Pierre Steenberg

Neutral Density Filters

December 29, 2019 • Leave a Comment

I have heard many digital photographers say that they do not use filter because they do everything in post processing. Even though I am simply not good enough to do in Photoshop what these photographers claim they can do I am open to the idea that much can be accomplished in post processing. To me it comes down to who I am. Am I a photographer that...

Read the Full Post »

Lead-in lines

December 22, 2019 • Leave a Comment

If you have followed my blogs and photographs you will know that I like to use lead-in lines because they powerfully nudge the viewers' eyes into the image. They create depth. They tie the foreground and the background together. They help transport the viewer into the image rather than just having them look at our images laterally, from left to rig...

Read the Full Post »

Reflections on water

December 15, 2019 • Leave a Comment

Reflections on water can make for great imagery. They can captivate the viewers' attention and make them look at an image for a long time. It is often very difficult to capture great reflections without having the split between the reflection and the actual elements in the center of the image. We can think of this split as the horizon. Now you will...

Read the Full Post »

Juxtaposition weight

December 08, 2019 • Leave a Comment

I have written about visual weight before and am doing so again today because it is important to composition and balance. Visual weight is the weight our brains attach to elements in a scene. Too much weight on one side of the image and the image loses its balance. The size and material an object is made of determine its visual weight. Its color al...

Read the Full Post »

Order from chaos

December 01, 2019 • Leave a Comment

The way nature arranges itself can seem chaotic to us. Trees don't naturally grow in straight lines. Rocks don't tend to line themselves up with where we want them to. So when you get to a place such as Yosemite National Park we find trees and rocks everywhere. They can make it difficult to get a good image. One always seems to be in the way. Other...

Read the Full Post »

Balanced Composition

November 24, 2019 • Leave a Comment

The best landscape images often have balance. The elements within the scene are in harmony. Visual elements and color carry weight. Large elements weigh more. Darker colors weigh more than lighter colors. Balance means that visual weight is well balanced. The lit rocks in the top right of the image carry a lot of weight. If we have nothing on th...

Read the Full Post »

Different images - Same subject

November 17, 2019 • Leave a Comment

I want more than one image from a site. I want to get as many good images as I can from each visit to a place. Often the main compositional element is the same in multiple shots yet the images need to be different enough. Compare these two images with each other: The background standout rocks are the same but the foreground is different. We...

Read the Full Post »

Depth formula refined

November 10, 2019 • Leave a Comment

Last week's blog revealed an easy formula that creates depth. This formula is to have a strong foreground, a middle-ground, and a background. As skill levels develop we start seeing variations to formulas that help to disguise them so that our images do not all look the same. What can we do to make the image even stronger, with even more depth? How...

Read the Full Post »

Easy depth formula

November 03, 2019 • Leave a Comment

I often want someone to give me a quick formula that just works when I am doing something I don't have much knowledge of. Most of the time that just does not happen because it is almost never that simple. There is a reason why we have experts in various fields. After all, as photographers we want to become masters in our field. If we don't, our wor...

Read the Full Post »

Break the rules

October 27, 2019 • Leave a Comment

The rule of thirds is a photographic rule for a good reason; it just works. As new photographers start out it is best to learn these rules and to stick with them. As skills develop the time will come when we learn when and why to break the rules. The rules can only be broken if the image is still strong when the rules are violated. For example, we...

Read the Full Post »