Pierre Steenberg

Isolate, Isolate

June 02, 2019 • Leave a Comment

Sometimes there is just too much in the scene to include it all. You have heard me say that painters start with nothing and add (paint in) elements to their canvas to make art whereas photographers start with too many elements, so we eliminate and isolate elements to make our art. The Quiver Tree Forest in Namibia is a good example of this problem.

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Mystery

May 26, 2019 • Leave a Comment

Ghost towns are often filled with mystery. It is our job to find the most mysterious scene and make it even more mysterious. Often this is done by using light creatively. When we combine mysterious light with other elements it creates a scene that evoke emotion. This image is an emotional image to me. It seems inviting but also generates a bit of f...

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Contrasting Objects

May 19, 2019 • Leave a Comment

From time to time you come across contrasting object that just evoke questions. At other times this juxtaposition can be humorous. When I look at this image I can see an add for skin lotion. What goes through your mind as you look at this image? On the one hand we have this dry harsh desert scene which is visible through the window. The sun is t...

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The Orton Effect

May 12, 2019 • Leave a Comment

The Orton effect introduces blur and glow. It can add some mystery and even mood. It can soften the scene. While I am not a great fan of this effect for too many images it has its place. The reason why I don't generally like the effect is because I take mostly landscape images and I want these images to be sharp - why would I deliberately hurt the...

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Indoor Sunstars

May 05, 2019 • Leave a Comment

I entered a room at Kolmanskop and liked the scene, but something was mission. I need to add some drama, some color, some action, anything of interest. I looked around but could not find anything. Then the thought came to me to create a sunstar. For those of you who are new, a sunstar is created when the sun is behind a hard edge and you use a smal...

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Indoor direct light

April 28, 2019 • Leave a Comment

Mixing direct sunlight with indoor shadows can be difficult. The direct sunlight can be very bright while the shadows can be very dark. How do we balance the light so as not to clip either the highlights or the shadows? Let's look at an images to get us going: There are a few ways to deal with images such as this one. Firstly, use a modern camer...

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Repeating patterns

April 21, 2019 • Leave a Comment

Repeating patterns can make for interesting photographic material. We are still at the ghost town of Kolmanskop today. Be on the look out for repeating patterns, especially if those patterns draw you into the scene. Here we have multiple door frames creating the repeating pattern. To get them to draw the viewer into the image strongly we use lig...

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Kolmanskop, Namibia

April 14, 2019 • Leave a Comment

Ghost towns can be very interesting to photograph and to explore. Kolmanskop is a ghost town near Luderitz in Namibia. When you arrive it does not look interesting at all. The magic is certainly not outside. However, once inside these buildings things come to life. The walls are colorful, there is sand everywhere, and the light can just make the im...

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Get close

April 07, 2019 • Leave a Comment

I am a big fan of getting close to things to enlarge them and to give them importance in the scene. The object you get close to does not have to be large and it does not always take much to make a decent image using this technique. When on a scene I often just walk around looking for interesting objects to use. In this particular case I found a sea...

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Foreground Lines

March 31, 2019 • Leave a Comment

I have said this many times but it remains important. Foregrounds can often make landscape photographs. An interesting foreground in a landscape image can make the difference between a good image and a great image. Such foreground elements may be flowers, reflections in water, rocks, anything different, anything that stands out. At times these fore...

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