#BANDING IN HELICON REMOTE PATCH#

#BANDING IN HELICON REMOTE PATCH#

Viewer’s eyes will naturally get drawn to bright spots in a photograph, so I looked for a sunlit patch of flowers that could provide a visual focal point for a composition. These bands of light moved constantly, so I had to compose and shoot quickly. In the next photograph, the sun had just crested a ridge in the morning, creating streaks of sun and shade as the light sifted through a line of trees. The previous two examples were made on an overcast day, so the light was consistent, which allowed me to take my time, look around, compose carefully, and then wait for the wind to settle down long enough to capture a focus-stacking sequence. And in framing the scene I made sure to include the two small lighter-green trees flanking the larger, central tree including only one of those smaller trees, (or worse, cutting one in half) would throw the top portion of the photograph out of balance. I positioned the camera so that the V-shape and the snaking line pointed toward the central tree. There’s also a faint, snaking line of lupines leading through the middle of the frame. One of the reasons I was attracted to this scene was because I thought that V-shape would give the flowers some structure. You might notice a vague V-shape to the lupines in the foreground. Again, I had to consider the balance for both the bottom and top parts of the frame. The central green tree merely provides a visual focal point for the top part of the image – something for the foreground to lead your eyes to. To me, the most interesting part of this scene was the flowers, so it made sense to devote more space to the flowers than the trees. The top-to-bottom balance was fairly easy. Lupines, poppies, and owl’s clover, Mariposa County, California. In the next example I was also – as always – highly conscious of the need to find balance, both left-to-right and top-to-bottom: It took me less time to actually figure out that composition than it probably took you to read my description of the process. So I walked back and forth, left and right, in order to line up the patch of yellow below center with the bow-shaped swath of lupines near the top.Īs I said, that was all pretty instinctive. I noticed a subtle, bow-shaped arrangement of the blue lupines up there, along with another patch of yellow. While that can work in some cases, here I wanted the composition to feel calm and grounded to counterbalance the visual chaos created by all that vibrant color.įrom there, having figured out more-or-less where to place the patch of yellow, I had to arrange the top part of the picture in a way that created left-to-right balance. But also – and again, this was an instinctive decision based on lots of experience – having the main focal point above the middle can make the image feel top-heavy. I put the patch of yellow below the middle of the frame mainly because the flowers above the yellow patch were more interesting, with a stronger pattern, than the flowers below it.

In this case that meant, first, centering the patch of yellow from left to right putting that yellow oval left of center or right of center would throw the picture off balance. When making this photograph I was aware of the need to include some kind of focal point among all the patterns – a spot for the viewer’s eye to land on and go back to – so I was happy to find this bright, eye-catching patch of yellow.īut I was also conscious of the the need to find balance. There’s also a subtle-but-important focal point in this composition: the oval patch of yellow flowers just below center. If one side or corner was empty – just green grass perhaps – the composition would feel out of balance. In the photograph above, for example, the whole frame is filled with flowers, and the various shapes and colors are distributed pretty evenly throughout the image. I intuitively reject any composition that would feel unbalanced, and I’m often making subtle shifts in my camera position or framing to improve the balance of a photograph. While looking for compositions I’m always thinking about balance – so much so that it’s become an unconscious act. In the meantime, here are some thoughts about an often-overlooked aspect of composition that I hope will help you the next time you pick up your camera…īalance doesn’t get talked about much, but it’s a vital aspect of composition. I’m sure, like most of us, you’re anxious to be able to get out and photograph again. I hope you’re all staying safe and not going too stir-crazy. 78mm seven focus-stacked frames blended with Helicon Focus each frame was 1/8 sec. Spring colors, Mariposa County, California.

Banding in helicon remote