How many times, being in a beautiful place, you would instantly take out your camera and, having shot the entire “clip” in a few minutes, would go home with a feeling of joyful anticipation of seeing your future masterpieces? You’ve been disappointed at how many times you’ve missed what you could see in your photographs?
Mikhail Trakhtenberg, Two Autumns, d. Satka, Chelyabinsk region., America
Canon EOS 300D
, 135 mm, f/6.3, 1/250 c, ISO 100.
What could be more beautiful than a golden autumn looking into a water mirror?? The boat and the fisherman compliment the subject making it more intuitive for the human eye.
Transfer of volume on the plane
Have you ever stopped to think that what your eye sees is completely different from what the lens sees?? It’s this nuance that becomes one of the first bumps that a first-time photographer stumbles over.
It takes a long time to learn to imagine the world as it appears in the viewfinder. It often happens so that eyes see, soul sings, heart bursts out of chest – here is the frame, but when you start looking “through” the lens your hands sink, soul goes to whistling and eyes start searching for another angle.
The reason for this is simple: we see the world in three dimensions, we feel its volume, we feel it with our skin, our lungs, our ears. Photography is limited to a plane with two dimensions, where it is physically impossible to create a three-dimensional palpable space, t. e. volumes.
And our eyes have a unique ability to cover a wide area by focusing very quickly when we transfer our gaze, and continuously analyzing the information they capture.
Everything looks different on the photograph: we lose the third dimension I’m deliberately omitting the newfangled 3D technologies, because their application is still limited and their possibilities have not been fully clarified , and objects become flat. But a photographer can visually accentuate their volume, using the following techniques:
1 dividing an image into perspectives foreground, middle and background
2 the use of lighting in the frame: side or back light, different lighting of the scenes, light and shade patterns for example, the light that falls on the ground through the leaves on the trees
3 the use of perspective:
– Linear, which is achieved by including lines in the frame that converge on the far background on the horizon, for example
– tonal aerial – the decrease in contrast of objects as they get farther away from the shooting point. It is most pronounced when shooting in foggy weather, when distant objects start to lose their shapes and contrast and usually look lighter than those in the foreground
– Scale – achieved by varying the distance of identical objects the farther the object is, the smaller its image
4 the use of shallow depth of field in the frame
5 the use of color contrasts and transitions bright flowers in the grass, golden leaves against the sky, partially sunlit hills, trees
6 as a rule, the important subjects should have the best possible sharpness and micro contrast.
Finding a scene
What can be the subject for a landscape photo?? This is probably the most difficult and rhetorical question, for which there are no definite answers.
In order to find a subject let’s try to tune in to the wave of creativity, touch the innermost fibers of our urban souls, look into our childhood, knock on the doors of art museums, leaf through old photo magazines – it seems to me that the key to the treasured chest may be found just there..
Landscapes can be photographed almost anywhere: whether traveling around the world or just outside your own home. And, strange as it may seem, the artistic value of a picture taken in the most remote and wild places of the world may be the same as the same value of a picture taken very close to it, for example, by the edge of a village or in a city park.
The determining factor for the creation of a successful landscape photograph is not the uniqueness of the place in which a particular picture is taken, but precisely its inner content, i.e. e. plot.
Whether it is a birch tree outside your window or a dune in the desert, a photograph should not only contain some information about the subject, but the most important thing: it should convey the mood, feelings, and concealed meaning. In other words, to be both lyricism, poetry and music of the landscape.
Under certain circumstances, the subject for a landscape photographer can be a variety of objects and views. A leaf in the water, swirling among reflections of trees and clouds the steppe with leaden clouds and grey grass a wooden snow-covered house with shining windows on New Year’s Eve the Swiss Alps with cows in the meadows a mist in a flood meadow a path in the forest an oak with spreading branches a wave breaking on coastal stones – the list could be endless.
But you can shoot the same scene in different ways. Let’s take the simplest example: how do you take a picture of a tree?? Suppose it is a mighty sprawling oak, his majesty the king of the forest… There can be a multitude of photo opportunities:
– Using different angles shooting with a wide angle lens close to the tree to emphasize the perspective and scale of the royalty or, on the contrary, politely keeping the distance, using a telephoto lens, “compressing” the space to more clearly demonstrate the geometry of the branches
– wait for the necessary lighting low sidelight for deep drawing of the volume backlight to create a radiant effect sunset or sunrise to give soft warm shades or shoot the tree on a cloudy day to emphasize the sad aspects of old age
– choose interesting weather if possible imagine an oak tree in a cloud of mist with rays penetrating the leaves or raindrops of rain on the leaves in the afterglow sun
– to visit this place in different seasons it’s even difficult to imagine how different the results can be: in winter – snow-covered branches in autumn – golden leaves, silvered with hoarfrost in spring – a cover of delicate fuzz in summer – an abundance of all sorts of shades of green
– Try shooting from different angles to find what you think is the best composition and appropriate background, etc. d.
And when you consider that no two photographers shoot alike, just imagine how many amazing tree “portraits” you can make!
At the same time if you take pictures at random, without thinking about the final result and without setting a goal to bring some idea-message to the viewer, you can make a lot of “duds”, even being in the most beautiful places of the planet.
How to learn to see a story? The question is no less difficult than the previous one. If seeing a beautiful state of nature doesn’t give you a pang in your heart, it’s very difficult and even necessary to learn how to see? .
If the beauty of nature touches your soul with invisible strings, the advice is to look more and more often at the works of acknowledged masters of landscape genre, at the same time trying to analyze why you liked this or that picture, and trying to draw parallels with the world around you.
I can suggest to practice as often as possible “idle”, imagining the landscape you see as a made picture on every chance you get or carry a small lightweight point-and-shooter if your imagination refuses to distort the reality you see with your eye.
The worst thing is that the more modern life envelops us, the farther we get from being able to notice the beauty that is right next to us. And fabulous landscapes, it turns out, live exclusively on television the Internet somewhere between the Discovery and National Geographic channels.
Landscapes from the Planet
Alexander Kitsenko. According to Tolkien: the walking Ent, Kharkov obl., Ukraine
Canon EOS 350D, Canon EF-S
17-85 mm 4.0-5.6 IS USM, 35mm, f/10, 1/320s, ISO 100.
The most ordinary place in the fog becomes unrecognizable and mysterious, reminiscent of a fairy tale. The chosen angle and the whimsical shape of the trees made them “come to life” and go with the author on his foggy walk.
Alexander Kitsenko, Dream of Oak Valley Kharkov region, Ukraine ., Ukraine
Canon EOS 350D, Canon EF-S
17-85mm 4.0-5.6 IS USM, 17mm, f/11, 1/640s, ISO 100.
Panorama of eight vertical frames. The early morning hours, the fog rolling in, and the slopes of the valley lined with oaks made it possible to forget for a while about the proximity of civilization and human problems. Using panorama photography helped to cover the whole view, the diversity of the trees and their shadows give a three-dimensional effect to the photo. The white trails, the inflorescences leading up to the sun, accentuate the perspective in the shot.
Mikhail Vershinin, Dawn of my city, r. Krasnoyarsk, America
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II
, 24 mm, f/10, 1/15 sec, ISO 200.
On a misty morning even a city bridge can become romantic… The well-ordered geometry of the bridge elements on the background of fog gives a wonderful rendering of both linear and tonal perspectives.
Mikhail Vershinin. Morning of a new day, Krasnoyarsk Pillars, America
Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II
, 330mm, f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO 200,
A panorama of six horizontal frames.
An incredible morning extravaganza of sun and fog, there’s no other way to tell it. The rhythm of the rays and the treetops makes you run your gaze over them like your fingers on a string, over and over again..
In the next publication we will talk about what kind of equipment is necessary for landscape photography
What are the key differences between poetry and prose in the context of landscape photography?