The most basic of design elements in composition is the line. You don’t need to study art to know about lines; presented with paper and crayon a toddler instinctively draws lines. There are many variations of lines: straight, curved, jagged,…
The Road More Travelled
In the poem, The Road Not Taken, poet Robert Frost was confronted in a woods with the choice of two diverging roads. Students of literature know that he took “the one less traveled,” perhaps because he thought he would find…
Winter Visions
Landscape photographers seek out compositions during sunrise and sunset for good reason. The low angle of the sun passing through the earth’s atmosphere can paint the skies and landscape with warm colors and create what is called sweet light. My…
Autumn Visions
It is not surprising that autumn is a favorite season for landscape photographers to photograph. As daylight hours decline, trees stop producing chlorophyll and the underlying leaf pigments emerge from behind the fading veil of green. Subsequently, the nearly monotone…
Chiaroscuro
You need light to photograph, but without shadows your photos will not have any depth. Subjects will lack texture and form and appear flat. While this may seem to be counter-intuitive for a two-dimensional art form such as photography, there…
Walk With Me
What makes some photos more visually appealing than others? As landscape photographers we are blessed – and sometimes overwhelmed – with a variety of compositional tools, many borrowed from painters. The rule of thirds, power shapes, the psychology of colors,…
The Art of Line and Shadow in Nature
Line is the most basic of design elements in composition. You don’t need to study art to know about lines; presented with paper and crayon a toddler instinctively draws lines. In photography, light is essential to a good photograph, but…