In my transition from Drummer to Photographer, part of my learning process has been to watch as many YouTube Vlogs (Video Blogs) as possible in order to learn different techniques and the many ways to approach those techniques. While I have my favourite Vloggers, I often seek out others who I have never seen before in order to get new perspectives and ideas.
I recently came across a young woman in the U.K. who is new to me and whose video title promised me successful woodland images.
Woodlands are something with which I struggle; often the foreground is cluttered with brambles, alders, or refuse tossed by people who don’t care enough to put garbage where it belongs. Even under the forest canopy there can be a lot of small branches and twigs accumulated from storms etc. Some trees are uprooted and leaning against others or have died and fallen completely. In short, there is a lot of chaos to deal with.
So when this young woman released a video on how to compose trees, I immediately clicked on it to see what I could learn. Obviously, the U.K. is not Atlantic Canada, and while there are many similarities in Flora, the presence of more people often leads to more of the debris being cleared away and used for bonfires, craft projects etc… Some forest floors there look as if they’ve been swept and groomed, so I was prepared to see more of that in her video. I was surprised when she showed her location, along the edge of a trail with ferns and bracken, high grasses, and berry bushes; in short, very much like I often see here. The results she got were far superior to what I was expecting, and I was shocked. She composed the image to focus on the Birch Trees rather than the foreground. (which was included but not emphasized) I’ve seen many places that looked very similar and didn’t even stop because I was certain the clutter would look even more cluttered in a photograph.
It seems to be standard procedure among Photography Vloggers to show viewers the LCD screen of the Camera being used for the image, and then show the finished image after it has been edited. (more on that later) When I saw the end result of her image, I was shocked to see just how lovely it was. As I stated, the foreground was included, but my eyes (and supposedly the eyes of every other viewer) were drawn to the trunks of the upright Birch trees she had chosen to be her main subject. I understood immediately that I had been cheating myself of a number of great photographs because I didn’t think I could make a good image with the subject matter at hand. NO MORE!!
From now on, I’ll take the shot, regardless of how it looks to my eye. For one thing, my eyes are seeing a wide image, approximately 165 degrees or more. A Digital SLR (DSLR) Camera is seeing only a fraction of that, based on the type of camera and Aspect Ratio. (More on THAT later as well.) What seems cluttered to the naked eye, probably is, but by focusing on just a bit of that, the amount of clutter is reduced and can perhaps even be overshadowed by the more interesting subject.
So, I told myself, “TAKE THE FRIGGING PICTURE!” You can’t truly be objective until you get it home and look at it on the computer monitor. There might be some real magic there.
And of course, the option to crop is always there as well. Take the picture, see if it works, edit if necessary.
So, until next week, keep your shutter finger warm, and don’t forget to pack extra batteries!