A
Anonymous
Guest
OK, as all of you know I am no expert but I figured I kind of think out loud with you all on how I scout and compose my photos. Feel free to correct my thinking or to add your own techniques. My subject is a broken down old bridge that is well over 100 years old. Although it is no longer in use and in horrible condition I think it still has retained enough of it's original splendor to make it a worth while subject. It is on an island that was just jammed with picnickers on such a beautiful summer weekend. So setting up the shot took some thinking. I used a Canon D300 with a Canon EF f/1.4 50mm lens. Anyway, here it goes ...
Step 1 - I choose a location with as many potential subjects as possible. Too many times I have went to photograph a specific subject and found it unusable, i.e., under construction, surrounded by people, or just not there at all any more.
Step 2 - Scout for subjects based on the light. I went to a local island this morning so I only looked for subjects that illuminated by the sun, or roughly eastward facing subjects. I ignored all other subjects. I know that this should not be a hard and fast rule but the location that I picked had so many good subjects I simply cherry picked the easiest ones.
Step 3 - Identify interesting subjects with good backgrounds. Again, I know that there are ways around the background problem but I hate waiting for people and cars and stuff to move. Also, on a bright, sunny day like today it's hard to get much depth of field to blur out the background with the 50mm lens I was using.
Step 4 - Find the optimum angle and prepare the site. I walked all around this bridge to find the angle that brought out the beauty of a long gone era. There were cars, people, light poles, and all sorts of stuff around this bridge that would have horribly taken away from this shot if I allowed them to creep in. To prepare the site I had to spend several minutes clearing out a bunch of trash that was laying around.
Step 5 - Compose and frame the shot in the view finder and double check all the settings. Obviously I take several shots just to be sure I get at least on keeper.
Here is the bridge as it appeared when I walked up to it. As you can see there are cars, barricades and debris all over the place. Not a very flattering photo by anyone's definition. This angle was obviously a no go. <img src="/metal/html/frown.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="
">
<image src="http://www.findmall.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10325/bridge2.jpg">
Here in the second photo I walked across the bridge and looked back. Clearly the athletic fields and people wandering around would take away from the photo. Hmmm ... bummer, another angle ruled out. <img src="/metal/html/frown.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="">
<image src="http://www.findmall.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10325/bridge3.jpg">
In this photo you can see all the trash floating in the stream. I don't mind picking up trash off the lawn for a shot but wading into the stream is a whole different matter. So a nice long stream shot is out of the question now too. <img src="/metal/html/frown.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="">
<image src="http://www.findmall.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10325/bridge4.jpg">
After a bit of walking, cleaning and thinking this is the angle that I finally chose as the one to go with. Now there are a few more things I could do with this photo in PhotoShop but I wanted to keep this post limited to how I select a subject and compose my shots. All in all I think I think I did justice to this poor old dilapidated bridge. I took a bunch of other shots today as well but I think I'll spare you all from boring you completely. Well, I might post my panorama I took though. <img src="/metal/html/wink.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="">
<image src="http://www.findmall.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10325/bridge1.jpg">
Step 1 - I choose a location with as many potential subjects as possible. Too many times I have went to photograph a specific subject and found it unusable, i.e., under construction, surrounded by people, or just not there at all any more.
Step 2 - Scout for subjects based on the light. I went to a local island this morning so I only looked for subjects that illuminated by the sun, or roughly eastward facing subjects. I ignored all other subjects. I know that this should not be a hard and fast rule but the location that I picked had so many good subjects I simply cherry picked the easiest ones.
Step 3 - Identify interesting subjects with good backgrounds. Again, I know that there are ways around the background problem but I hate waiting for people and cars and stuff to move. Also, on a bright, sunny day like today it's hard to get much depth of field to blur out the background with the 50mm lens I was using.
Step 4 - Find the optimum angle and prepare the site. I walked all around this bridge to find the angle that brought out the beauty of a long gone era. There were cars, people, light poles, and all sorts of stuff around this bridge that would have horribly taken away from this shot if I allowed them to creep in. To prepare the site I had to spend several minutes clearing out a bunch of trash that was laying around.
Step 5 - Compose and frame the shot in the view finder and double check all the settings. Obviously I take several shots just to be sure I get at least on keeper.
Here is the bridge as it appeared when I walked up to it. As you can see there are cars, barricades and debris all over the place. Not a very flattering photo by anyone's definition. This angle was obviously a no go. <img src="/metal/html/frown.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="
"><image src="http://www.findmall.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10325/bridge2.jpg">
Here in the second photo I walked across the bridge and looked back. Clearly the athletic fields and people wandering around would take away from the photo. Hmmm ... bummer, another angle ruled out. <img src="/metal/html/frown.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="
"><image src="http://www.findmall.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10325/bridge3.jpg">
In this photo you can see all the trash floating in the stream. I don't mind picking up trash off the lawn for a shot but wading into the stream is a whole different matter. So a nice long stream shot is out of the question now too. <img src="/metal/html/frown.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="
"><image src="http://www.findmall.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10325/bridge4.jpg">
After a bit of walking, cleaning and thinking this is the angle that I finally chose as the one to go with. Now there are a few more things I could do with this photo in PhotoShop but I wanted to keep this post limited to how I select a subject and compose my shots. All in all I think I think I did justice to this poor old dilapidated bridge. I took a bunch of other shots today as well but I think I'll spare you all from boring you completely. Well, I might post my panorama I took though. <img src="/metal/html/wink.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt="
"><image src="http://www.findmall.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10325/bridge1.jpg">