of the rest of the image, and it takes up perhaps 20% of the entire area. However, unlike the rest of the image, it isn't interesting. So, my first reaction is that you should have positioned yourself differently to avoid this.

A further question is how you want to divide the frame between the sky and the terrain. If this were mine, I would want more attention on the terrain, so I would compose differently or crop some of the sky.

Another question: as is typical in humid areas, the distant vista is somewhat flat from haze. Do you want to preserve that, or do you want to boost contrast and possibly vibrance? The mountains in the background are predictably lower in contrast because they are farther away (more haze to get through), so you might want to boost contrast locally in that part of the photo, to highlight the mountains more. I probably would.

The answers to these questions aren't the point of my post. Given that I am less successful with landscapes than any other genre, I wouldn't presume to suggest what your answers should be. The point of my post is the questions. IMHO, these are the sort of questions you should ask yourself. Regardless of genre, I think you need to keep asking yourself: what am I trying to show? What do I want the viewer to see? How do I draw the viewer's attention to those things?

Does this help?

[Manfred M]

+1 to Donald's comments, Allan.

He has give a very eloquent overview of why what we see (and feel through other human senses; smell, sound, etc.) and how our emotions impact what we see. As he has pointed out, our cameras do not "see" the same way that we do when we are observing a scene or subject. We need to concentrate on how we want others to perceive what our camera has captured.

When we look at images, we tend to look at three main areas:

1. Technical - both the technical execution and choices made by the photographer - this includes colour, light, exposure, sharpness and photographic technique;

2. How the material has been organized in the frame - this includes minimizing distractions, use of space and composition; and

3. The emotional impact the image has on the viewer - the mood in the image, the emotional impact on the viewer, the subject itself and how imaginatively the photographer has constructed the image (point of view, for instance).

A strong image is much more than just composition

[William W]

. . . It is a scene I enjoy but does not have a single strong focal point and because of this I struggle with the composition. All comments, critique and help on the composition or any other issues is appreciated. . .

Donald's commentary underscores the value of 'thinking' and I agree 100% with that.

***

N.B. I am only commenting on COMPOSITION.

The first step, you've partially addressed here - 'does not have a single strong focal point'

A next step is to identify what are some single strong ELEMENTS of the Scene.

I want to offer an exercise, hopefully to help you kick start the thinking process, next time you're out and about LOOKING at a Scene as the prelude to COMPOSING your Photograph.

> LOOK at the scene (we'll use the scene that you've photographed as an example exercise that I suggest you do IN THE FIELD).
> IDENTIFY the strong COMPOSITION Elements.
> EXPLORE those Elements which are interesting* - be prepared to CAST OUT or REDUCE those which are not interesting*.

'interesting' meaning in this context = adds value to the PURPOSE of the PHOTOGRAPH; the MESSAGE that you want to convey; the STORY that you want the photograph to tell

This is NOT necessarily intellectual stuff - don't sit all day thinking about "what is the MESSAGE I want to convey? . . it can be a simple as "Peace" "Serenity" "Hectic" "Wow!"

Often the message that you want to convey is the first message (feeling) that the Scene sent to you.

N.B.
"Elements" are not only the bits and pieces of the Scene or, in the case of Portraiture, the physical parts of the Subject.

The full list of 'Elements' also include, but are not limited to: the effect of Lighting; the effect of OoF and DoF; the effect of the Camera Viewpoint (Perspective); the effect of Focal Length of Lens (AoV).

But for the moment we are (only) discussing COMPOSITION, so we are only looking at COMPOSITION Elements

***

I'll give you my response to this exercise, as an example -

Here are the main COMPOSITION Elements that I see. There are four:



Here the four are, now seen as separate entities.

You can (must) train your eye to see these as separate entities, when you are in the field.

I believe that Donald was getting at this same point when he mentioned that the camera doesn't discriminate.

We need to see all the Elements separately, so we can discriminate what we allow the camera to record.

PINK -


ORANGE -


YELLOW -


WHITE -


***

One feeling I would like to convey, if I wanted to capture this scene as a Photograph, would be "Expanse" and another would be "Tranquil".

Now I have a PURPOSE for what I want to capture I would cast out or reduce the PINK Element as it does not do too much for my Purpose.

ORANGE and WHITE are in accord with my Purpose and I am undecided about YELLOW.

Well you say, that's ll very good, but what do we do now? ...

Answer is we MOVE the Camera's Viewpoint to CAST OUT the PINK and seek to INTENSIFY the effect that the ORANGE and WHITE have in the COMPOSITION.

Basically that's a key point which Dan has already made - my point was to provide one mechanism of thinking it through, in the Field.

WW

[macca61]

Hi Donald

Thanks for your reply. I understand what you are saying and its true that the memory and experience is a lot better than the photos a lot of the time in scenes like this. The technical side of photography I can grasp and understand, its the next step of progressing from snapshots into something better that I want to work on.
By the way this photo was taken in your area of the world. Its a view of Loch Lomons taken from the walk up Conic Hill.
Thanks for your time.
Allan

[macca61]

Hi Manfred,
Thanks for reposting the image and for your thoughts and comments, it is appreciated.
Is there something different I should do in future re posting images that make it easier for people to see.
Cheers
Allan

[macca61]

Hi Dan
Thanks for your time and reply.
You are right in that the foreground is what draws my attention and it is not what I was taking a photo of.
I understand your comments and will try your suggestions. It also tells me I need to spend a bit of time before taking the shoy.
Thanks Allan

[macca61]

Hi Bill
Thanks for the time and effort you have put into your reply.
Laid out the way you have done has certainly given me plenty to think about and has reinforced what Dan was saying.
I need to spend the time and digest it and take what you are saying and look at other photos I have and apply the same thinking.
And at the end of the day learn something.
Much appreciated.
Cheers
Allan

[William W]

. . . Laid out the way you have done has certainly given me plenty to think about and has reinforced what Dan was saying.
I need to spend the time and digest it and take what you are saying and look at other photos I have and apply the same thinking.

Having a look at some of the other photos that you have already taken, is OK.

Just reinforcing that the exercise is really to be used when you are at a scene and composing the photo that you are about to take.

Photography takes practice, but few people actually do any practice EXERCISES: what I suggest is to do the exercise several times at scenes that are not "once in a lifetime opportunities" ... i.e. get down to Lake Apex and wander around and do the exercise; walk down the main drag and compose a few shots of The Royal, from a few different angles (before you have a beer that is).

Break a leg.

WW

[Donald]

By the way this photo was taken in your area of the world. Its a view of Loch Lomons taken from the walk up Conic Hill.

I thought it was Loch Lomond when I first saw it, but then I noticed that you from down under and thought how lucky you are to have such wonderful scenery as well.

I hope the words of others have inspired you. You have people (other than me) commenting on here with quality advice that would cost many hundreds of pounds/dollars/euros if bought in. I have always found that to be the big selling point of this forum: quality advice offered when it is asked for.

Go for it.

[Manfred M]

Hi Manfred,
Thanks for reposting the image and for your thoughts and comments, it is appreciated.
Is there something different I should do in future re posting images that make it easier for people to see.
Cheers
Allan

We have seen this issue before and Sean, the site owner, has tried to replicate the problem in order to figure out what was causing it, but had no luck in replicating the issue.

Many of the members use third party hosting sites and use these to show their images here. I happen to use Flickr, who do offer free storage for up to 1000 images. I've never had anyone complain about not being able to see my posted images.

[macca61]

Having a look at some of the other photos that you have already taken, is OK.

Just reinforcing that the exercise is really to be used when you are at a scene and composing the photo that you are about to take.

Photography takes practice, but few people actually do any practice EXERCISES: what I suggest is to do the exercise several times at scenes that are not "once in a lifetime opportunities" ... i.e. get down to Lake Apex and wander around and do the exercise; walk down the main drag and compose a few shots of The Royal, from a few different angles (before you have a beer that is).

Break a leg.

WW

Thanks Bill
Will definitely do the live practice. Might help if the I have the beer(or 2) first though LOL
Impressed with your local knowledge. Have you been here?
Allan

[macca61]

I thought it was Loch Lomond when I first saw it, but then I noticed that you from down under and thought how lucky you are to have such wonderful scenery as well.

I hope the words of others have inspired you. You have people (other than me) commenting on here with quality advice that would cost many hundreds of pounds/dollars/euros if bought in. I have always found that to be the big selling point of this forum: quality advice offered when it is asked for.

Go for it.

The advice received already from this one post has been great and will certainly follow through on.

We have great scenery in Australia as well and it is so different than what you have in Scotland. The difference I think is what makes Scotland, for me, such a great place to visit. I have been there a number of times and plan to return. I am a hiker and on the bucket list is to do the Scottish National Trail. Got to work out how to take the camera gear with me. Might be a question on a another thread as to how people hike with there gear!

[macca61]

We have seen this issue before and Sean, the site owner, has tried to replicate the problem in order to figure out what was causing it, but had no luck in replicating the issue.

Many of the members use third party hosting sites and use these to show their images here. I happen to use Flickr, who do offer free storage for up to 1000 images. I've never had anyone complain about not being able to see my posted images.

Thanks Manfred
Next post I will try again through CIC. Might be something I have done. If I have problems again I will look at joining another hosting site