One aspect of working the scene that Bill and I encourage our students to think about is to always be aware of your environment. As a landscape or nature photographer, you are photographing in athree dimensional world with 360 degrees of space around you.
So often we’ve seen photographers so intent on capturing the scene in front of them that they totally miss other nearby photo opportunities – including ones directly behind them.
Over the years, Bill and I have taken pairs of wonderful photos where the second was taken 180 degrees in the opposite direction from the scene we had planned on photographing.
Several years ago, Bill was photographing inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC in hopes of photographing the full statue of Abraham Lincoln without any people in the photo. He happened to turn around to see one of the most amazing sunrises we’ve ever photographed.
When we’re on a photo trip, Bill and I frequently spend the middle of the day scouting locations for future photo sessions. The light isn’t as good mid-day as it is early or late in the day – and it gives us a chance to plan our upcoming shoots. We try to find places where we can not only photograph the sunrise before the sun comes up, but also where we can photograph the wonderful golden light that occurs 180 degrees away from the sun shortly after the sun comes up (or shortly before the sun goes down). Some of our favorite spots are places where we can literally turn around and photograph something wonderful after the sun comes up over the horizon.
One of these spots is in Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia. We frequently photograph one section of the marsh before the sun is up – and then turn around and photograph another section just after the sun rises.
At Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico we photographed a spectacular sunrise over the frozen pond. In one direction the sky was filled with intense shades of yellow and orange. In the opposite direction it was filled with soft shades of blue and pink.
The other reason to always be aware of your surroundings when photographing is you never know what might be coming up behind you. It could be a bear, a speeding car, or someone who’s not paying attention to what’s in front of them and is about to walk into you and your tripod.
Or it could just be a curious turkey vulture checking out your camera gear the way this one did while Bill was photographing a butterfly in the Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida.
Remembering to look behind you is just one of the landscape photography ideas we talk about in our workshops. If you’re interested in learning more, please join us for one of our workshops.
Are there any places you’ve found with great views in opposite directions? If there – let me know in the comments – I’m always looking for new places to photograph.
Have you ever stopped to photograph a great scene, and then when you got home realized that you would have had the perfect shot, if only you had gone wider, gotten in closer, been 3 feet to the left, etc? One of Bill’s and my major recommendations to our students is that when you see that scene that catches your eye, and you decide you must photograph it, is that you work the scene.
What does this mean? When we approach a scene, often a shot will come to mind, and we set up and take that particular photograph. But once that is out of our systems, we stop and take a look at the scene with an eye towards what other shots we can compose.
So how can you do this? The first thing is to take a moment and look, with an eye towards what different compositions you can see. You can try several things that will help you think of different photos:
Try different focal lengths. If you’re looking through a telephoto lens, you will get very different compositions then when you are using a wide angle lens. We often start with a wide angle lens, then use a telephoto to pick out some of the more interesting details in the scene.
Try portrait and landscape compositions. The change from horizontal to vertical orientation of your camera will force you to include and exclude different parts of the scene, and will help you to think about the scene in different ways.
Move around and try again. Typically, when we are happy with a shoot in one spot, we’ll pick up the tripod (you are using a tripod, aren’t you?) and walk around to look at the scene from different angles. This keeps you from being stuck in one set of “tripod holes” never moving from one place. Walk ten feet/ a hundred feet/ a hundred yards (depending on your circumstances – you’d be amazed what a difference 10 feet can make in getting components of your scene to line up) and see if you like what you see. Set your tripod again and start seeing what shots look better from the new angle.
Please note that we regard working the scene as different from “machine gunning”, or indiscriminately keeping your camera shooting without giving thought to what you are shooting. You still need to think about your composition, but any scene has more than one good composition in it (we’ve learned this extremely well – put the two of us in the same place with the same gear, and you will get very different compositions).
Here are some of Bill’s photos from a sunrise in the marsh at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.
What attracted Bill’s attention to the original scene was the lovely light silhouetting the trees in the background, with the light reflected by the water in the foreground. In walking the scene before placing his tripod on the ground, he decided that the ideal place was where the channel of water in the foreground made a leading line into the scene (and you’ll see that he kept that concept throughout). Throughout the shoot, he moved both camera right and camera left to try different compositions (not much here – probably 10-15 feet, so that he didn’t lose the channel in the foreground). Bill shot several portrait compositions with a longer lens, and even tried to consider what might look good in black and white (so looking for form and tone as opposed to color).
Finally, at a point when the light was interesting across the horizon, he put on a moderately wide lens and shot a diptych to give a panoramic view across the marsh.
So, the next time you’re out photographing a wonderful scene, and you’ve got what you think is the perfect shot in camera, step back for a moment and ask yourself “what other ways could I be photographing this scene?” Try a different lens (or zoom in/out if you have a zoom lens)? Change the camera orientation? Go photograph it from over there? Particularly if you are traveling to photograph, you don’t want to wind up looking at your photos after the fact and saying “why didn’t I try (zooming in/zooming out/ moving left/etc)?” So make sure you work the scene while you are there.
I don’t know about you – but I love seeing and photographing Christmas Lights. It doesn’t matter whether it’s lights on houses in my neighborhood, lights in downtown Washington DC or a light display at a local botanical garden – I love seeing them.
One thing I have noticed over the years as I’ve photographed various light displays is that I’ll see people taking a picture – looking at the back of their camera – and realizing that they aren’t seeing what they hoped to see on the back of their camera.
As I looked back over my favorite photos from 2013 I realized just how many of them were close up photos of flower. Many of the photos show only part of a flower — not even a whole blossom. The close up photos have gotten a great response from people who have seen them — and lots of questions about how I take them. So I thought I’d share a few tips on taking great close up photos of flower with you today.
Think about What Caught Your EyeBefore you click the shutter, think about what it is about the flower that caught your eye and made you want to photograph it. Was it the color, the shape, the dewdrops or the way light is striking the flower? Now compose your photos to highlight what caught your eye.
Use a Macro Lens (or Macro Setting on Your Camera) For close up photos you want to be able to get as close to your subject as possible. Macro lenses or the Macro Setting on your camera (often symbolized by a little flower) allow you to get much closer to a subject and still have it in focus than using either a non-macro lens or setting.
Use a Tripod.I know — we live in an age of image stabilization/vibration reduction cameras and lenses, to say nothing of high ISO cameras so we can get faster shutter speeds — so a lot of the time we can get away with not using a tripod. But when it comes to close up photos I really recommend using one. When you are focused in on a very small area, the slightest motion of the camera (including that caused by clicking the shutter button) can introduce motion blur and lack of clarity in your focus. So if you want to take really crisp clear close up photos — use a tripod.
Try Different CompositionsDon’t photograph the flower from just one angle. Move around and see what else you see. Try taking photos of the center of the flower, or the petals, or just one specific detail. If you’re photographing with a digital camera there is basicly no additional cost to taking more than one photo of a scene. So go ahead — try different compositions. Who knows — you may discover you like the petals of the flower better than the center!
Try Different AperturesIf you are photographing in Aperture priority, try changing the aperture (f-stop) you’re using and see what this does to your photo. You may be surprised to find that sometimes a narrow depth of field gives you the look you want — and at other times, a larger depth of field is perfect for what you’re trying to show in the photo.
Bonus Tip: Have Fun!
Have fun while you’re photographing. Don’t forget to slow down and take few moments to appreciate the beauty of nature around you.
I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of my close up photos of flowers and that these tips are helpful. If you have questions about how I create my flower photos, leave them here and I’ll try to answer them in a future article.
Sometimes when I’m out photographing – or showing my photos – I get asked – what made me compose a particular photo the way I did. I’ll usually respond by talking about something in that particular photo that caught my eye and that I wanted to share with others.
I’ve recorded a short video for you talking about some of the things that catch my eye when I’m out photographing.
I hope I’ve given you some ideas of things to keep an eye out for next time you are out photographing.
You can find information about my upcoming workshops or working privately with me on my website.
When people see my flower photographs at shows they often ask me – how do I get them to look the way they do? How do I know what to focus on? What to show in the photo? And what to leave out?
I recently recorded a video that walks you through an example of how I photographed some butterfly weed. In just a few minutes, I show you how I went from first spotting the flowers in the garden – to having a photograph that I’m happy to share.
If you find the information in this video helpful, sign up for my monthly series of photo tips designed to help you take better photos with the camera gear you already have. You can sign up at FantasticPhotoTips.com. When you sign up, you’ll be able to download my report on Understanding Your Camera Dial – which explains the four basic exposure modes available on most cameras.
