Kicking it back to Monday evening, back to Ship BottomSunset Point. (That’s two shots in a row!) Only this time I tried my hand with vertical orientation—or portrait orientation—camera work. Unlike run-of-the-mill horizontal orientation, it’s a technique that doesn’t come easy to me; but it’s hard to argue with its intrigue—particularly at wide angles. I think it works best when you have low level foreground with which to get up close and personal. From there angle your frame such that you have roughly two-thirds of the ground composed and you are good to go.
Now for some self-critique: I may have gotten a little too close to my foreground. My mistake is betrayed by the loss of focus in the very bottom section of the frame. Had I been more aware I could have 1) backed my tripod up another inch or two, or 2) stopped down to f/16 or f/22. I typically don’t like stopping down that much as it does start to diffuse your photograph’s overall focus. It does, however, widen the overall acceptable field of focus. Trade-offs, man. It’s all about trade-offs.
Monday night after doing the 9–5 thing I made my way to Ship BottomSunset Point. It had been a while since I did some photo things from this Long Beach Island location. It’s a cool little spot nestled bayside, and it holds a tender place in the Greg Molyneux memory bank. For three seasons (2003-2005) I spent my summer days working for Ship Bottom Public Works. Great times with great friends, and a cool full time staff of dudes to boot. I learned a lot those three summers, and I miss it from time-to-time.
Walking through the park my mind was oscillating back and forth between the then and now; first considering how well manicured and pruned up the park is, then panning to past memories and an unavoidable lament of where the hell the time has gone? Life is full of these moments I suppose. Past. Present. Future. Events and people long gone. This wasn’t a sad experience, however. Instead there was an upwelling, an appreciation for the opportunity and for the good times had by all. May the joys of youth forever shine.
Say Goodbye Don’t Follow — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Easily the best scene/lighting/sunset/awesomesauce combo since this and this happened back in early December 2015. Six months, folks. The good stuff doesn’t come around all too often; and that is precisely what makes this hobby worthwhile. The hunt. The chase. The busted failures en route to most welcomed and ofttimes unexpected successes. Landscape photography is a great, albeit fickle beast, you guys.
Ocean County, New Jersey was socked in rain for most of the day on Friday, but Mr. Weather NJ was on top of things. A look at the frontal passage on the water vapor loop let him know the break in the weather would more than likely time up well with sunset. Little did we know it’d be perfect. Serendipity, folks, it’s necessary when you’re photographing nature. We’ve gotta be there, sure; Mother Nature, however, has to bring the goods. That’s how it played out last night amidst the dank air of Cedar Run Dock Road. A multilayered cloud deck began to pull apart, and light poured through as we watched said clouds ignite into an array of pastel beauty. Combine that with the dying wind that brought a glass sheen to the surface of the waterway and you’re cooking with all the right ingredients for a real deal fist-pumper.
Chilling on scene with Jeff and Jon we spent a good 45 minutes in relative silence and maximum awe. The only thing that cut through the silence was a loan boater that came creeping through—no wake zones are important, thanks for going slow—leaving perfect wrinkles upon what was moments before pristinely flat water. The look of the subtle waves left in his wake was mesmerizing. Pink and purple prisms moving eastward as though a table cloth was most gently removed from a grand table with the steady hand of years of precision. Better yet was the jam the young dude on the center console had blasting over the marsh. Whatever that slow jam was, I dig it. In fact, we spent the better part of the night fireside at Ben’s trying to puzzle out the tune. Alas.
Within the quieted moments of sunset fulfillment I’m want to reflect on the ephemeral nature and never ending quest for the perfect sky. These moments come and go. Hold onto them as they arise, drop them as the leave. From there, with a smile on your face move on and work toward the next great moment. There’s a zen in all this infinitely worth seeking even when you’re kicking yourself during the next 10 busts.
Please Don’t Go — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Mid-Atlantic folks know the sun has been scarce lately. Vacationing somewhere known as Not Here. And while it’s raining as I type the sun did show its face last night at Stafford Forge Wildlife Management Area. It was so nice. Lord, it was lovey-dovey. With the Forge unpopulated and the winds calm, glassy mirrored reflections were the order of the day. The perfect medium for bouncing pastel color illuminating cotton candy clouds. These are restorative moments, people. The doses of goodness that sustain us through the daily grind and ofttimes madness of the world. Let us be mindful of all that is great and right in this world.
Max Relax — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Between the hour of 7:20 p.m–8:20 p.m. Cedar Run Dock Road was the unequivocal place to be for denizens of southern Ocean County. Conditions were perfect. I’m talking A+. 10 out of 10. Would do again. And folks, I’m not even talking about the sunset. It was one of those salt marsh nights you’re more than like to read about it a book. An evening that comes around maybe a handful of times per year. Room temperature conditions with zero wind, fully absent humidity; bugs nowhere to be found; crips, clear golden light pouring over the emerald green sedge grasses; with migratory birds making way with their evening meal. Pure perfection. Maximum relaxation achievement unlocked. That sunset? While beautiful and serene in its own right was little more than icing on the cake.
Many are the techniques you can implement to elevate your landscape photography game. Adjustments that will leave you walking away with consistently better results. Keeping your horizon straight, availing yourself of a tripod, setting a shutter timer or using a remote, locking your mirror—if shooting with a DSLR, manually dialing in hyperfocal distance, and remaining mindful of the rule of thirds are just a handful of techniques that if nothing else will bring sharpness and order to your landscape photograph compositions. Two things here: 1) this is not meant to over simplify the discipline, and 2) all rules are made to be broken—all of them. Think of said “rules” more as guidelines; sound fundamentals that will seldom leave you astray. Of course if you feel the urge to break rank as a means of purposeful expression, by all means do so.
What Is Foreground And Why It Matters To You
Beyond the technical aspects of the aforementioned a primary component of your composition worth your attention is foreground—the subject that occupies the closest space to the observer (your viewers!) of your photograph. Here’s your chance to pull your viewer into the imagery. Think of movies, videos, or articles you read on the Internet: I’d hazard the majority of us are making a decision within the first 10-20 seconds of whether this content is worth our time. Hooks are important, think of them as the first impressions that they are, and think of foreground as the hook into your landscape. It’s literally setting the scene.
Much of what I’ll share will be most helpful to photographers working at wide angles. Let’s say from 35mm down to 14mm. Though the principles are still applicable at other focal lengths. The bulk of my landscape work happens at 14mm. Nice and wide. When shooting wide angle the concept of perspective and a vanishing point becomes readily apparent. The wider your lens, the more amplified the effect on perspective and the deeper your vanishing point becomes—noticeably pushing objects at the center of your frame back toward the horizon. The wider your focal length the more the foreground object takes prominence in your composition. Take one look down a viewfinder sporting a wide angle lens and you’ll notice the optical distortion that exaggerates the size and angles of whatever object you’ve chosen to place in your foreground. This distortion effect is what affords a stimulating foreground—an important component to compel your viewers to care about your landscape. Apply this concept with the rule of thirds, where you place photo subjects in the corner thirds of your composed frame. Imagine a tic-tac-toe board superimposed on your viewfinder. (In fact, many cameras will do this for you!) It’s solid practice to place key subjects at any of the four intersections of the tic-tac-toe grid. In many cases (not all) it’s good practice to place your landscape foregrounds in the crosshairs of the bottom-left or bottom right-intersections.
Let’s See Foreground In Practice
Your day breaks — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
Starting out with a winter sunrise on the beaches of Ship Bottom, NJ, this example features a prominent piece of foreground. Much of the lower third of the image is occupied by an arcing section of dune fence. This coupled with the rolling berm pulls the viewer right into the scene. Its purpose is immediately apparent, invoking imagery of kicking off your sandals, walking up a sand path and out onto the beach, stopping at the apex to scan the horizon. The foreground here has an added bonus in that its arc balances out the swooping cloud feature moving from the center of the photo off to the top right. Now try if you might to imagine this photo without the dune fence foreground. Sure, it would still be serviceable—good color, nice sky, a cool cloud feature—but it wouldn’t hold nearly the same visual balance and weight. It would render a world I’d be far less interested to step inside. I’d feel plopped randomly into a sea of sand instead of what is so very obviously a beach walkway for coming and going.
This photograph offers a more obvious example of just how boring a landscape shot can be in the absence of attention commanding foreground elements. Strip away the jetty rock and tide pool combination and we’re left with nothing more than a monotone expanse of sand occupying what would otherwise be half the photograph. Instead I made this shot by getting up close and personal to the mossy jetty rock with my camera and tripod; my rig was about 15 inches from the rock nearest the viewer, while sitting atop the tripod approximately 16 inches off the ground. Getting low and getting close is essential to creating a dramatic foreground representation—this is particularly true as your focal lengths get wider. The intimate camera placement accentuates the distortion effect I mentioned earlier; because I’m so close the jetty rock appears much larger to the viewer than it is in real life. With the foreground well established, large and in charge in the lower left third of the photograph, I am able to play off the great sunset clouds and color in the opposite upper third of the composition. Again we see how the rule of thirds helps us achieve balance in our visual weight.
I’ve been eager to share this example in the context of foreground exploration as there were many moving parts in this scene and little time to work. The sunset conditions here were spectacular—one of the best skies I’ve seen—but when you’ve got an eastward facing sunset sky every second counts and you have little time to burn. Under the auspices of A+ lighting it would be easy to let finding a visually pleasing foreground subject slip down your list of priorities, and rightfully so. This time I got lucky. A serendipitous section of jetty rock was exposed a few hundred yards to my north. I was able to scurry over in time, aggravate my hamstring, sink my tripod into the wash, and make out with one very fortuitous exposure.
Here we have a few elements working in the foreground composition. First we have jetty rock, much of which is covered by the rushing waters swelling in with the tide—leaving the more exposed sections of jetty rock as we transition further back into the middle ground section of the frame. Visually the water brings both movement and presence to the entire lower third foreground. Notice how it is particularly exaggerated toward the center at the very bottom edge? This leaves a little waterfall over the very top of the front rock covered by all that rushing water. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, and here the timing completely worked out.
In this instance the composition is all about viewer participation. A digital welcome mat. It doesn’t take much to breakdown what the foreground is doing here, and more importantly, how it is informing the viewer. It’s a clear invitation to step forward and into this striking sunset marsh scene. Two bits of bulkhead and a section of dock with a dogleg left calling out to us as an old mahogany wardrobe would a child.
Let’s hear it for minimalism. Not much is happening in this photograph, and that’s precisely what I find its biggest strength. Aside from a beige to pastel palette and calm shallow water, the anchor of this frame is the step-like object that I believe are docking stations to tie up jet skis. Don’t quote me on that. However, we can have a philosophical discussion on whether said docks occupy the middle ground vs. the foreground in this composition. I’m happy to hedge and pronounce it as both. More so this speaks to “rules” I mentioned at the outset—fundamental guidelines are great, and it’s hard to argue against pedantic adherence to the rules, so long as we embrace our own exceptions and interpretation. We are here to flex our creative muscles, after all.
Worse for Wear — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
We’re replaying many of the themes covered by We Face the Path of Time. Bulkheads, docks, and a pleasant landscape. Here the foreground brings us back into the realm of visual storytelling. It’s hard to miss the dilapidated state of this section of seawall. Rusted out nails, boards reclaimed by the sea, and remnant sedge grasses wedged in all kinds of nooks and crannies letting you know this wall can hardly hold back the bay when push comes to shove. It’s easy for the observer to spend time working through the comings and goings of the foreground. When did this storm hit? How long has this been in disrepair? It doesn’t look that old, but what is it that really happened here? We’re setting the hook. Whetting the palette before the viewer’s eyes move on out over Barnegat Bay and onto the sunset.
Make Foreground Work For You
Follow these steps to begin composing better landscape photographs today
Scout your location: Do you have a favorite, go-to landscape location you like to shoot? Even if you do it’s always a great practice to give yourself time to explore new spots when you’re not under a time crunch to produce a photograph under what could be fleeting lighting conditions. Be prepared. Work out your compositions beforehand, keeping foreground elements top of mind.
Revisit: Remember the spots and shots you like best. Return to these locations. Reuse that foreground. A boon to landscape photographers is that the sky is never the same. Light and clouds are an ever changing system, and even from the same spot no two shots will ever be the same.
Be mindful: When you’re on location don’t settle for the first shot you see. One thing I like to do is set my tripod down at the spot I think I want to shoot, and then I’ll further explore the area with my camera handheld bouncing from spot to spot, checking the viewfinder to see if I can find something better. If not you can always saunter back to your tripod that’s sitting there waiting, holding your default spot.
Get close: The wider you’re shooting, the more you should adhere to this principle. Find a cool piece of foreground and give way to personal space. Get in there. Get close. Get to know it. This will translate directly to your viewers.
Get low: Don’t just get close. Get down and get dirty. Lower that tripod and crouch down toward the ground. More often than not I am shooting my landscapes less than two feet off the ground.
Stop down: My standard operating procedure is to stop down three full stops from wide open. On my 14mm this takes me from f/2.8 to f/8. When going for tack sharp results the benefits are twofold: 1) it increases sharpness, and 2) it widens the depth of field of your hyperfocal range. This allows you to get as close as your lens will allow you to keep your foreground in focus will still maintaining acceptable sharpness all the way out to infinity—the horizon.
Be there: No technique will help you more than being out there in nature with a camera. Cellphone, mirrorless, DSLR, it doesn’t matter. If you’re not making the time to get out there prepared to shoot, all the skills in the world will never make a shot happen. The most important thing you can do it get out there and keep shooting.
All Too Familiar — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/80
Hey, New Jersey! Maybe you’ve noticed it’s been raining? Or maybe you live under a rock? In which case you’ve more than likely been claimed by the Drowned God. It’s been over a week now and it seems to be the only weather we know. This photo is actually a throwback to April 26 when a pattern flipping cold front powered through the mid-Atlantic bringing strong storms and powerful straight line winds to the region. Since that day it seems we’ve been in omega block city—only we’ve been on the wrong side of said block. The cold, wet, raw side. Not exactly the pattern anyone wants in late-April, early-May. Unless of course a sea of endless grey is your thing. While it looks as though a few breaks in the clouds may appear over the next couple days, it seems we’re heading right back into the soup for much of next week. To modify the cliché, April flowers bring grey skies to May that never end. Welcome to Ireland, New Jersey.
Heh, fittingly enough Jerry Garcia & David Grisman’s “Dreadful Wind And Rain” just randomly queued up on my iTunes as I finished paragraph one. If I could go back and do it all over again, I think that’s what I should have titled this shot. Alas, hooray for a fitting coincidence. Now where is that blasted Sun?
Hasn’t It Always Been So? — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
A sunset stopped by this past Monday while I was tucked away among the trees at Stafford Forge. The usual spots were occupied by human types, and the isthmus was flooded over by elevated lake levels. Short on time I buried myself in the trees along the lakeside.
Wild weather bore down on Surf City’sSunset Park yesterday afternoon. I was fortunate enough to be out storm chasing with JC of Weather NJ fame, and we set up shop on a favorite Long Beach Island bay beach. With a dead west exposure over Barnegat Bay, winds were already ripping from the same direction, and a well defined shelf cloud was easily seen contrasted by the dark brooding cloud shadows behind it. Most striking, however, was the eerie green hue that illuminated the roiling bay water. It was an unnatural savage green, amped by full afternoon sun pouring in unfiltered from the south that was magnified as it bounced off the cumulonimbus cloud bottom. This, in effect, created lighting conditions that would be something akin to millions of pool table lights draped only feet over the bay. It was one heck of a sight. I’m sure my Snapchat followers could hear my excitement. (Not to mention a few expletives born of exuberance.)
No less than two minutes after popping off the photo above, the gust front made landfall, temperatures dropped 20 degrees within 10 seconds (no exaggeration), and the winds went from about 35 mph sustained to ~60 mph. Severe storm criteria is defined as 58 mph winds or greater, and we were certainly there. Of course, the lion’s share of thunder and lightning slipped just to our north, but man it was fun being out there. Talk about a charge of energy. Here’s a short film JC shot to give you a sense of the sandblasting wind. (That’s me standing out there trying to capture cellphone footage.)
