Landscape Photography Practice: How to compose by feel

hi i'm alistair ben and you're watching express photography thank you very much for tuning in again um last week we did a really popular video on note taking and how it can help you to develop your seeing if you haven't checked that out i'll put the link up here and in the notes below but today i want to take it to the next stage when we actually stop wanting just to make notes but to actually start composing and arranging and making photographs so what i want to do today is i want to take you back to two locations that have been super important to me over the years one of them is kevkefell in iceland that i first went to back in about 2011 2012 something like that really before it exploded as a location and the other one is a beach on the north coast of spain where i used to live actually very very close to where i used to live and what i want to do is take you to those locations show you what they look like and the photographs that i made at those locations over a succession of years so a number of different visits and how my vision and my interpretation of those locations changed and why i was composing the way i did so hopefully you're going to find that really really useful and maybe allow you to approach your own composing and image making with a slightly different perspective that will free you up make you more relaxed and allow you to be more creative and more unique and individual so let's take a look at the first location this is kirkeville this is the most famous or one of the most famous places on iceland and the first time i went there there was nobody there i actually camped here for a number of nights over a few weeks i was on iceland for six weeks in total and i camped at this location and during my entire time there i met one other photographer and we were so excited to be together that we actually spent the whole night photographing together because it was such a unique opportunity so this is what you're going to see if you go and this is the more or less one of the first photographs i made at this place because it was the photo i had seen it was the composition i had seen from a few of my friends who'd already gone to that location to explore it now of course this is at night with the aurora there's a certain amount of technique required and it's a four by five basically that four by five composition has eliminated stuff on the right or the left that i didn't think was helping the composition it wasn't adding anything just to the left of the frame there's actually a bridge that comes into scene and just on the right there is the town of gurunda fjordur my apologies to any of my icelandic watchers for that dreadful pronunciation so by cropping it to the 4x5 i'm eliminating stuff on the left and right of the frame this is 14 millimeters so it's quite a wide view and so that is the first step i think of composition is what is in the frame versus what is out of the frame and this is where zoom lenses can be very very helpful and also cropping aspect ratios can be very helpful so it's really a case of what is this photograph about what is the main subject or what are the main subjects how are they going to relate to each other and is there anything that we can eliminate from the sides or the top or the bottom that isn't enhancing or complementing those elements or creating some kind of juxtaposition or conflict i think one of the biggest pressures we have when we go to these types of locations is pressure there's a pressure to make photographs most people go to iceland once if you're a professional photographer and you run workshops there of course you spend weeks and weeks and weeks of the year on the island and you're going back to these locations time and time again every time the weather's different every time the sun's in a different location uh the aurora no aurora cloud no clouds sunrise sunset good conditions bad conditions pouring rain all of these conditions you get to experience and you can kind of cherry pick and find the ones that are most resonant with you most people don't have that luxury and it can become a huge pressure to be there to make photographs and unfortunately there is no antidote to that other than acceptance and i would strongly urge you to be open to a variety of conditions so that if you are there when it's suboptimal you can make photographs that are more um interesting for those conditions versus images that are reliant on amazing conditions so what i'm going to do is i'm going to scroll through a few images here on lightroom and look at different conditions different opportunities and what i did in those conditions this one here is obviously uh the climb the real glory shot i mean at this time of year the sun was setting behind kirky fell and it was allowing for a starburst that was allowing for an opportunity that doesn't happen at different times of the year this is a seasonal specific thing now obviously when you do get conditions like this it's a case of optimizing those in terms of this this composition there's a flow of light from the first waterfall to the second waterfall to the third waterfall to the sun everything else is quite dark i've subdued everything else with dodging and burning to just allow those highlights to tell the story and i think it's super important for us to understand why are we pointing our camera at something and what is it that makes a photograph appealing this transition of light this hierarchy of light the way our eyes will follow the light is probably one of the most important triggers of engagement if an image doesn't have something that's light it tends to be quite flat and quite boring once i've been there quite a few times different opportunities presented themselves now this is a it's become a bit of a standard shot now but back in 2013 or whatever when i took this photograph it was still quite new to do things like this facing due north of course you get the spirals of the circles night photography is a skill not just the technical aspect of nailing composing in the dark focusing in the dark trying to expose in the dark understanding your camera's limitations uh dealing with everything in the dark is obviously very very challenging but the thing that's most difficult is composing in the dark because you have to know how the stars are going to move during a period of time and how they're going to then influence other elements of the composition i was quite happy with the traffic going through this frame here because it's created this these kind of weird light trails and again it's that engagement with light that is really drawing us into this photograph i really like this one it's funny when i was starting to prepare this this presentation i found this image and it really resonated with me and i've quickly processed it to reflect the feeling that i wanted it to try and convey um any photograph can be analyzed after the effect we can go in and say well this is rule of thirds or this is flow or this is diagonals or this is leading lines for that horrible word that i don't like we can analyze any photograph but when we compose in the field it's feel you have to com well you don't have to you my preference is to compose by feel based upon what it is that's resonating with you what is it about the scene that's making you point your camera at it so i've talked many many times over the years about the five triggers these are the five things that i find in the landscape that are the things that we always point our cameras at if you've watched this channel before you should know them by heart so say them along with me luminosity contrast geometry color and atmosphere auroras are colorful the beautiful ethereal green tones they add something to this photograph if there was no aurora we'd still have star trails we'd have a blue sky we would lose an element of that color contrast there's a contrast between the color between the green and the blue luminosity we have areas of light and dark we have contrast we have areas that draw our attention in because they're more detailed than other areas the geometry of that beautiful mountain the witch's hat kirk you fell um it's so impressive that why wouldn't you want to point your camera at it and there's no reason why you shouldn't point your camera even though there are a hundred million billion trillion zillion gazillion photographs of kirkefell the first time you go there it will blow your mind so i encourage everybody to embrace all experiences especially if you're experiencing them for the first time and it may well be the trip of a lifetime i used to wander around this area quite a lot on my own and exploring an area from different perspectives is a hugely important thing now me by this composition by moving uh kierkefell to the left-hand side of the center line it's drawing our attention in a slightly unnatural way it's very traditional to put things slightly to the right of center or on that third line and and to draw the eye from right from left to right that that's a fairly standard sort of compositional technique which has become very normal for us to do by putting it on the left-hand side it creates a feeling of tension the cool atmosphere here no dramatic clouds very flat light you know nothing dramatic going on a little bit of snow on the mountain creating some three-dimensionality all the elements are coming together in quite a harmonious way so hopefully you'll see that you can do anything you want as long as it feels right to you or it's conveying the message that you want once again it's eliminating things on the left and right and top and bottom to isolate the frame down to the things that make the most impact and are important to you this is a very different photograph of course everything freezes in the winter the waterfalls freeze this is a kind of precarious place to go but even on a day where it was so flat and so sucked in with cloud i still felt i was able to add interest to this composition and make a photograph that fits cropping it into a 16x9 it increases that element of expansiveness the aspect ratio if it's tall and thin it's an emphasizing height if it's long and narrow is emphasizing width and expansiveness the cool tones the frozen snow and ice the the gloominess the moodiness the airy etherealness the brightness of it it creates a photograph that has an emotional fingerprint it has feel and that feel is what you should be feeling when you're composing it's about the feeling the resonance and the atmosphere that you're trying to convey that feeling that you're trying to convey the arrangement of composition is the arrangement of feel this is the last image i'm going to show you from kirkephel and i think it really highlights how ingenious you can get if you're prepared to explore an area uh when i made this photograph um and actually i've never seen another one like it since um i really was excited by this photograph i had to crawl into a kind of a little snug space and a cave to get right underneath there with a very wide angled lens to capture the icicles coming down and then framing kirkefell through the middle of that hole i really like this photograph again it was taken on a day that was so windy so rainy so sleety so miserable that there was actually only one other person on the workshop that was running that was prepared to leave the house it was so horrible everyone else we're gonna stay in and drink coffee all day and do some processing so even in bad weather get out the rain get out the wind you can find compositions and again it's a case of understanding what the photograph is about what is the story you're trying to tell what's the memory that you're trying to remember what is the note that you're trying to reference again if you haven't watched last week's note-taking video i urge you to go and do that because this is going to become a sequence of things that we should be practicing to develop our skills as expressive landscape photographers i'm going to move now to another location this is the north coast of spain and i have a very very good friend who lives there and i've seen his photographs online in a forum that him and i used to to uh participate in uh and this is going way back to like the late 2000s uh so like 2009 i think 2008 and i moved to the north coast of spain and lived there for a year and i went there because i was making my night photography book and i wanted lots of seascape night photos so i went to the north coast of spain this photograph is the photograph that more or less inspired me to go or this is my version of it this waterfall falling off these beautiful rocks into the water and then these gorgeous sea stacks in the background there beautiful location one of my favorite places on the planet uh if you want to go there check out our workshops and when we start running them again we'll be going to the north coast of spain um but this was the photograph that inspired me to go really as i was there making a night photography book um i was going there a lot at night under different moon conditions full moons half moons all the different phases of the moon to make different types of photographs because that's what night photography is is understanding the phases of the moon so i was making photographs at night that were quite quite new quite fresh you know because this is a beach that hadn't really been photographed at night before so it was very easy for me to go there and make lots of unique photographs still using the elements that i had gone there for the waterfall the sea stacks but juxtaposing them with the night light and the stars in terms of the composition of things like this this one's a little awkward the waterfall is cut at the bottom there it doesn't if there's a bit more space underneath there this one makes me cringe a little bit to be perfectly honest looking back and it was taken 10 years ago so i can cringe a little um but i love the light and the this thing we talked about a few moments ago this hierarchy of light is still telling us where to look the luminosity of the surf hitting those sea stacks the full moon hitting those c-stacks is telling us where to look now while i was making this exposure i was so drawn to the c-stacks that i changed my position somewhat changed the lens from a wide-angle lens to a zoom lens and made this photograph which is very much a signature photograph of mine it was it was a photograph that had a massive impact on my career it became really well known and um it became the cover of my night photography but it still has a very strong place in my heart i do love this photograph so compositionally i've eliminated everything else the beach the waterfall the surf uh the the you know the the whole surroundings the sky is diffused the sky is in there um and i made a photograph that focuses on geometry uh the up and downiness of the pinnacles the luminosity in terms of the surf and the interaction the contrast there's a ton of atmosphere in here water over a long exposure is always going to be an atmospheric element and that's hugely important and that's something that i think we're going to come on to in next week's video but more of that later and of course the color that blue sort of moonlight hour where the full moon was just bathing everything in this cool gorgeous light so those five triggers of engagement are massively important to our arrangement because how we arrange those five triggers gives as i said before with the kirkefell images the arrangement of those five elements is what composition is it's not stuff it's not c stacks or pinnacles in c because the number of comments i used to get saying oh what an amazing mountain range in the midst people thought this was a a mountain range like the rockies or something like that and i got a lot of comments about that so it's a bit ambiguous in that regard the longer i went back to this location of course you can't just keep taking the same shot again and again and again i mean i've got many photographs of those pinnacles in different light and different conditions so i started to look at other places you get to wander around and explore um and sometimes it's a case of finding an arrangement of rocks with the way the water interacts with them and then you use the pinnacles and the background as a kind of a reference point an environmental reference point i used to call these pinnacles a geographical indicator you can tell i've got a scientific background i know where i am in the world when i see those pinnacles and many other people who know that coast know the beach that i'm on but they're only there as a geographical reference and obviously the jagged teeth are always going to catch the eye especially when juxtaposed with some warmer light so again composition is um a diary of engagement it's a reference for our exploration of an area and we shouldn't be so hung up about making photographs we should be hung up about experiencing the place being excited by being there making notes that excite us and then realizing that the notes can be turned into short stories or essays or even books with the more that we throw into them so i think to to recap really the five triggers of engagement are present in every photograph in varying degrees there's always luminosity to some degree and unless you've left the lens cap on in which case there's just very low luminosity luminosity contrast geometry color and atmosphere those are the triggers that are going to make you engage with the scene if you want to explore these concepts more the 25 discount practice 25 is still valid for anything in the shop you can buy the original book luminosity and contrast and the color of meaning and then put the whole thing together with the dodge and burn master class where i teach all the techniques that i know to emphasize what photographs are about that's what dodging and burning is it's using our skill to slightly subdue an area or bring up an area to lead the eye through the frame to take it where we want it to go to allow our viewers to experience our emotional journey through the frame and somehow get a sense or a feeling of what it's like to be there or the the the love or the passion that we have for the landscape i would strongly suggest that you watch all the videos in this series talking about the power of practice and the importance of practice through to how to see better how to arrange and compose better and next week i'm going to look at what i consider to be one of the most incredible impressive superpowers of creativity and that's how to manage time time is the key to expressive photography it's the way to really emphasize the feel of a photograph where something is moving if anything is moving in a frame we can use time to change the feel of that photograph so make sure you tune in next week where i'll be exploring the superpower of time but hopefully you'll have got something out of today i know i haven't talked about any rules i haven't talked about any guidelines i haven't told you how to compose because your creativity is about how you see how you note take how you feel what it is that you want to say i can't teach you that i can't tell you what notes to make and i can't tell you where to put things in the frame otherwise it's not your creativity you're just alistair ben clones and there's nothing i want less in the world than alistair ben clones there's one of me is quite enough thank you very much so hopefully you found this useful do the old usual thumbs up subscribe bell notification leave a comment it's always massively appreciated when i hear your words of encouragement thank you very much for watching tune in again next week for the superpower of time and remember to click on the links below either to watch some of the earlier videos or to take advantage of the 25 discount on our learning material which hopefully will do for you what is done for thousands of other people around the world to help them see the world in a better and more exciting way and make photographs with meaning and passion that are yours thanks for joining and see you all again very very soon best wishes bye for now [Music] you

Channel: Expressive Photography

Views: 5,665

Keywords: Lightroom, Photography, Alister Benn, Landscape photography, how to, tutorials, composition, educate, expressive photography, barriers, vision, experience, tutorial, lesson, be better, happy, motivation, inspiration, inspire, Luminosity, Processing, Understanding light, Light, landscape, emotion, personal development, contrast, Transitions, Adobe, creativity, abstraction, local, dodge and burn, masterclass, Kase Filters, Wolverine, Magnetic, K9, Grads, Polariser, remote, learning to see, seeing, looking

Id: dcrVAQzc96o

Length: 22min 11sec (1331 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021