Lessons Learned: Step back

Mom and I were driving down to Deer Isle and Stonington when we stopped at the top of Caterpillar Hill, captivated by the diverse foliage colors and scenic overview out over Eggemoggin Reach toward the Penobscot Bay.

As you may have noticed from my work, I tend to crop closely, to get close to my subjects and capture a close-up, detailed look at them. In fact, my first shots here were telephoto compositions of the yellow-leaved birch trees against the dark green evergreens with a patch of bright red blueberry plants in the foreground.

Then I paused, looked up and out at the horizon and saw this larger composition. Granted, this isn't exactly wide-angle, but it's a broader view than I would instinctively choose.

Views like this require strong composition. Many fail because the photographer was taken by the feeling of space and grandeur caused by our eyes' stereoscopic capabilities. We can "see" the expanse of space and feel the "bigness" of it all.

But the camera is a one-eyed pessimist; everything it sees is two-dimensional. Try this: Next time you're overwhelmed by a scenic view, close one eye and look again. Unless you've provided interesting composition based on a two-dimensional view of the scene, you'll see it fall flat and uninteresting.

In this case, I placed the granite rocks and smaller bushes in the foreground to define our viewpoint. Oftentimes, a tree trunk and overhanging branch can frame a scenic view with a similar effect.

Another way to insure depth in a picture like this is to support the natural tendency for the colors to fade as they disappear into the distance. Compare the intensity of the foreground foliage with that on the other side of the river in the background. Notice how the distant colors are more muted and soft. Then look at the hills on the horizon and observe how they fade to pure white (haze, fog) in the upper left corner. There's a strong diagonal spatial composition, supported by the fading intensity of color, going from lower right corner to upper left.

My Lessons Learned here are to seek composition in wider views, to look up from my intense concentration on the details, and to visualize my scenic view as the two-dimensional presentation it will ultimately become (and compose accordingly).