Pierre Steenberg

Using multiple lead-in lines

April 09, 2017 • Leave a Comment

Last week we looked at S-curves to lead the viewer into the image. This week we are looking at using multiple lead-in lines. Railway tracks can often be used as a lead-in line. I state "a lead-in line," singular, because the two tracks form a unit to act as one line. They make one line together. In nature we often find multiple lead-in lines. Perha...

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Looking for curves

April 02, 2017 • Leave a Comment

Curved lines are more dynamic than straight lines. They take you into the image. They create flow. Sometimes they are very obvious (bending river, winding road), other times they are more subtle. From time to time we need to help them just a little to stand out more. Here is another image from Zion National Park to make the point. There is no huge...

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Strong foregrounds

March 26, 2017 • Leave a Comment

Strong foregrounds often make strong images. In landscape photography that is usually true if that strong foreground ties with something further back or leads the viewer into the image. Such images are often taken from lower down (see my blog from two weeks ago about elevation). Let's look at an example taken in Zion National Park. The foreground...

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All elements working together

March 19, 2017 • Leave a Comment

I was judging images at a photography club. Eventually, it came down to deciding between the top two images of the night. One image was of a quad motorcycle racing away. It was in the air with mud being flung from its wheels, frozen in mid-air. It was a pleasing image and obviously a good one to make it to the final selection. On the other hand, it...

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Elevation

March 12, 2017 • Leave a Comment

Most people walk out to a scene and plonk their tripods down when they have selected a spot to shoot from. They then set everything up and shoot at eye level. For many images that is not a problem. However, have you ever thought of the difference elevation makes to your image? When will moving your camera lower down or higher up make a positive dif...

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Mood

March 05, 2017 • Leave a Comment

Photographs have mood. Some have more mood than others. At times we can get so overwhelmed by what we see that we focus on the grand scenes only, totally forgetting about mood. Mood can be caused by mist, fog, and such. Sometimes that great mood is not all over the scene; you have to go find it. Let's look at an example: Here is the basic scene we...

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Using lines

February 26, 2017 • Leave a Comment

If you regularly read my blog you will know that I am a fan of creating depth in many of my landscape images. I have written many times about how to do this and the tricks we employ. Once again I would like to make one simple point today. Search your foreground to find things that lead into your image. Find lines that go from front to back. Use the...

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Moving Clouds

February 19, 2017 • Leave a Comment

Landscape photographers sometimes itch to do something a bit more artistic. When this itch strikes they sometimes move the camera while the exposure is being made with a slowish shutter speed to create some blur. At other times they may zoom while making the exposure. There are many things we can do to bring out the more artistic look. Have you tri...

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Creating Massive Panoramas

February 12, 2017 • Leave a Comment

There are two kinds of panoramas. Firstly, there is the obvious panorama that used a long ratio (very long compared to wide). Secondly, there are panoramas that are the same ratio as single shot images but that are still made up of many images to gain resolution. The point of these files is to be able to print them VERY large. But how do you go abo...

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Pink and purple hues in the sky

February 05, 2017 • Leave a Comment

The twilight wedge can produce very nice pink and purple hues in the sky. These colors can be very pleasing with a landscape foreground. Let's look at an image as an example: The mood is great as created with the fog and mist rising from the water. How do we make the best of the colors in the sky? We do not want to play with global saturation as t...

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