Creative Nature & Outdoor Photography

by Brenda Tharp

  An image of a solid pattern can have impact, but the eye can tire of viewing a pattern. If you want to avoid having the eye move around “endlessly” in the frame, include some element to break up the pattern. The anomaly provides a point of contrast and a place for the eye to rest.

  True pattern is random, and the eye doesn’t follow a set course when viewing it. However, wide-angle lenses can create a feeling of direction, since objects appear to decrease in size as they recede toward the background, making it seem that the pattern has a direction. When pattern begins to take on a true direction or implied movement, it can create rhythm in the scene.

  PINE TREE BARK, SIERRA NATIONAL FOREST, CALIFORNIA. The bark on this tree was a wonderful pattern of blues, grays, and browns. By filling the frame with the pattern, I gave it more visual strength. 16–35mm lens at 35mm, f/ 3.5 at 1/50 sec.

  FERNS AND DAHLIA PETALS, VERMONT. When I first saw these ferns, I loved their pattern, but it was a little too monochromatic. When I returned later to that same spot, the breeze had blown dahlia petals onto the ferns. Although I had to sprinkle a few more on to complete the pattern, nature had started this wonderful idea for me! 17–40mm lens at 40mm, f/ 13 at 1/4 sec.

  AUTUMN FERN, YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA. A friend and I challenged each other to photograph this area that a year earlier had been badly burned. As I walked around through the ferns that had grown back, I discovered a golden frond with just one piece turning brown. Anomalies like these can make a good pattern image even stronger. 100mm macro lens, f/ 16 at 1 second.

  TEXTURE

  SAND DUNE TEXTURES, DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA. The sand dunes in Death Valley are always good for patterns and textures after a windy night. By positioning myself so the light came from the upper left, I was able to get the morning light to skim across the surface of the dune, emphasizing the texture sculpted into it the night before. 20–70mm lens at 70mm, f/ 20 at 1/10 sec.

  Touch is an important human experience. The memory of how something feels can reside indefinitely in our minds. As children, we learn about texture while touching everything around us. We walk and crawl on wood, carpet, and concrete. We touch fabric, such as the flannel of pajamas and the satin of dresses. We play with sand and mud, and learn what “wet” and “dry” feel like. We all recall certain textures, like a mother’s hair or the fur of a favorite pet. It’s no wonder that a photograph of something with texture can evoke a strong response.

  You need the contrast of light and shadow to record texture. Light striking a subject from an angle accentuates the surface, defining all of its bumps, hairs, or ridges. If the light is strong and at a low angle to the subject, the texture will be more pronounced. By using this type of light, you can show the roughness of sandstone or the coarseness of weathered wood to create a photograph with a greater visual dimension. You can express visually what the dried mud feels like.

  OLIVE GROVE AND VINEYARDS, ITALY. I climbed onto the roof of the villa I was staying in to get this image, when I saw how the sidelight had brought out such nice texture in the landscape. 24–70mm lens at 55mm, f/ 8 at 1/25 sec.

  Diffuse light can also bring out texture, but it often works better for softer types of texture. If you want to express the softness of a meadow of grasses, for instance, you should probably choose “soft” light. Stronger light may bring out too much contrast and reduce the soft texture. There is an appropriate light to emphasize each type of texture, and by noticing how different light affects textures, you’ll arrive at the right way to photograph them.

  WILDFLOWERS AND LAVENDER ROWS, PROVENCE, FRANCE. Abandoned lavender fields never give up blooming. With the mounds of lavender surrounded by other flowers, the scene had a soft textural feel to it, brought out by diffused light and a telephoto lens. 70–200mm lens at 200mm, f/ 22 at 1/30 sec.

  You can also imply texture in a photograph. When I look at an aerial photo with good side lighting, I can almost feel the ridges and valleys of the land.

  You can produce the effect of texture digitally with special filters but it’s always great to find the textures as they exist in our world. By now you’re probably seeing lines, shapes, patterns, and textures everywhere, and that’s the first step to creating photographs that contain strong visual design.

  DRIED MUD PATTERNS, NORTHERN ARIZONA. By incorporating a plant into my composition, I was able to create an anchor point for the eye in a sea of pattern and texture. 24–105mm lens at 24mm, f/ 16 at 1/25 sec.

  {CHAPTER FOUR}

  CREATING VISUAL DEPTH

  “As photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs. Move on objects with your eye straight on, to the left, around on the right. Watch them grow large as they approach, group and regroup as you shift your position. Relationships gradually emerge and sometimes assert themselves with finality. And that’s your picture.”

  —AARON SISKIND

  HAVING GOOD LIGHT AND INTERESTING DESIGN elements does not ensure you’ll make a good photograph. You must figure out how to get that light and those design elements arranged in a pleasing composition that has depth and drama. If you’re not in control of perspective, your image will lack depth. If you don’t create a strong composition, your image will consist of chaotic, confusing elements. And if you don’t know your lenses well, you may not utilize their potential to help you present your scene in the most dramatic way. The goal is to create powerful images without having to consciously think about composition and perspective. With practice, this becomes intuitive. The next two chapters will help you master perspective and composition and teach you how to use your lenses to their best advantage.

  CLARE ISLAND, IRELAND. The cliffs of Clare Island are high and dramatic, with waves crashing at their base. In spring, the sea thrift blooms, creating lovely color in the meadows along the cliff edges. Using a moderately wide angle of view, I placed the flowers near the bottom of the frame and let the cliff edge bring you through the scene. With the ever-present low clouds hanging over the hills beyond, this picture captured the classic beauty of western Ireland. 24–105mm lens at 34mm, f/ 14 at 1/25 sec.

  GAINING PERSPECTIVE

  CYPRESS TREES AND DRIVEWAY, TUSCANY, ITALY. This is a common and classic view in Tuscany. Because of the vanishing-point perspective, there is a feeling of distance, even with a rather normal 60mm angle of view. 24–105mm lens at 60mm, f/ 18 at 1/20 sec.

  Perspective is defined as the way objects relate to one another spatially, and a good part of that is also how they relate to the viewer, in this case the camera. Images that incorporate perspective have greater visual impact. Use of perspective can make objects in the foreground appear to be closer than those in the background. In short, perspective suggests depth in a photograph, though this depth is only an illusion, since a recorded image is two-dimensional.

  The only way to alter perspective is to change your position, or point of view. If you view a scene through six different focal lengths without changing your position, the perspective, or relationship of objects in the frame, remains the same, although the angle of view is wider or narrower depending on the focal length of the lens. When you change focal lengths, you are simply changing the framing, not the perspective. To see how changing your position changes perspective, try the following exercise: Find a scene that has an object you can get close to and a background with a mix of elements. For example, you might choose a friend sitting on a park bench. As you move closer to your friend, notice what happens to the relationship between the person and the objects in the background: Your friend appears much larger, while the background shows little change in size. However, note that the background objects have changed position in relationship to your friend, and each other, because you altered the perspective as you moved into the scene.

  Take the results of this exercise and apply it to a landscape. Imagine a meadow with interesting boulders in it and mountains in the background. As you move around the boulders left to right, or get in closer to them or back away, they w
ill take on a different importance in the frame. They will also relate differently to each other. As you move forward, the boulders will get larger, but the background mountain will remain relatively the same. This closer position emphasizes the boulders and makes them your subject, while creating a suggestion of depth by their relationship to the background.

  BRISTLECONE PINE, EASTERN CALIFORNIA. This pair of pictures shows how by moving your position and getting in closer, you can create a more dramatic photograph of the relationship of two objects. The wider view photograph (left) doesn’t pull you in to the scene, nor does it emphasize one tree as more significant than the other. I’m just using a wide-angle lens to capture the whole scene, but not creatively. But in the other image (right), I got up close to one tree, making it dominant, and created a relationship between it and the background tree. This point of view also puts the viewer in the scene. 17–40mm lens at 21mm, f/ 16 at 1/60 sec.

  To express the depth you want your photograph to have, you need to find the best point of view for your composition. When you arrive at a location, walk around your scene with one eye closed (that’s the way the camera sees) and watch how dramatically the relationship between objects and the background changes. Get higher or lower, if possible, to see what this does to those relationships. At some point, you’ll feel the scene come together, and you will have found the best position for what you want to emphasize.

  I always prefer to take time to get to know a landscape I am photographing.

  Over the years I have come up with a certain way in which I approach any scene. I ask myself what I find most interesting and how I can bring that out. The answers help me to find my point of view (position) and angle of view (focal length) more quickly. For example, it might be an unusual rock formation, or a beautiful patch of purple flowers, or both. It’s an intuitive process that is built from the practice of getting in touch with my emotional reaction to a scene. As mentioned earlier in the book, getting clear on what you want to express is essential for making a good photograph.

  MONUMENT VALLEY, UTAH. I loved this piece of old wood and the sand textures around it. I got close and low with my camera, to exaggerate the wood with my wide-view, and created a strong near/far relationship that expressed the vast space of the valley. 17–40mm lens at 17mm, f/ 16 at 1/100 sec.

  DEFINING DEPTH WITH SELECTIVE FOCUS

  EUROPEAN POPPY AND LAVENDER FLOWERS, PROVENCE, FRANCE. By selectively focusing on the poppy and using a shallow depth of field, I created a feeling of depth. Even though f/10 is a rather small aperture, the long telephoto created a shallow depth of field. 100–400mm lens at 400mm, f/ 10 at 1/30 sec.

  You can alter apparent perspective, or the appearance of depth, by using selective focus on your lens. A sharply focused subject will appear closer than anything that is not sharp in the picture.

  Telephoto lenses make this easier, but you can also use a wide-angle lens to selectively focus when the subject is close to the lens. The degree to which your background will be out of focus depends upon camera distance to the subject, subject distance from the background, and the aperture being used. This is when the depth-of-field preview button is critical. It stops the lens down so you can see what’s in focus and what’s not and check how the background looks. If you don’t have a depth-of-field preview button, you can magnify the image on the LCD to see how your background looks.

  TRANSLUCENT ICEBERG, INSIDE PASSAGE, ALASKA. By using selective focus and a shallow depth of field, I was able to create a near-far relationship between this translucent piece of ice and other icebergs in the distance, which expressed depth in the scene. 70–200mm lens at 190mm, f/ 5.6 at 1/160 sec.

  A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW

  SAN GIMIGNANO, ITALY. I always like to try for a different point of view when I travel. I had to wait until 9:30 a.m. before I could climb up the tower to get this view. In spring, the angle of the sun was still low enough to create long shadows of the tiny people below. This view is what a bird would see flying over the village. 24–105mm lens at 24mm, f/ 8 at 1/60 sec.

  Have you ever considered what a chipmunk’s view of a meadow would be? What might an eagle’s view of a valley or meandering river be? How does the world look from the height of a two-year-old child? Each of these viewpoints offers a whole new way to see the world, and you can create expressive images that highlight these points of view.

  Of course, this approach means you’ll have to give up any vestige of self-consciousness. Get over it! I’ve been on the ground in dozens of places around the world, and it’s worth it. Whenever I travel, I try to get overhead views from bell towers or mountaintops. I take scenic flights to create aerial points of view. Aerials provide a great establishing shot for slide shows, travelogues, and magazine stories.

  The next time you’re “in the field,” unleash your imagination and see what a new point of view can do for your photographs. Your results are limited only by the extent of your curiosity and your willingness to try new ways of seeing.

  To create more dynamic outdoor photographs, use the characteristics of perspective to describe relationships of size and depth. Move in close on an object to exaggerate its size in the frame compared to the background elements. Try framing a background subject with a foreground element to give your image a greater feeling of depth. Once you understand the power of perspective, and how to alter it, you have another creative tool for giving your images greater impact.

  VAISON LA ROMAINE, FRANCE. The foreground archway, along with the leading line of the dark passageway, draws you into this scene. The archway in the foreground against the smaller archway repeated in the background creates a near-far relationship that gives this picture depth. 24–105mm lens at 47mm, f/ 16 at 1 sec.

  TREE AND SANDSTONE, ZION NATIONAL PARK, UTAH. This tiny tree growing at the top of a sandstone formation in Zion appears to tower above, because I got low and pointed the camera upward. This distortion of perspective pushed the tree further away, creating the feeling that it sat atop a tall rock. 24–105mm lens at 28mm, f/ 16 at 1/13 sec.

  PORCH, MAINE. This is how a mouse would view this porch after just coming out of its hole! To make this composition, I had to simply set the camera on the ground and try several times to get the framing just right. 17–40mm lens at 17mm, f/ 20 at 1/25 sec.

  HOW LENSES SEE

  A lens can change the way you see the world, from an expansive view to a close-up look at a particular detail.

  WIDE-ANGLE LENSES

  Wide-angle lenses are powerful optics that, in the hands of a creative photographer, can produce outstanding pictures. My wide-angle is one of the most frequently used lenses in my bag, but many amateur photographers pull out their wide-angle lens simply to capture a grand vista or to compensate for the fact that they can’t move back far enough to get all they want in the picture. It’s no wonder so many lament that their results are not exciting. When I ask students in my workshops what they were trying to accomplish using a wide-angle lens, I often get responses like, “Well, I liked the flowers on the left, and the trees on the back right were interesting, and the mountains were nice, and, oh, the lichen on the rock in the foreground was really nice, too …”

  You get the picture. Without conscious control of composition or perspective, your effort with a wide-angle lens can result in a cluttered image in which the main subject is pushed so far back that the picture lacks a strong focal point. If you put it all in the photograph, how will your viewer be able to identify the main subject in the final image?

  BIG LEAF MAPLES AND BOULDERS, YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA. By positioning my tripod and camera about 3 feet or less above these boulders, and angling the lens downward, I was able to exaggerate their size, creating a strong foreground in the scene. 16–35mm lens at 16mm, f/ 16 at 1/15 sec.

  A wide-angle lens expands the appearance of depth and presents you with a large foreground area that you must use creatively to make the photograph work. You’ll usually need to move closer to objects
once you have put on the wide-angle, in order to increase subject size. When making a landscape or scenic image, you’ll also want to create foreground interest. A bed of flowers, a single interesting plant, or rocks with lichens may be all you need to fill that foreground space, but if you don’t fill it, the empty area will dominate your composition.

  To express what you want, you sometimes have to exaggerate things, but creative photography is all about dramatic presentation. Wide-angles are great for presenting your subject, or scene, dramatically. I often use my wide-angle to capture the expanse of a beautiful sky, which can be a brilliant canvas of color with great clouds. By tilting the wide-angle upward, I can increase the emphasis on the sky and the sweep of the clouds.

  SANDSTONE FORMATION, NORTHERN ARIZONA. This layered sandstone formation created an interesting foreground for my landscape. The low angle of late afternoon light created great texture out of the layered stone, and my position made the formation loom large in the frame. 24–105mm lens at 24mm, f/ 16 at 1/4 sec.

  Because wide-angles can emphasize objects close to the camera and still take in a broad scope of background information, they can dramatically present a subject in the landscape. If you bring your lens close to an object, but above it, and tilt the camera downward toward that object, you can create an exaggerated viewpoint of it, and it becomes a visual stepping-stone, inviting the viewer to become more involved in the scene. This is a classic way to create expressive landscapes, ones that not only show off interesting foreground objects but also express great depth. Study the work of master landscape photographers and you’ll see the effectiveness of this approach using wide-angle lenses.