Project 6: Clear Separation.

   The next project I'm going to attempt is based around the idea of clear separation between the elements that make up any decent landscape photo, these elements being the foreground, middle ground and background. Anyone can take a photo containing these elements but the knack is being able to combine them to create something which works on a completely different level, clearly a lot of this comes down to your compositional skills but its also about finding landscapes which speak to you artistically.

Tech. Details

F-stops- f/11

Exposure- 320secs

ISO- 400

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 18mm

For the first half of the project I needed to create a shot which contained clear separation between the foreground and the background but at the same time there needed to be a graphical relationship between the two parts, a lot of head scratching went into this one because I knew I'd have no problems with the separation issue but coming up with something that worked graphically was going to be a stretch on my creative ability but in the end the photo I've produce I'm actually quiet proud off. This shot I captured in the Lake District about a quarter of the way up Scarfell Pike, during much of the climb I tried to remain aware of the landscape around me searching out elements that I thought would work well together. The first part the lake in the background was an obvious point of interest but I need something in the foreground that would anchor the shot, my first thought was the pathway itself but the view seemed a little empty and just didn't feel right. Luckily the answer was slowly heading up behind me in a group of people so I waited and as they court up captured shots of there progress until I had this image (to be honest I was happy to have the rest as its not as easy as you'd think carrying photography gear up a mountain).  The divide between the foreground with the people climbing up the mountain side and the lake and hills disappearing into the background is pretty clear but its the graphical part that I'm most happy with. Here what I did was use the triangle created by the two hillsides in the foreground to connect to the view in the background, the shape just draws the eye naturally through the scene.


Now comes the more difficult section of this project with the idea of combining foreground, middle ground and background elements, I'd already done a fair amount of research to help me because I did worry about the fact that my foreground and middle ground elements would end up blurring together if I didn't get the composition just right. This is easily done but with the rules that I set out to follow in my previous entry hopefully things would turn out ok.

Tech. Details

F-stops- f/14

Exposure- 500secs

ISO- 800

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 18mm

For my first attempt at this kind of shot I tried a vast landscape view using my wide angle lens, as I planned I first located a good background here being the rolling Derbyshire hills, then within this view I found a point that would make up my middle ground here being the village in the valley then finally it was the more difficult part of finding something to place in the foreground while still capturing the other two elements. In the end I went for a simple gate way because I like the way it frames the other two parts. The problem I have is that I'm not really that happy with how the image has come together, what's happen is something I'd never foresaw in that the middle ground and background have kind of become one. I focused to much on stopping this from happening in the foreground and didn't pay enough attention to everything else going on in the scene make up. On consideration I think the problem here is that the village is just too small within the scene meaning its just swallowed up in the landscape, obviously the foreground has to be reasonably dominate but the other sections have to stand out just as much. I think its a back to the drawing board with this one.