Compose Landscapes Like a Pro

1. Introduction: Hey everyone and welcome. Do you struggle finding the right composition for your landscapes? Do the results that you get not really reflect what you felt and saw when you originally took the photo. Kate Sylvia, a professional landscape photographer with 15 years of experience in the field, teaching other photographers. And I'm here to help you make amazing images with a better understanding of composition, you're going to learn all about light, its quality, its direction, how it enhances images. We are going to discuss the compositional elements with many, many examples to help guide you into becoming a better photographer with any camera. When I studied at the New York Institute of photography back in the early 2000s, I learned a phrase that has stuck with me forever. It's not the violin. It's the violinist. It's not about the gear. Yes, of course, it can help you get some creative things done and it gives you a little bit more versatility. But without an understanding of composition, you can't really excel as a photographer. I'm gonna teach you the three secret questions that you should ask of every photo that you take in order to become a better photographer. Let's explore composition together. Alright, I will see you guys in the next video. Let's have fun. 2. Your Project: For your project, for this class, I'd like you to make three different images. One of them that makes use of leading lines, one that makes use of diagonals, and one that breaks the rule of thirds. Of course, you'll understand what all of these are when we get through with this class. Here's a couple of examples of leading lines. Now the one on the left is a little less obvious. There's lots of lines going throughout this entire image. The predominant one is the one that goes from the bottom left and brings you in there and sweeps around a little bit and brings your eye toward the center of that tree. The image on the right, the leading lines are actual lines, are lines and grooves inside the rock here in Zion National Park. And those are a little bit more obvious. Leading lines can be perfectly straight. They can be man-made. They can be a little bit obscure, and they can just be an arrangement of elements that lead you through photo. Okay? Diagonals. This is usually what I'm thinking when I think about diagonals is the placement of elements in your foreground, middle ground, and background. In the foreground of the image. On the left, I have a tree branch, but it is positioned diagonally from the other predominant element in that image, which is the lighthouse. If they had lined up front-to-back, it would not be nearly as effective as just placing them off to the side of each other a little bit. The image on the right from Valley of Fire State Park, there are diagonals in the rock, which is probably the most obvious diagonal in this image. There's also a diagonal between that green shrub right there in the foreground and the son in the background, which is a bright predominant element because your eye wants to go directly to that brightest part of the image. Having an element in my photo that is in my foreground that is forming a diagonal with something in the distant background helps enhance this image. Breaking the rule of thirds. You can do this with flowers, things that have symmetry, and you're zooming in on the middle and there's radial symmetry all the way around. You can do this with reflections, placing that horizon right in the middle. Sometimes it just works. So there's really nothing in this photo that is on any of the rule of thirds lines. Most of it is concentrated right in the middle. And that's okay, it still works. The rule of thirds is not a rule. It is just a suggestion to get you started down that road, too wonderful compositions. All right, let's get into the class. 3. All About Light: Hello everyone, welcome back. Well, we certainly can't start talking about composition until we get a better understanding about light, because photography is all about light. Let's talk about the different directions of light. We have what's called front light. And this is not the light that is coming to your front. It is the light that is hitting the front of your subject. So it's actually coming from behind you as the photographer. It's a very flat light, so it's not going to bring out a lot of textures or depth necessarily, but it is a very easy light to work with. It's an easy light for your camera to work with because everything is pretty much bathed in an equal amount of light when it's being lit from the front. That's not to say that front light is boring. It can actually be very, very nice, especially on scenes like these at the beach. Sidelight by its very definition is what hits the side of your subject comes from the side of your subjects. So you can see here that the light is hitting the forest and that main tree from the left side, it tends to bring out textures. It can create contrast and depth. It is another light that is fairly easy for your camera to work with. You can see here the light coming from my right side and hitting the side of these mountains creates those deep shadows that you see on the left side of all of these little hilltops here. It helps increase that contrast. It helps increase a little bit of depth to your images. And I think sidelight compliments a lot of subject matter. Backlighting is probably what I consider the most dramatic type of light. It comes from behind your subject. So that light is very frequently coming directly into the front element of your camera lens. And because of that, it can be a little bit difficult to work with the cameras sometimes has a hard time figuring out how to expose a photo like that with all this bright light coming into the front of the camera. Now in a situation like this, these tree tops are being backlit by the sun, being almost directly overhead a little bit off to my right, but almost directly overhead. So the leaves just light up very, very bright. But in this instance, the light is not coming directly into the camera so that it doesn't always have to be the case. Here's a situation where again, the light is coming directly into the front element of the camera and it is creating a silhouette. This is often the result at sunrises and sunsets when you point that camera directly into the sun, certain situations it works really well. Other situations you might want to attempt a high dynamic range blending of images, but that's a topic for another class. Backlighting is probably my favorite kind of light because it is so dramatic. Okay, Let's talk for a second about diffused lighting. Diffuse lighting is what you have either in open shade on a sunny day or on a cloudy, overcast, rainy doesn't have to be raining, but just an overcast day where the sunlight is actually being diluted over the entire sky is no longer this direct, harsh, creating deep shadows type of light. Now it is soft and diffused almost as if it's coming through a lightbox. In portraiture. This is a wonderful kind of light for foliage, for flowers, trees fall color, these types of things. They look really, really beautiful with diffused lighting. Now your images are going to end up a little bit flat as far as the color and the contrast when they come right out of the camera. But those are always things that can be enhanced on the computer later. But having the ability to manipulate all those darks and lights because you haven't lost any highlight detail and you haven't lost any shadow detail because of harsh lighting. Everything's nice and diffused. We'll talk just for a quick second here about warm light and cool light. Warm light is that light that you see first 3045 minutes right after the sun comes up in the morning and the last 30 to 45 minutes before the sun goes down in the evening, it has more of a yellow tone, warm tone. Cool light is something that you see either before sunrise, after sunset, on cloudy, overcast or rainy days in that light often has a very blue tone to it. Let's start talking about composition itself. See you then. 4. The Three Questions You Must Ask: Before we start really diving deep into composition, I want to give you the three questions that I think when you really start concentrating on these and giving them thought with your imagery, you'll really start to learn how to craft images and your photography is going to improve. Here we go. Question number one that I want you to ask of every photo. Now, eventually, these are going to become kind of on a subconscious level. You're not going to have to actively think about them each and every time. But when you are just learning and you're trying to master composition, they will really help. The first question that I want you to be able to answer is, what is my subject? This one is usually the easiest. So what is my subject here? Clearly it's a waterfall. Sometimes the subject can be a little bit obscured. The subject can be contrast or color, a little bit abstract, something like that. So it's not always the easiest thing to answer, but most of the time it is, especially in situations like this, clearly a waterfall. Question number two. How do I focus attention on my subject? Now we're gonna go over multiple methods throughout this class on how you can achieve this hike. You can focus attention on subject itself, okay? Question number three. How do I simplify the photo? By far, this is the most complicated and the one that gets away from us the most easily. A lot of times when we come to a photo subject that we really like be at a waterfall or you're standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon and everything in front of you is just gorgeous. You have a tendency to want to capture a good deal of it, a lot of it, and it ends up being sometimes too much. Simplifying the photo could very well just mean, hey, zoom in a little bit tighter in isolates subject matter. And we will talk about this repeatedly throughout this class. But I just wanted to have these three questions. Keep them in the back of your mind, write them down, put them on a little note card or put them in your phone and carry them with you in the field when you're going out and taking pictures. They won't really help. With this waterfall. Clearly that's my subject. And I used a long shutter speed or a longer shutter speed of about a quarter to a 2.5th in order to blur the waterfall. So I did do something a little bit creative while I was here, which is nice. Focusing attention on this subject. I isolated it so I zoomed in and it's just the waterfall. We don't see a lot of forest around it or people or anything like that. Not that there's anything wrong with including people in your images. A lot of images, they can really truly enhance a landscape photo, especially giving it some scale. But this is what I want you to start considering. Moving around using a different lens. Or if you're photographing with your phone or just a point and shoot camera or something like that. You can zoom out and zoom in and try different angles. Just move around your subject if you have the opportunity. Now if you're standing on the edge of a cliff, please be careful. Do not be moving around too much. We don't want anybody getting hurt out there. But if it's something like this that I can walk around and get a different viewpoint. I'm gonna do that. Here I switched to a more wide angle look to capture some of the foreground in it. It tells a little bit of a different story. Now I see some of the surrounding area. I can see that the waterfall doesn't just go into that little pool that it kinda trickles down and probably goes further out of this scene here. Would've been nice if I had some nice flowers in the foreground. But, oh well, beggars can't be choosers. This is called Working the scene. I'm going to use different focal length, so wide angle telephoto, Those types of things. And I'm going to move around. I'm going to zoom out, I'm going to zoom in. I'm going to isolate small portions of this waterfall and they all have a different look and feel. You can experiment with shutter speeds. That's a lot of fun to do with waterfalls, any type of moving water, whether you're at the beach with the waves, looking at a pretty fountain or working a waterfall. Playing with shutter speeds can be a lot of fun. Now notice this, this element here in front of this waterfall. If we wanted to cross over the creek itself, there's a little footbridge. When we walked over the footbridge, that tree was directly between your photographer's point of view and the waterfall. So if I wanted to stand square in front of this waterfall and take a photo of it. This tree was in my way. But I want you to start thinking about taking advantage of some of the things that maybe we might even see as an obstacle to start with, but it can actually turn around and work with us. What happens if I zoom in on something? If I use a longer lens, longer lenses tend to compress things from front-to-back. You're going to make things appear as if they are physically closer together when they're not when you zoom in on an image. And that is what I did in order to achieve this image of all the photos that I shot on the entire hike, all the way down, all the way back out and all the images of the waterfall. This is my favorite. And the reason for that is because I have isolated this one little element. And now the waterfall itself tells a different story. This is less about the waterfall itself and more about the environment around the waterfall. So when you are out there practicing your compositions, don't forget to work the scene. Use different focal lengths, meaning zooming in and zooming out. And you can do this with your phone with a point and shoot or with a fancy DSLR or mirrorless camera. It does not matter what type of equipment you own. To practice composition. Let's move on. 5. Rule of Thirds and Framing: Let's talk about the rule of thirds. The first thing I want to say about the rule of thirds is it's not a rule. You do not have to live by the rule of thirds. It is just a recommendation. And especially when you are just starting out, kind of grasping composition in general, It's a good place to start. The Rule of Thirds states that if you divide an image into equal parts, 123 parts this way, and 123 parts that way. That anywhere where those lines cross is considered a good focal point, a good point of interest in which to place your subject. The rule of thirds is also a good idea. As far as horizon lines are concerned, you either want your horizon a little bit lower or a little bit higher in your image, depending on whether your foreground or your sky is a little bit more important to you. In this image, I placed the shell right there on a rule of thirds line, and I did that on the bottom right side instead of the top left side because of all of the motion of the water that was going off into that opposite direction. I wanted to give that water room to move, room to breathe. That's part of what helps make this a successful image. Remember when I said rule of thirds was not a rule exactly. The horizon line in this image is almost dead center. And it's completely okay, it works. And most of that is because it is a reflection. Reflections are the most opportune time to break that rule of thirds. Go ahead and place that horizon right in the middle. This image was taken up in Banff National Park in Canada. Remember week when we talked about front light side light and backlight. This image is strongly lit from the right side and you can see how it brings out these shadows and depth in the hills here. And it just works really, really nicely. Here's another image where I place the horizon almost dead center. And it was because there was just this absolutely gorgeous reflection. I also did a long exposure with this image and that's why I've got this streaking of the clouds in the sky. Long exposures is gonna be another class at some point. Now in this image my subject is basically dead center. And it's okay. Like I said, the rule of thirds is just a suggestion. It works a lot of times, but not all the time. My subject is in the middle. The horizon is on the top third line, so maybe that's what makes it work. But in any case, you don't have to put that on the rule of thirds line. You are a photographer, you are an artist. It is your choice where to place your subject. Another instance where my subject is dead center. It's okay, it completely works. Again, another reflection, opportune time for that. Let's talk for a minute about framing as well. Framing is one of those options that you can use to answer question number two, how do I focus attention on my subject? The use of frames out in nature is one way to do that. So I was here on the beach photographing sunrise. I've got lots and lots of pictures from this sunrise. I've got some zoomed in photos of the peer and the sun right behind it. I've got some images that I took closer to the water with some tide pools in the foreground. And I also took this, I noticed these just kind of worn decrepit pilings here just destroyed by years of saltwater. And I thought that they just made for an interesting framing options. So I got down low shot in-between them so that they would act as a frame for the sunrise in the background. I just loved all the textures all over it. I thought it was really neat. Here I have a gazebo that most of the time, when you have a subject that is a gazebo, you backup and you photograph the whole gazebo with all the gardens around it, which I did, of course I have those images to. But again, this is part of working the subject. Take the photo of the gazebo absolutely, to show where it is. All the flowers around it. Wonderful. But you can also do more with your subject. There's never just one shot. I noticed that the pillars of the gazebo were all lining up nicely. And I loved the Spanish moss and the blooming is Ilya's behind it. So I just used the gazebo itself as a frame around all of that foliage in the background. What's my frame here? My frame can be color, it can be texture. It can be anything that surrounds your subject. And here are the palmetto leaves are just kinda surrounding these Ilya's. Here. Zion National Park, just walking down the trail, there was this little opening where you can just see right through the leaves here at the mountains in the background. So I didn't just photograph the mountain and the sky and say, Oh, those leaves are in my way. I backed up and actually included the leaves. And so now the leaves are acting as a frame that go all the way around my mountain. They add some nice color to the sky because here they are back lit. You can see how these leaves are lighting up from behind because the sun is coming from off to my right up above. Remember how I said backlighting can make things a little bit more dramatic. That really helped here. Otherwise, the leaves will be a little bit dull. If you look at the leaves in the bottom left corner there, a little bit dull by comparison to the ones that are being backlit. I had multiple framing options going on in this image. The sun, I managed to position myself and my cameras so that I got the sun peaking right through these two tree branches here. And when that happens and you're shooting at F8 or F20 with your aperture, you'll get that nice starburst from your camera. Just a little side note in case you didn't know that. It's always fun to play with. I also positioned myself low enough to the ground because I what I wanted to do is I wanted to make sure that this mountain in the background was not being blocked or obscured by this lower branch right here. And so by getting down low, I've made sure that I can see all of this mountain. And now this branch is just hovering above it, almost framing it. Here at elephant rock in Valley of Fire State Park, classic framing opportunity. Here, I use an app called The Photographer's of femoris in order to figure out where exactly the sun is going to be rising or setting on any given day. There's lots of apps that you can use for that type of thing. Photo pills is another one. Knowing exactly where the Sunrise was going to happen. I positioned myself and my camera in a location so that I could use elephant rock here, so appropriately named to frame the rising sun behind it. Here's an image that I want you to just on your own, think about answering this question. What's my subject? Is my subject this gnarled branch here? Is it the mountain in the background? What exactly is if I can't answer that question right away myself, even looking at my own image than it might be time to try a slightly different composition while I'm there, It's always easy to do this while you're there instead of getting back on the computer and going, oh, I should've gotten in tighter or zoomed out more or something like that. Work that subject. I zoomed in a little bit tighter and I ended up using the branch as a frame more than just, hey, there's a branch going through my image. I used it as a frame around this feature here called West Temple in Zion National Park. Since we're talking about framing our images, I want to show you what I consider good practice and bad practice. The image on the left has one tiny little petal cut off. And to me that just screams of, oops, I goofed it, I made a mistake and I cut off a tiny little piece. And so when you have a subject like this, either zoom out just a little bit so you can include the whole thing. And in the image on the right is basically my idea of if you're gonna cut it off, cut it off like you mean it, and make it look like it was intentional. And part of your compositional thinking. With the image on the right, I have a very different look of this flower. It's the same thing. I didn't turn the flower. I didn't change anything else. I just zoomed in tight and got a different composition, but I cut off all of these petals. Now the image is more about these two petals on the bottom, kind of reaching towards each other than it is the entire flower. So changing your composition can actually change the story that you're telling about an image or a scene. Let's move on to leading lines. 6. Leading Lines and Curves: All right, Let's talk about finding some leading lines and curves while we were out there photographing, was actually out doing a portrait shoot with some friends of mine and we went out on their boat. And as we were leaving the doc, I just saw the most awesome leading line right in front of me. Leading lines can be man-made. They can be part of nature and they can be streets or creeks or fences or anything that just kind of lead your eye through the photo. It can also create something called vanishing point. And that's where if you have a long road or walkway or river or something in front of you that extends off into the horizon. You can use that to your advantage. Now, you can emphasize this, increase that feeling of near to far if you shoot with a wide angle lens. And that's what I was doing here with this image because that walkway, it looks like it goes on for a good long while, but it was really only about 20 feet. You can exaggerate that by use of that wide-angle lens. And I placed the horizon down towards the bottom third or bottom quarter of my photo because that sky was just amazing. I wanted to place more emphasis on my sky then on my foreground. That's a choice that you have to make whenever you're out there photographing anything when you're including the sky. Is is that sky my focal point is it's something that is really beautiful and I want to focus my attention on it? Or do I want to place more emphasis on my foreground? Right here I had a leading line that was just Nature Made. It was this rock that we were standing on along the Blue Ridge Parkway. And again, I used that photographers of femoris in order to figure out where the sun was going to be coming up. So that while we had a little bit of that pre-dawn light and I could see what I was doing. I managed to create my composition before the sun came up knowing that that deep crack in the rock was going to be going off in that direction towards the horizon, towards where the sun, I mean, not directly pointing at it, but close enough creating that strong line or diagonal through my image here. A leading line can literally be mud. Fault. This is your, it's just mud. The sand and mud early in the morning here on the beach. Now this image, I have very little emphasis on my sky. And that is because my foreground was much more interesting. Up above that cloud line there. There was absolutely nothing going on in the sky. There were no more clouds. It was quite, quite boring. In a situation like that. I want to find something interesting in my foreground and I just loved the sand patterns here. If I can find a curve in nature, I will take advantage of it. This is, I believe called Virginia creeper and it turns this, it really bright red in November. I loved the contrast of the colors and the texture on this palmetto tree. Most of my landscape photos are taken on a tripod. This is one of the rare occasions where I was not using a tripod because it was actually on the side of the road and I was just shooting through my car windows. No tripod there. But most of the time I am on a tripod. That is one thing about landscape photography that you kinda gotta get used to. If you want really sharp imagery. In this image, you can see that the curve is kind of a combination of nature and man. So we've got a man-made pathway here, this little driveway here. And then nature kind of dropped all of these leaves on top of it and created, helped to create that curve as people drove over it, but not so much that everything disappeared. So I love that little curvy line here in the front of this image leading towards the background there. Went out to photograph sunset and the sense that it was just not really fascinating, not a lot of color. Again, I'm looking towards my foreground to find something more interesting. And here we are back to mode again, sand and patterns and textures. And I framed it at such an angle that I created a little bit of a curve running through this image with this tide pool. Wide-angle lenses are really fun for this type of thing. All right, So with this image, I want you to answer that question again. What's my subject? Landscape photography is work. We are constantly taking our gear off, putting our gear back in the backpack and trucking it through the woods or something like that, or hiking somewhere. And you stop and you set up your gear. I'm using a tripod and a good quality camera. And so there is some work involved. What I'm trying to frame up my image, I'm thinking in my head, what is it that really made me stop and want to take this photo? Is that this entire scene here or is it one particular part of this scene here? In this image I consider this kind of, it's like, okay, this is nice. It's a nice image and it's got some color in it and some reflections, and it's really pretty, but it's very difficult for me to kind of hone in on what exactly my subject is other than maybe swamp. But what it was The caught my attention. And maybe you want to stop and take a photo. Was that one little leaf all by itself staring at its reflection in the water like a little narcissistic leaf. If that is my subject. And I want to focus attention on that subject, this image is not really doing the trick. It's close, but it's not quite. So here I'm going to work that scene again. I'm going to zoom in on different parts and I'm going to come up with something a little bit different. This image, you can kind of tell what my subject is with this image. Now, it is on that leaf staring at himself. Isn't he cute? I still have enough color and contrast with the background that you can still tell that it's spring. A little splash of pink in there is. Okay. And all I really did in order to focus attention, and again, simplify the photo. That's what I did here between the last one and this one, I simplify the image. And all I had to do was just zoom in a little bit tighter. We talked about the rule of thirds earlier and how it's not really a rule, but you can always break it. But there is one rule that personally I live by and you don't have to, but this is just my advice. If the sky doesn't help you, it hurts you. This happens quite frequently when there is an overcast sky and you are trying to photograph something in your foreground here. The human eye is really drawn to areas where dark meets light, very bright areas, high contrast areas. This is one of the reasons why black and white photography is so compelling is because it's all about those contrasting areas. My eye notices that the brightest part of this image is that sky in the background. And that sky is white. It's blown out because it was overcast. And it's just not doing anything to help or enhance the subject, which is this waterfall. So I could crop it. Which is fine. If I don't like the sky, you can crop out the sky. If I didn't think ahead of time to recompose. And I get home and I look at my image, oh man, that's guys really bothering me. You can crop it. That's fine. But while I was out there, I recompose the photo. I kinda aimed the camera a little bit further down, included more of the foreground. That's kinda what happens there. And then I've essentially got rid of the offending element as far as I was concerned, which was that sky wanted to show you just a little side-by-side comparison of how changing your position just a little bit can affect how your foreground, middle ground, and your background relate to each other. And so on the image on the left, I am squatted down close to the rock. The rock and this area of green in here and this rock right here, they appear pretty close together. But this one stood up a little higher. Same Lenz, same focal length, same everything. I'm just standing up higher. Now I have created just a little bit of distance between this rock and that rock. And I've also included more green in-between the two of them. Neither one is right or wrong. I just want you to understand that while you were out there, part of working the scene is not only zooming in and out, but it's also changing your physical position. Photographing a little bit higher, a little bit lower, a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right. Now, I use a tripod almost a 100% of the time when I am shooting landscapes, but I do not compose my photo with the camera on the tripod because you literally, we'll put the camera on the tripod and then suddenly your static and you don't want to move or it's too much of a struggle, or too inconvenient to move that tripod and raise it and lower it and move it left and right. It's a pain. Avoid the annoyance and go ahead and find your composition just with your camera in front of your face, moving around and trying to figure out what your subject is, how I'm going to focus my attention on how I'm gonna simplify that photo. And then when you see it, more often than not, you will just know it, you'll feel it. All right, that's what I'm looking for. And then you bring the tripod in and you snap away. Don't forget to look for new perspectives while you are out there. This is kind of a famous tree near Charleston, South Carolina called angel. Ok. And we're not allowed to use tripods underneath the canopy of this tree. They are afraid that they're going to hurt the root system because this tree is so old. And me being me, I want to use my tripod really badly. So here I am. It's late in the day, in the winter and the sun is getting low in the sky. And so my light is getting low and I'm shooting at f H20 in order to get everything in focus in this image. And so my shutter speed is too long for me to handhold this photo. What I ended up doing was I put the camera on my camera bag. I just set my camera bag on the ground, set my camera on top of it, ended up coming up with some really unique angles on this tree, some unusual perspectives. So getting underneath it gave me some new viewpoints, things that I hadn't thought of before. Little bit of a quiz here. Can you answer these questions? What compositional elements did I use in this image now this is an infrared image, so don't worry too much about the color. What compositional elements did I use? Do you guys see the rule of thirds anywhere? Maybe where the horizon is placed? Do you guys see leading lines? Maybe the roadway here kinda leading into the image. Do you guys see framing with those trees, those overhanging oak trees with the Spanish moss. Absolutely. So you don't have to use just one compositional element. You can use multiple elements together to help enhance your photo. Here's another image. What kind of compositional elements that we've learned about so far? Do you see here maybe the rule of thirds. Perhaps a leading line. Leading lines don't necessarily have to be completely straight or man-made. Nice little fence or a dock or something like that or a road. Sometimes it's just a series of natural elements that line up together. Let's talk about the next compositional element, diagonals. 7. The Beauty of Diagonals: All right, Let's talk about one of my favorite compositional elements, diagonals. Diagonals don't necessarily have to be an actual line running through your image at a diagonal. What I mean about using diagonals is actually placing foreground and background elements at a diagonal from each other or foreground, middle ground and background elements at a diagonal from each other. So with this image, I loved this isolated branch in the foreground. And I wanted to incorporate it into this composition with the lighthouse in the background, but I didn't want the branch to overlap the lighthouse be directly in front of the lighthouse. So I set it off to the right side and placed the lighthouse off to the left side so that the two primary elements in this image would be at a diagonal from each other. And it just helps make it a more compelling image. And of course, I sat there with a remote release and just took photo after photo after photo after photo. Just finding the perfect wave because that's how I roll. Now this image up on the, the border between Tennessee and North Carolina along the Appalachian Trail is this area called Roan Mountain. And these are referred to as the Rhone grasses or the grasses of roan. And they have these wonderful little patterns and they look like wispy fields of wheat sometimes. And I was trying to incorporate the grasses and that tree and then this leaf fell down. No, I did not place it. There have been accused of that, But no, I did not place it there. It actually fell down. And so I positioned myself so that the leaf and the tree, again, two primary elements within the photo, were placed at a diagonal from each other because it just works better than placing them front-to-back. In this image, the rock and my foreground and the waterfall in the background again. Ones on the right, one is more, more or less on the left. I've created a die, a diagonal between the two main elements there. This is about a 92nd exposure down at the beach. And when you do these long exposures, you get streaking lights or streaking Clouds. Anything that's moving will create that pattern. Now, it was just luck that that's the direction that the clouds were moving. So it ended up creating this absolutely gorgeous diagonal running right through the sky of my image here. And just as a side note, where's my tree? Close to the rule of thirds, exactly. All of those elements they play together and they work together. I have lots of diagonals running through this image. I've got the diagonals of the reeds here being washed up on shore. And the waves themselves are running in a diagonal through the image. And I also have a diagonal between this wave that is breaking through the reeds here, which is what I was trying to accomplish. I sat there with a remote release and I was taking lots of pictures waiting for one of the waves to just kind of break through and create this little plume of water here. That's kind of a focal point of my image here, as well as the son in the background. And those two elements are at a diagonal from each other as well. It just helps make this image work altogether. Remember what I said about how much sky and how much foreground you might want to consider doing it, sunrises and sunsets. Here is another example of that. The sky was incredibly boring. There were no clouds going on in there. So I didn't want to place too much emphasis on that. I wanted to place more emphasis on my foreground. So I found something interesting on the ground to photograph. Out here on the beach for sunrise after the sun came up and it was getting really bright and no longer really wanted to shoot into the sun anymore. At this point, I started photographing the ground itself because with the sun being really low to the horizon, it was casting these gorgeous shadows on the sand patterns here in front of me. And so I actually wanted to make sure that all of these little curves right here, we're running at a diagonal through my image rather than straight up and down or straight left and right. It just creates a more compelling photo, backlighting. Remember when we talked about backlighting being a more dramatic because of all of these deep shadows and bright highlights. That's what I took advantage of here. Here I have an image taken from my kayak, and I've actually created a diagonal by chance, the two gentlemen up on the shore photographing these dolphins just happened to be there. And so my position where I was with my kayak, I zoomed in and took an image of these dolphins strand feeding. And they make a nice diagonal between these photographers in the back so the photographers can add that human element to my image. In case you're curious about the whole strand feeding thing. It actually is a learned behavior by the Atlantic bottlenose dolphins along the southeast coast. National Geographic came down here and did a whole program on it. It's really fascinating and such an amazing thing to see in person. Now this is a composite image and it's actually an image that was taken with two different lenses. The foreground here is taken with a wide angle lens because I wanted to make sure that I took an image during this lunar eclipse of something that was there in my foreground at the time that the lunar eclipse has happened. And so I was along the coast and there was this seawall here. And I just used it as part of my foreground. And I actually took that image during the day after the moon had set in, the sun came up and just darkened it severely so that it could be part of this composition. These moon photos are all taken at about 300 millimeters because that was the longest lens I had at the time. So while I can just show you a photo of different phases of the moon, I wanted to bring a sense of place into my final image, and that's why I included something of the foreground of where I was when I took the image because I was right there on the shore. Lots of diagonals running through this one. I've got the diagonal of this rock. I mean, you can call it a diagonally, you can call it a leading line. It is both and it draws your eye into the image. But there's also a diagonal between the two brightest portions of this image, which is the water right here and the sun peeking through the trees right here. Now this is one of those if the sky doesn't help you at hurt you. I actually think despite the fact that this guy is mostly white back there that because the sun is in it and it's got that little starburst and it's actually helping this image. But that's personal preference in line. The diagonals in this image are a little bit more subtle, but there's still there. I have a diagonal just with the grasses in the foreground here. All these marsh grasses leading toward into the image and toward the Rising Sun here in the background, curves, lines, diagonals. These things are sometimes very subtle and you wouldn't even necessarily notice them as a compositional element, but they're there. I got a couple of crisscrossing diagonals in this image, I've got the diagonal of the water, which is this nice blue element in my foreground here running through my image at an angle. And I also have the diagonal between these grasses. It's called Sweetgrass in my foreground here and the setting sun off in the distance. This image has almost like a diagonal zigzag running through it. So I've got something prominent in my foreground. And the use of a polarizer filter helped me see these colors because it reduces reflections on wet objects like this. I've got this nice red object in my foreground. And then it kinda goes at a diagonal to a prominent element right here. And then it bounces back over to the right side, which is the waterfall here at Lynn bill falls on the Blue Ridge Parkway. This one's got kind of a diagonal, kind of a zigzag, almost back-and-forth, but just enough to keep you interested. I hope you have a solid understanding of diagonals. We're moving on. 8. Visual Tension and Extra Space: Alright, let's talk a little bit about digital tension and needing some extra space. Just in case you're curious, this image looks a little bit grainy because I added a texture in post to that. But visual tension is an obscure topic to discuss with composition. And I almost, almost reluctant to bring it up here because it is hard to describe. But it is creating tension between different areas of your photo or diff, different elements within your photo. Things that are visually almost pulling away from each other or reaching out for each other, creating that feeling of tension with this image. It has a little bit of visual tension because those two leaves in the middle are reaching toward each other but not quite touching. And I did that on purpose. I photographed this in a light box in my home, so I control the light in the background and all of these things, so I didn't have to worry about wind or anything. I love photographing and a lightbox. I moved these two flowers in such a way so that the petals are overlapping. And then every time these leaves crisscrossed each other, I got annoyed and I started shifting things are shifting my own position in order to make sure that they weren't crossing each other. And it's because I wanted to make them appear as if they were reaching out towards each other, almost giving it a human feel. There is visual tension in this image because I have got to elements that are reaching in opposite directions of each other. So I have the wave here that is reaching off to the left and it's curving over like this to the left. And I have the cloud here that is arching over and curving to the right. They are reaching in opposite directions. That is purely by chance the previous image, I did it very intentionally, but sometimes you will find that this just happens in nature. And so I was standing here photographing the waves hitting the wall and then coming back and splashing up and being backlit by the Sun as soon as the sun went down, these waves got very, very boring. But having them being backlit and lit up orange like this really enhanced the photo. And I just happened to notice as I'm scrolling through my images during my image review, is that this one had that tension and I noticed it right away. I couldn't put my finger on exactly why there was visual tension, but I noticed that this image just made me stop and go, Oh, I like that one better than all of the other ones next to it. And it was because of that, it was because of the Yin and Yang here, the pole of those two elements of the image away from each other. We have something similar here. This is one of my earliest nature photos when I was just starting out. And I didn't really recognize it at the time that this image did in fact have visual tension. So I've got something in focus in my foreground, out-of-focus in my background that are reaching in opposite directions of each other. Just like that pull of those two elements in the previous image, I have crisscrossing patterns opposite directions between my foreground and my background in this image. And it also creates visual tension. Like I said, I know that's a little bit obscure. But the more that you practice landscape photography and the more you study composition, the more you'll start to recognize that in nature. Like I said, sometimes it's just by accident. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about needing some space. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but when you are photographing something like wildlife, birds or animals or even your pets at home that you don't want to cut the photo off at the nose or the end of the beak or something like that. Especially if it's a burden flight. You don't want to cut that photo off right in front of the beak because it just feels stunted. It feels like it should have more space, give it room to breathe. A lot of elements in nature are exactly the same way. This image here, I've got this tree which is a prominent portion of my image here, and it is clearly leaning off to the left. If it's leaning to the left and it has that inherit motion off to the left, but I'm gonna place the base of it off to the right. I can give it that room to breathe, room to grow. And of course I've got a nice diagonal with the boats here. Just, just fun. Here I have another image where this tree was carrying more blooms on the right side than on the left. And so I wanted to give more, more visual weight to that. And so I placed at the base of the tree off to the left of the image and let all of those lines just kinda go off to the right and give it room to move. Same thing with this macro shot. I could align this up right in the middle, but when I did and I did actually do that while I was in the field. And this again is part of that working the scene, even with something this small. I'm watching my background, I'm watching my depth of field, making sure that things are nice soft focus behind it. But that little petal that just wants to just split out off to the left side there. I felt like it had character or personality. And so I wanted to give it a little bit of extra room off to that left side there. This was just gorgeous, made me stop in my tracks while I was walking along the trail. There's these three little zillions, three or four is alias here, right in front of this palmetto leaf. And so I don't need to see the base of this leaf. That's not what this image is about. It's not about the roots, it's not about the ground. It's not about all the dead leaves that were sitting all over the ground in front of this. That's not helpful to my scene. I wanted to emphasize that inherent direction that the palmetto leaves we're going and placing those flowers where they're right there on the rule of thirds, aren't they? Just keeps I'm sneaking in there. It doesn't it? But I wanted to give it room to breathe. So I've got, I've got leading lines, I've got diagonals, I've got room to breathe, and I'll go the rule of thirds, all these things coming into play together. I'm up on a rock and I'll show you that picture in a minute. That's always fun up on a rock. And I just am trying to figure out how to make this rock wall here kinda work as leading lines and coming into my scene there. And there was this little truck right in front of me that has some color to it. I backed up and I used that little foreground element to kind of curve it had on that lovely little curve to it and pointed right into my scene there and really enhanced the photo. And so this is all the trouble that I went through to get that photo. And clearly, I care more about my gear than I do my backside. It's all about protecting the gear when it's raining, right? Learning composition is hard and it takes a long time, but I want you to have fun while you're out there. You can practice it in your backyard, you can practice it in your living room. It does not matter where, but definitely practice it because you will get better with time. Thanks for being here. 9. Conclusion: Hi everyone. Congratulations on finishing the course. I want to leave you with this when you are studying composition and when you're really trying to learn how to improve your landscape photography, I want you to take the time when you are looking at images online or other people's work. And I want you to stop and think to yourself, what is it compositionally about that image that I really like? Is that the way that the photographer framed the photo? Is that the colors? Is it their use of foreground material or a great sky? All of these elements that we've talked about today, you will start to see them in other images online. And it's just a good practice to study that in the works of other photographers, people that you admire and learn from it, I hope you enjoy doing the project. I'm really excited to see what you guys come up with and I hope to see you again sometime soon. Thanks again.