 Piper Lehman |
Framing/Cropping for Sunsets and/or Reflections I am a beginning photographer. I'm wondering if you have any advice about the proper way to crop or frame a reflected sky/sunset photo. Is it generally understood by more advanced photographers to frame the subject so that the reflection is equal to the real sky in the photo, or is this purely a matter of personal preference? Is is considered bad form to exclude all but the reflected image from the frame? Just wondering about the rules, if any, so that I have some sort of rule-breaking parameters to go by. I like to break the rules whenever possible, but don't want to go too far off the page, you know. thnx in advance,
|
|
|
|
||
|
Jeff S. Kennedy |
I am not aware of any hard and fast rules for this. If you like to "break the rules" I hope you do it because it looks better and not just because it makes you feel good to break the rules. How you compose a reflection picture depends on what you want out of the shot. What is the most important feature of the shot you want to emphasize? Is the reflection the main point? If so you could focus solely on it and eliminate everything else. Is the reflection just the icing on the cake? Then include it but don't worry if you crop some out. I prefer complete reflections most of the time. This is your art. Compose it the way YOU want it to look.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Piper Lehman |
Hi Jeff, and thanks for responding. I suppose I wasn't clear about wanting to break the rules. Maybe I should've said "bend" instead. Or perhaps "taking creative liberties" works even better. :) Thanks for the advice and suggestions. I would appreciate your comments on my work. Hoping to add mo-betta ones in the near future. :) thnx again,
|
|
|
|
||
|
John A. Lind |
I will weigh in on this too. Jeff's dead on with the fact that you should visualize what you want the image to be and then work to make it that way. I think of the artistic aspect of photography as a subtractive process. Painting and drawing are additive. The artist adds pencil, ink and/or paint to a blank surface to create the image visualized by the artist. OTOH, the photographer begins surrounded by all of reality in a venue and uses technique to subtract those elements that do not contribute to the image and its message. My realization of this made a very profound change in my approach to the artistic aspect of my photographs and how I think about what I'm doing in making them. The questions Jeff posed are some of the steps in exactly this subtractive process. -- John
|
|
|
|
||
|
Piper Lehman |
John, Thanks so much for responding to this. I like how you put this--subtracting the extraneous. I think this will help simplify the decision-making process when I'm composing certain shots. I sometimes worry too much about what might be missing in a shot to make it great instead of concentrating on what I do have to work with at that moment. Thnx for sharing your perspective.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Bill Hammer |
If there is any "hard" rule about sunsets it is that you generally do not want the horizon exactly in the middle of the frame. Decide what is more important, the sky or its reflection and make that take up about 2/3 of the frame. Of course this "rule" can be broken. Look at Ansels Adams Moonrise over Hernandez. Another comment about the horizon. The true horizon is only seen when looking at the ocean. If land or a tree line block the horizon you can not be sure what the true horizontal is. For example an island may be closer to the camera on one side of the frame making the image look like it is going down hill. But what works for you? Advertisements now often have the horizon at rakish angles and yet the image works. Whatever floats your boat!
|
|
|
|
||
|
This old forum is now archived. Use improved Forum here
Report this Thread |
||