Landscape Photography Tip #4: Find Intimate Detail

Portrait of Fall

       Get close and zoom in: This is one way to broaden your portfolio, Landscape photographs are not necessarily confined to massive expanses of land shot with a wide-angle lens. It is important to keep your eyes open for everything. Look closely as intimate details, sometimes these can be a big part in telling the story of an area. Make sure to keep the composition simplistic when considering getting close or zooming in. Use strong lines and bold form to make the photograph stand out, this will help the viewer immediately find the correct entry point. Focus on one strong element, whether that be a crack, flower or shadow, otherwise there is a chance of the scene looking congested. The Congestion will make the viewer feel claustrophobic, which is most often uncomfortable.

       Things to consider with intimate scenes: Intimate scenes have some very interesting printing advantages. A simplistic scene often works very well as a wrapped canvas print. This way the photograph works as a complimentary element to just about any room of a buyers house or your house. When shooting a scene with minimal depth, there is no need to stop your lens too far down. Keep sharpness in mind, find the 'sweet spot' of your lens, typically this is two full stops up fro the lenses maximum aperture (say maximum is F/4, two stop would put you at F/8). One can also flatten the scene by stopping down the lens by several stops, one might desire this look when printing on canvas when sharpness is not terribly important (stopping the lens down too far past it's 'sweet spot' will cause diffraction, a loss in sharpness caused by the bending of light entering the tiny aperture opening).

Technical details:
Above: Canon 7D, Canon 24-105L lens (@24mm), circular polarizer (CPL) filter, ISO 100, F/22, 1.3 second. 
Below: Canon 7D, Canon10-22mm lens (@22mm), ISO 100, F/8, 1/2 second.

Rock Canvas