Collins Complete Photography Projects. John Garrett
THE LANDSCAPE AT DAWN
This is a dawn view out of the window. The light is now quite romantic and worth a picture, but this doesn’t make the grade as a really strong landscape shot; the composition lacks interest and there’s nothing in particular to catch the viewer’s eye. Given a broad view like this, look for interesting areas within it rather than just letting it fill your frame. 1/20 second at f5.3, 105mm, 800 ISO. JG
LIGHT AND COMPOSITION COME TOGETHER
The next night was stormy with dark cloud cover; the sun was piercing through the clouds and the sea looked as though it had been lit from on high with huge spotlights. The magic of light had transformed that view into a spectacular landscape. I used a neutral density graduated filter to keep the clouds dark and underexposed by –1½ stops to help the highlights stand out from the darker water. This is also an example of how to pick out one small area to make a beautiful picture; I used my longest telephoto setting to find the most interesting part of the landscape and discovered a rhythm in the contours of the hills. Using a wide angle to get everything in is tempting when you have a lovely scene occupying your vision, but it just reproduces a view rather than making a strong image. 1/3200 second at f8, 200mm, 400 ISO. JG
PROJECT 4: GARDENS
The great outdoors can be closer than you think, so don’t feel you have to go traipsing over the countryside to find some satisfying pictures – they may be right around the corner.
Keep your eyes peeled when you are out and about, since there will be images to be had close by; familiarity often blinds us to possibilities. You may have a garden of your own that you find quite mundane, but a set of three pictures taken at different times of day and framed together may give a more interesting look than you could easily obtain from a single shot; alternatively, try a single plant photographed at three stages from bud to full bloom and then skeletal seedhead.
For this project, see how many different approaches you can take to a single planting of flowers, trying close ups and more straightforward views. Secondly, shoot a garden in the evening and try to capture that magic time when the flowers glow in the dusk. Take a series as the light falls, using a stable surface such as a table on which to rest your camera if you don’t have a tripod. Choose the best, and if it lacks the colour and glow you are looking for, make some digital adjustments (see Hue and Saturation).
FINDING THE SUBJECT
Walking in my neighbourhood, I found myself in an unfamiliar street and passed this beautiful display of poppies. Here was a neat suburban house, but when I looked into the garden I was able to find pictures that could have been made in the countryside. A portrait of the owner leaning out of the window would have looked great, but unfortunately there was no one at home. Keeping your eyes peeled for a shot always brings rewards, even if you are in apparently unpromising surroundings. 1/500 second at f5.6, 22mm, 400 ISO. GH
ISOLATING A FLOWER
Here I zoomed to telephoto and placed a flower in the centre of the frame. I used a wide aperture to isolate it, with the flowers in the foreground and background thrown out of focus. When you focus on a particular flower in this way, make sure it’s an undamaged one – it’s surprising how the eye can overlook signs of caterpillar damage, for example, which will be the first thing the viewer sees in the photograph. 1/250 second at f5.3, 95mm, 400 ISO. GH
POST-PRODUCTION ADJUSTMENT
This is my interpretation of the poppies – as you can see from the other pictures, they were actually bright red. A botanist would probably hate this, but I was after an artistic impression rather than reality. I cropped the photograph into a square then played about with the Hue and Saturation sliders in the Lightroom Develop module, decreasing the red, green and yellow to make a more muted picture. If you’re photographing flowers for identification they obviously have to look like they do in reality, but for your own creative purposes you can choose to influence their colour. 1/160 second at f6.7, 65mm, 400 ISO. GH
MIDDAY GARDEN
This picture shows how my garden looks in the middle of the day, with soft, cloudy light, normal colour and tones as you would expect in the middle of the summer. 1/125 second at f8, 5.2mm compact camera, 200 ISO. GH
THE GARDEN AT DUSK
As the daylight faded and was replaced by the soft light just before dark, everything seemed to have a bluish-purple glow. I set my camera on the tripod to try to capture that. The pictures certainly look different to the daylight one – they are darker, with more contrast, and look like an evening shot, but they don’t have that magic glow. 1 second at f6.7, 5.2mm compact camera, 400 ISO. GH
PROJECT 5: FINDING THE COMPOSITION
Establishing a strong composition can be a progressive thing; I often take several pictures where the elements are present but they are just not working together to make a really good landscape.
I know it is there somewhere and I just keep moving and looking until it all comes together for me. This takes perseverance and concentration, and often that last special element to complete the composition has to be waited for as it might be a cloud or a shaft of light. Sometimes you just have to be very patient.
For this assignment, take a black and white photograph. Find a landscape that has one strong feature, such as a great sky, then move around looking for a strong shape to put in the foreground to balance the composition. Conversely, find a beautiful foreground subject then explore different angles until you find a background that is sympathetic to it.
THE START POINT
I first spotted this mountain with the summit framed in a circular-shaped cloud – very promising, but not really enough. For your own project, you can choose any feature that appeals to you and then build on that. JG
FINDING A SECOND ELEMENT
About 100m (110yd) to my left I found the church spire, also an interesting element. I then tried to get myself into a position where the two elements came together. You may strike lucky and find a suitable element in just the right place, but it’s more likely you’ll have to move your position and rethink the angle from which you will shoot your main feature. JG
THE FINAL COMPOSITION
I was anxious to get the shot before the light and the cloud changed, but I was aware that I was looking at a series of triangles and shifted my position until they all made a pattern that I found pleasing. My final decision was to wait for the white cloud to move behind the church spire to isolate the cross. I set the camera to black and white and used a polarizing filter to darken the blue sky.
This composition is perfect for me – in fact it’s one