Seeing the Light

A big part of successful photography is pre-visualization. PBS put together a documentary on Ansel Adams where Ansel talked about his images. Instead of using the phrase "take" a picture, he described how he would "make" a photograph that would capture the image he saw in his mind's eye.

In this photograph, elements of strong lighting and linearity bring together dramatic elements that help make the image pleasing to the eye. When I pre-visualized the picture, the elements that stood out to me in my mind's eye were the two triangles formed by the sides of this "urban canyon" as it recedes back to the vanishing point. Shape and balance and depth all play a role in making this image aestheticly pleasing. None were obvious to the casual bystanders, who for the most part took snapshots of their friends with their backs up against the railing instead.

Urban Sunset

Our stormy weather of late has produced some fabulous clouds. The day that the storm breaks us is the classic time to get the best scenic photos, and the golden light of the last hour of the day caught me struggling with rush hour traffic on the way back over the hill from Hollywood. There really aren't a lot of special tricks to getting good sunset pictures. Just basic fundamentals. If you're looking into the sun, your optics better be nice and clean, just like your windshield needs to be for a sunset commute. Watch your shutter speed, and be ready to put your camera on a tripod once the light levels go down. I like to shoot sunsets using aperture priority and the right amount of exposure compensation. Digital cameras make it so much easier than the old days of film. Take a test shot, check the histogram to make sure you're not running off either end of the scale, and then fire away. This sunset shot was made using a gradient filter that reduced the amount of light hitting the bottom portion of the image, which gave me the little bit of foreground detail I was looking for. Like many landscape images, previsualization helps you be able to make a picture that caputures the feeling of the event as you see it in your mind's eye.