Using the Near/Far Technique for More Impact in Your Photos

October 22, 2018 • Nature Photography

When photographing wide-angle landscapes, often the goal is to make sure everything is in sharp focus. The reason is that usually, we do not like to look at out of focus areas of our scenes. While that shallow depth of field can be a powerful technique to get viewers to look at something in your composition that deserves all the attention, wide-angle landscapes can be more powerful when everything is sharp.

Looking at this scene, from Oregon’s Willamette National Forest, you see a scene using a great depth of field. But stop for a second and think about what your end goal would be for this scene. Is there anything you would want in focus and the rest out of focus?

The foreground maple leaves are probably what I would call the ‘star of the photo’ so they should remain in focus. In this case, the background could be thrown out of focus and that would support the approach of forcing viewers to look at the foreground maple leaves.

Making the background sharp and throwing the foreground maple out of focus would only create visual chaos because the foreground maple is so large in the frame. That big out of focus maple creates a visual roadblock that stymies viewers who want to look through the scene to the background.

The answer is to use the Near/Far technique of making sure everything is in focus. This supports the foreground elements and the background as the two areas of the scene are more visually in-sync.

Beaverhead NF, Montana

November 6, 2016 • Nature Photography

On a trip through Montana, I went into the Beaverhead NF to explore the ghost town of Coolidge.

While the ghost town was not that photogenic, Elkhorn Creek was lined with some great color.

This fallen log was jammed with debri creating a cascade in the creek. Throw in the rocks and you have a nice balance of blurred water, the still creek leading you to through the picture, and the lines of the colorful willow.

Elklhorn Creek in Beaverhead NF Montana. — Elkhorn Creek in Beaverhead NF Montana.

For processing, I used luminosity masks to add detail to the flowing water by darkening it slightly. Then selecting the colorful willows and bumping contrast and saturation, selectively.

Finally, I selected the green forest in the background and darkened them to allow the colorful willow stand out more.

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Fall Color Mosaic

October 25, 2016 • Nature Photography

This is a fall color mosaic of maple leaves that I setup. They were on a lawn and spread unevenly, so I arranged them to fit the frame to my liking.

While some might feel this is not nature photography because it is arranged, it sold as a stock photo a couple times including a cover. So who cares, right?

I truly believe if you are in the business of pro photography, that you Make photographs, not just Take photographs.

Fall in Vermont

October 18, 2016 • Nature Photography

On one fall photography trip to New England, I had spent about 2 weeks in New Hampshire and Vermont, capturing an amazing array of rivers, mountains, waterfalls, country scenes, and ponds.

I had shot so many ponds and lakes with amazing color reflecting in the water that on the day I shot this, I felt I did not need another pond reflection.

vt_pond_near_glover_mg_9267 So after parking my car and walking through the forest to see this pond near Glover VT, I felt I had to find a different view.

That need to for something different is what had me stop and look at this scene through the trees and branches. So I set up and framed the pond and reflection between the trees and this is the shot. The trees place visual boundaries on the sides and that helps keep the eye centered on the background, through the branches.

I must have had a decent idea as this was published once in a Vermont book.

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McKenzie River, Oregon, in Fall

October 14, 2016 • Nature Photography

Oregon’s McKenzie River flows down the western slope of the Cascade Mountains, heading towards Eugene.

It is a designated Wild and Scenic river that flows through old growth forests, is lined with a series of incredible waterfalls, and is a popular area for kayakers, hikers, and rafters…

…and photographers. Anytime of the year is amazing to photograph along the river but fall is special. The river is lined with a variety of maple trees, river rapids, small cascades, and in the deeper pools of water, the color is a tropical blue.

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Window to the World

October 14, 2015 • Nature Photography

I have a lot of fall color photography from the last 35 years. Great groups of aspens on a mountainside, full frame images of hillsides in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, aspen lined canyons in the Oregon desert, and much more from many places.

On my last trip to the Great Smoky Mountains teaching a photography workshop with my friend Lewis Kemper during fall color, it was a warm, wet fall and the big landscapes weren’t that great.

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I Love Photographing in Crappy Weather

October 10, 2015 • Nature Photography

I have been here to this overlook at Dallas Divide in Colorado many times and it is amazing….and usually crowded in fall.

During my visits the weather has been ‘perfect’ and other times sunny. What I mean is that one time the sky was so clear, it was hot, and it just was not that great compared to this visit when a storm was passing through and even leaving a dusting of snow on the mountains.

I love photographing in crappy weather! Some of my best or maybe favorite images happened when the weather sucked.

When it is overcast or even raining, specular highlights created by the sun give way to diffused highlights from the overcast. Scene contrast is lowered and colors become more vibrant.

Fall Color in the Tiny World of Macro

October 9, 2015 • Nature Photography

Photographing this image made me realize that fall color that we all love and cherish photographing, is not all about trees.

While I was photographing the amazing aspens in Colorado, I found amazing color closer to the ground.

These plant species, as best as I recall, were not more than 5-6″ across from left side the right side and literally were ground cover.

I dont know what they are but it look to me that they were having their own fall color transformation. The icing on the cake so to speak, literally, is that light coating of frost that added the edges and some white sparkles to the leaves.

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