Landscape

My intention of this photo was to bring attention to the sunset and the mountain in the background, yet balance the photo with the tree in the foreground. Compositionally, I explored many options with this week’s assignment. Another element that contributes in this photo is the brightness of the sun shining through the tree further back.

 This photo as well as the next one are I think my best ones from this week’s assignments. My intention of this first one was to capture the sunset while using the rule of thirds between the sky with the smooth spread out clouds in the upper third split by the tree line in the middle as well as the gorgeous orange sun and finally the ice-capped snowy field in the lower third of the photo. I also intended to capture an analogous color scheme with the orange sunlight and the white between the sky and reflecting snowy field. The tree line is a nice offsetting touch to this scheme. I like that the sun is off centered in this first one, it is really appealing with the tree line to the right of the sun.

My intention of this one was color wise the same as the one above, but compositionally I intended to break the photo apart a bit more suddenly by centering the sun in the middle third with the tree line and again the sky in the upper third and snowy field in the bottom third. I think that this photo is still very appealing but possibly compositionally a bit boring compared to the first.

 My intention of this photo was to put more focus on the foreground of the trees rather than the sunset and mountain in the background. Part of landscape photography is to capture all aspects of a photo opportunity. I think that because the sunset is set back further, it draws the eye a bit more. I like the different colors that the sunset reflect through the photo starting in the back and still warming the foreground. Thus I think that the most successful element of this photo and the other photos is the sunset itself because no matter how it was captured, it still seems to be the highlight of the photos and brings a happy, warm and relaxing mood to each of them.

This one shows a closer image of the mountain, putting emphasis in the background on the mountain and the sunset. I think that compositionally this photo is successful because it shows rule of thirds and framing. My favorite feature is the fence in the lower left and the tree branches that give a natural and openness to the photo in the upper left. One thing that I really like about this one too is that I could easily crop it a few different ways and still capture different elements of landscape. For example if I were to cut out the left side, the mountain, the sunset and the trees glistening in front of it show a bright, warm feel of a winter day. Yet if the right side were to be cropped out the emphasis would be on the fence and tree branches to the left and the photo would show a complementary color scheme more than the analogous scheme to the right of the photo.

My intention of this photo was to capture a warmness through the air of the warm winter day in a compositionally appealing way. Again rule of thirds comes into play, but at a diagonal with the road in the bottom third. I like the way the trees blend between the bottom and top third. If I could change one thing about this photo I think I would have backed it up a bit to show the other side of the snow bank on the other side of the road. I think that this would have helped frame the photo and make it more balanced.

Finally, some variety for this week’s assignment. Unfortunately I did not have much time to do enough shoots this week to get great photos so I had to use many from one shoot but I also chose this one from another quick shoot in Fairfax, Vermont. Fairfax has some really great views of mountains. I wanted to capture some good photos of Mount Mansfield, but again I ran out of time. Instead, I took this shot from roadside on a back road. My intention of this photo was to capture a monochromatic color scheme. The hue of the pale sky balances well with the snow covering the mountain and the fields that cover the photo. Again, the tree really sticks out in this photo and adds a nice offsetting touch for our eye to draw to. One thing I would like to change about this photo is the focus of the mountain. It seems to be a bit blurry as it is almost lost in the background. This might be due to the color scheme, but that’s Vermont winter!