Breathtaking Brecon Beacons

Pen-y-fan

love the reflected blues in the pool

Myself at top of Pen-y-fan

Tried this composition too

Love these wide vistas achieved by cropping

These shots are from my hike in the Brecon Beacons yesterday, I just love the awesome and breathtaking scenery. I took my Nikon D80 with my 18-55mm lens to capture the wide panoramas (not to mention the compact size to carry). I couldn't resist the opportunity to upload these photo's which I love. We small and insignificant people are just lost against the wilderness and natural landscapes. I was very lucky with some beautiful skies to match, a 10 mile walk and a great day

Awesome and breathtaking landscapes

Fabulous valley

Back along the ridge

Silhouette and highlights from evening sun

Rugged textures smoothed to horizon

Vertical cropping

Exercise - Balance

In this first photo I feel the balance works really well, the photo's centred around the trumpet player with his head as a slightly off centre but with his mouth and the mouthpiece forming the very central point of the composition. His arm is balanced against the white horn set higher on the right hand side. Tonally the bright pink shirts are balanced against the blue lighting at the very top. I like this composition as it all seems to sit well and has a delay between looking at the main subject and then noticing the second horn player in the background.

This photo, again taken at Oradour-sur-Vayres fete in the summer, has a nice balance. The main subject acts as a pivot point which is balanced like weighing scales with the similar number of drummers either side. Tonally the white suits just below the horizontal centre line  is balanced against the light sky and the green foliage at the top. The splashes of red and black against the white suits add lots of interest and detail.        

The balance in this photo adds to the visual impact, the weight of the giant hay bale, which is somewhat balanced by the struggling characters, makes the photo heavy on the left which adds to the feeling of motion of the bale being pushed out of the frame. This works for me. Tonally the light sky vertically balances the straw colour at the bottom of the frame.

This picture has a rotational feeling around the central acorn. Vertically the tones of the pink polo shirt are balanced against the darker hair tone. I like the feeling of focus on the acorn not only from the viewer but from the subject in the frame too.

The main balance in this castle landscape (Raglan Castle in Wales looking across to the Welsh mountains) is the light airy sky vertically balanced against the solid density of stone walls and towers. There is a rotational balance also with the walls centred around the patch of grass with its few distant characters.

I chose this photo of my son Christopher as I found this a photo that works but doesn't feel easily balanced. The slight diagonals of the flag poles and the flags makes the frame lean and feel heavy to the right hand side, almost as though the frame is tipping over. It feels as if Chris is holding the photo upright.

Exercise - Positioning the horizon

 In this exercise I have taken a series of photos to investigate the effect of changing the position of the horizon. The scene across the field of rape seed flowers with the striking yellow contrasting against the blue-grey of the sky seems to demonstrate this nicely.

This first photo gives maximum prominence to the sky and the eye is drawn down to the small strip of yellow and the few small details of the barn and tree. My feelings on taking this were it gave me a feeling of expectation, like something was going to happen in the sky. It also made me think of a flat landscape like the American plains. I would probably 'burn-in' the sky at the top to add to a more dramatic feeling as there is little of interest at the moment.

In this photo the horizon is positioned approximately 1/3 from the bottom. This I feel is nicely balanced in it's ratio with 2/3 sky to land. Also the barn sitting on the horizon at the 1/3 from the right really works. The composition of this picture works well and fits with the principle of harmonious balance and fit in with the 'Fibonacci divisions' (Freeman, 2007, The photographer's eye). I feel that this composition is a very 'safe' option and produces a pleasing comfortable result but doesn't inspire any tension or dramatic feelings just a 'watercolour cosy-ness'

This pic was supposed to be with the horizon at exactly the midpoint which I though I had taken through the view finder but I think that I naturally compensated away from this. So I am disappointed that this doesn't demonstrate the static and possibly boring composition and the horizon is actually quite nicely set at just above the halfway line. The foreground of ruts in the mud actually brings in a new dimension of interest and makes you feel really 'in' the landscape.

The horizon in this shot is now set at 1/3 from the top of the frame. This feels nicely balanced and now the eye is drawn to the deeply rutted earth in the foreground with some diagonal tension applied by the direction of the ruts. The Rape flower yellow now just adds in a dramatic band of colour almost becoming the horizon with the trees and barn adding some nice detail to break up the horizon line. I like the results and think this is my favourite of the compositions.

In this last shot the horizon line is nearly at the top of the frame. The eye is drawn instantly to the band of yellow and the top of the frame. Also there is some good detail in the ruts my overriding feeling is that I would want to re frame the shot so to me it doesn't work and is my least favourite of the series.

Ref;  Freeman, M. (2007) The Photographer's Eye A single point UK ILEX

Today's reflection

I need to take some more photo's for the 'positions in the frame exercise' as the ones I took in the early summer. I have now uploaded the last couple of exercises photo's and realised that I have used blue boats in both, is this a stylistic theme I am developing or am I just being boring using scenes that are convenient locally. I want to take some more atmospheric photos for future blog posts which is going to mean some early mornings or sunset shots to get some interesting natural light.
I haven't done much sketching yet and think that I need to do this as I think it would benefit my general drawing skills.

Tonight I've re-read the guide to the Harvard Referencing system as I want to start putting some references to my background reading in my posts.

And this is my favourite photo for today while I'm complaining about boats, I caught these two boatmen chatting and smoking on the river which I thought was an interesting boat-related people study.

This was taken on my max zoom of 300mm ISO 400 f/5.6 1/320 sec

Exercise - Focal lengths

In this exercise I have taken 4 photo's using for different focal lengths on my zoom lens in order to appreciate the amount of view that can be taken in at each setting.

Photo 1

 focal length 78mm

2

focal length 95mm

  

3

focal length 195mm

4

 focal length 300mm

Photo 1. This was taken fairly casually and gives plenty of view of the boat in it's setting. I would probably crop some of the edges slightly to remove superfluous detail to make this scene work slightly better.

Photo 2. I decided to take the other 3 pictures landscape as I thought the portrait orientation of the first pic wouldn't work as I got in close. Photo 2  I feel is boring because the subject is in the dead centre spot ( Freeman, 2007) and there is a lot of river foreground which too isn't particularly interesting.

Photo 3. I think this photo works really well with the dynamic tension introduced in the background with the diagonal rock strata meeting the river edge and the dynamic flow in the river. I think that if I'd taken the photo from a slightly lower position then the top of the boat would have been above the line of the edge of the river and broken that line. This I feel would have been more aesthetically pleasing. The red buoy adds some nice colour contrast and of a similar colour tone to the lifebelt balances the detail in the pic.

Photo 4. With the boat filling most of the frame but at a slight angle which means it doesn't appear static and flat. There is again a little tension from the diagonals of the rock strata which works well. I feel that again a slightly lower position as in Photo 3 would have just given that little improvement.

Ref;  Freeman, M. (2007) The Photographer's Eye A single point UK ILEX

Exercise Fitting the frame to the subject

In this exercise I am to experiment with the subject occupying different areas of the frame. I opted for a nice little boat anchored in the River Wye at Tintern, one of my favourite local beauty spots for photo shoots.

Photo 1

This is a general quick shot taken without too much thought, it pictures the boat nicely but the background of the river is not particularly interesting

 



 Photo 2

I decided to tilt the camera to get the whole boat in (including the buoy) as big as possible to almost fill the entire frame. I feel this shot works quite well and the non-level shot doesn't really detract and in fact adds to the geometry of the boat in a positive way.

 

 Photo 3

This close in takes most of the subject to the edge of the frame which is great for detail and by keeping some of the edges (which wasn't in the brief) retains the fact that it is a boat. I couldn't zoom in any further due to the limits of focal length on my zoom lens anyway as it was impossible to walk on the water! The technical answer would have been a more powerful zoom but the photo is effective anyway

 

 Photo 4

This was taken with the subject occupying approx a 6th of the frame to see the boat in it's rather beautiful surroundings. I have done two versions of this picture in Portrait and Landscape as they both work effectively. I particularly like the boats shadow on the water and the bridge in the distance on 4a and I like the dynamic flow in 4b due to the curve in the river. Critically I feel like both of these shots have worked but it would have been nice to have taken them with more atmospheric lighting either early morning or late evening as the overhead sunlight makes the photo's a little flat.

 

 Photo 4b

Summer's over

Well the summer hols are now over and it's work again tomorrow. I am well behind with this blog and now need to FOCUS. Tonight I am getting really organised downloading all my photo's and catching up with where I am and what needs to be done.
I have restarted my paper-scribble-log as I can put some more personal and less thought out enteries and scribbles there.

I have decided to include in this little post my favourite photo from the summer:
This was taken at the Annual Fete in Oradour-Sur-Vayres in the Limousin area of France.
The things I like about this spontaniously taken shot are;

1) The forward marching movement of the drummers is accentuated by the arrow shaped lighter tones of the jackets (formed due to the perspective of the distancing line of drummers) giving movement from left to right.
2)The depth of field highlights one particular character instantly and then you look around the other faces. It also adds to the blurring of the nearest drumstick which keeps the lively action in the photograph.
3 I not only like the overall colours in the picture but also the smart uniforms and drums gives an overall pleasing tonal result.

My own criticism of this shot is that it may work better by having the very top cropped as the roof isn't parrallel with the frame which is displeasing to my eyes. This could be easily corrected but I have decided to show the full frame 'warts and all'