Saturday, 22 October 2011

Planning For Project 6: Clear Separation.

   For this project there are two parts, the first I explain and look at in more detail in my next entry which will include my work for this project but right now I'm more interested in the second part. For this I need to create an image which combines the foreground, middle ground and background, to me this sounds relatively simple but then after a minute I started thinking how often do I actually take landscape photos that clearly combine all three parts and the honest answer is it isn't very often. What I find when I look at my work is that I have no problem combining foreground and background into a well formed image but when it comes to adding the third part it just isn't something that I find I'm that comfortable in achieving so what I want to do is look at how other Photographers and even artists have worked to produce these kind of images.

   In the course material it mentions as a good example the painting The Sermon On The Mount by Claude Lorrain which you can see below.

Paintings Reproductions Lorrain, Claude The Sermon on the Mount, 1656

I'm know art buff so I couldn't tell you whether its a brilliant piece of art or not but what I do know is that he's produced a nice balanced image with the people in the foreground and the rugged landscape in the background countering the weighty mount in the middle ground of the scene. I can guess that with the focus of the image being in the middle it could have been a bit difficult to get this balance because he might have though of placing the hill slap bang in the middle but this wouldn't have worked as well as off setting it to the left and then balancing the foreground and background on the right of the scene. Although there are hundreds of other examples more then likely out there in the art world what I'm more interested in is how photographers have approached combining these three areas.


Galen Rowell.
Some good examples of the kind of work I've been looking for can be found if you look at the photos produced by Galen Rowell, there are some amazing images in his collection of work but the ones I want to focus on are Old Wagon beneath Mt. Tom, Round Valley, Eastern SierraReflection Pond, Denali National Park and Musk ox Skull, North Peary Land, NE Greeland National Park. I've chose these three because even though there are main more examples in his work these are the one's that stand out to me the most. The first image Old Wagon stands out for a couple of reasons, first the use of the light highlighting the wagon in the foreground and the mountains in the background then there's the feeling of emptiness and how remote this landscape is only increased by the overall cool colouring in the photo (I know that there's is a strong orange produced by the sunlight but I think the overall image feels quiet cold even with this because of the presents of the frost on the ground and wagon). The way he's used the wagon in the foreground, bare trees in the middle ground and mountains in the background have created a nice balance and with the way he's composed the three parts together creating a triangular relationship helps guide the viewers eye through the scene smoothly. With Reflection Pond it's a little less in your face then the last but just as effective, in the foreground you have the red flowers and grass then in the middle ground you have the lake and reflection before finally in the background you have the hill line and sky. It maybe doesn't work as well as my first example but its the colours in this image that I think make it work, its the reds and oranges contrasting against the heavy blues,greens and purples that make you look and appreciate the work. The final example Musk ox Skull is different again from the first two because here he's used a different view point to create a strong visual effect. If he had got low down to the skull there's every chance it would have got lost in the tundra surrounding it but by getting right up close he's managed to have it solely in the foreground with the vast Arctic tundra making up the middle ground before you reach the mountains in the background. Here he's used the lightness of the skull in the foreground compared to the darkness of the mountains in the background to make it stand out and add depth.
In Rowell's work there's much more to look at because of the depth of his landscape and wildlife work and he's definitely someone that I'll return back to in later work for inspiration and to have a closer look at his methods.

William Neill.
Although there isn't as many examples in his work the ones that I did find stood out because of how he'd used the light to his advantage when working in Black and White. The first shot to look at is call Sunrise on the Hana Coast, Koki Beach, Island of Maui, Hawaii here the first think to jump out at me is the great sense of movement captured by clearly using a long exposure. I love the flow of the misty water and the rushing of the clouds over head but that isn't what I'm looking for right now its the way he's used the elements within the view to make the foreground, middle and background. To produce this you got the rocks in the foreground then the moving sea making up the middle ground before finally you reach the out crop far out in the background. The other thing I like about this image is the way he's used the light to create silouettes throughout the scene to balance the amount of bright areas created by the reflective nature of the water and the brightness of the sky. The second photo I want to look at is Sand dunes at sunrise, Monument Valley Tribal Park, Arizona, here again he's made use of the early morning light and again its clever in its use. The way this shots made up is by having the sand dunes in the foreground the rest of the desert in the middle and then the peaks of Monument Valley making up the background, what he's done cleverly is by using the direction of the lines in the dunes he leads you into the image and then by using the light to brighten the dunes while darkening the background in shadow gives added depth and texture to the shot.
As I've already said there isn't as many example in his work but what I found have been just as useful because now I have a much better understanding of how to structure my own images to create these 3 layered results.

   I've come up with a few point to keep in mind which should help me to produce good photos in this style from the research I've just done-

  1. Use a wide angled lens- Its not impossible to produce images with a foreground middle and background using a telescopic lens but to get more depth and to avoid the image feeling very flat (unless that what I'm after) using a wide angle is best.
  2. Finding suitable landscapes- The best way to maybe to build these kind of landscapes is to first find the middle ground and background for the image and then within this view find a point that can be used as a foreground interest.
  3. Get up close with foreground object- The last thing I want is my foreground to blend into the middle ground blurring the divide so the best thing to do is to get up close and personal.
  4. Neutral Density filter could be handy- As I've see with a few examples above having the background appear darker then the foreground can increase the feeling of depth so maybe it would be a good idea  to include my ND filter in my bag for this project.
Following these ideas can only help improve my chances of creating good images now its just down to me getting out there and seeing what I can produce.   

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