I thought it might be interesting (to some) to unpick an individual image from start to finish.
Those who are aware of my work may have noticed the increased proportion of woodland images over the past few years and I have certainly gained more enjoyment and satisfaction from being in the woods than other environments. Increasing health issues have made it more difficult to do the necessary miles to get off the beaten track and I've become a little jaded by some of the Lakes’ classic views. However I had a particular requirement to take some ‘selfie product images’ for Summit Creative Bags and Blea Tarn offered an ideal location with dramatic scenery close to parking. The forecast of sunshine & showers was equally promising. My intent was to make the product images while going through the motions of making landscape images there.
However the quality of the low light, sneaking through multiple gaps in the clouds stirred my interest. Further, while Blea Tarn presents a pretty standard diet of boulders at the waters edge, I'd not consciously noticed a little patch of grasses emerging on previous visits. When one shaft of light hit the grasses, I was hooked and quickly got to work. If you stand higher up the sloping ground, you get a great deal of the tarn in your image and so in order to compress this to a more balanced proportion, it makes sense to work from a low viewpoint close to the water level. This also gave the opportunity to feature the grasses more prominently.
I had my Z7 and 24-70/4, nothing else, no other lenses and no filters. 95% of the Blea Tarn images you see are in landscape orientation which might have influenced my intuitive decision to set up in portrait format. I quickly decided on the wider view at 26 mm and when in portrait mode I always use the 5:4 ratio so I dialled that in straight away. I know this is a ‘destructive’ choice on a Nikon (and I wish it wasn’t) but I prefer to have the viewfinder showing (more or less) exactly what I’m framing.
As the light was fleeting it was necessary to set up and hope that it returned - sometimes it does, often it doesn’t. Camera position is a process that has varied with increasing age. It has transitioned from getting the camera into the perfect position to getting the camera into a place that doesn't hurt too much and from which I can stand back up again. As I got into position, crouched down towards the heavily waterlogged ground a number of compositional elements emerged. The grasses sat between two large boulders leaving a viewing gap to the Pikes between. There were a couple of extra rocks piercing the surface which makes the composition less clean and some may consider using the Remove tool to extract them. I'm of the view that they’re there and that's the way it is. From this viewpoint, whenever the wind dropped there was a nicely placed reflection of the Pikes and from time to time patches of mist and cloud drifted past. If all those elements came together, the eye should first rest upon the bright green grasses then follow a route through the frame to the right hand boulder then onwards through the brightest reflection of the clouds before finally exiting via the highlighted distant mountains. Finally, according to the gaps in the cloud blocking the sun, patches of light might fall on the foreground, midground or distant mountains. The route for the eye, and arguably the whole composition, only works if each component part is illuminated appropriately. A couple of test images persuaded me that I would make a three image focus stack if the opportunity presented itself. F11 would cover any gaps between. I use autofocus and move the indicator around the frame to the area that I want to use. As far as exposure goes, I use aperture priority and always have the histogram in the viewfinder. I use exposure compensation until the histogram looks right. The histogram suggested I needed 1/30s for f11
At that point, one simply hopes and keeps fingers crossed. A few chinks appeared but nothing just right. I’ve never been keen on time blending where exposures are blended to combine different light on different parts of the landscape. I prefer to be able to say that if a viewer had been there at that moment, they could have seen the scene exactly as photographed. Eventually however I was treated to light on all three segments, foreground, mid ground and on the mountains. Even better, none of it was full light so all sections were mixed light and shade. I had time to make one single exposure then three stacked and it was gone all in less than 60 seconds.
You have to be set up and ready for such moments, they can be gone in the blink of an eye.
Processed in Photoshop, exclusively in Adobe Camera Raw. One the subject of which, the new AI powered sensor spot removal tool is life changing and has already become an essential part of the workflow.
The foreground grasses, lit by the low side sunlight first caught my eye. Their position between the two boulders gave a natural pathway for the eye.
Multiple symmetrical ‘echoes’ presented themselves. Firstly the obvious reflection about the line of the tarn shore giving a reflection of the Langdale Pikes and the distant horizon.
The second ‘reflection’ is the echo of the distant Langdale Pikes framed on either side by the slopes and the sunlit rock framed by the two boulders.
For the photograph to work, I needed the light to fall in just three places. 1. The foreground grasses and rocks. 2. The shore of the Tarn and preferably not the two sloping flanks (so the Pikes were highlighted more strongly) 3. The main bulk of the Langdale Pikes. The splash on the passing cloud was a real bonus prize.
The two flanks marked X lying in shadow helped enormously in the composition and I hardly dared hope that they might escape the sun. By sitting in shade, they served to draw the eye out to the distant bright spot at the top of the frame.
These two small rocks just breaking the surface are sub optimal in my view. The composition would be cleaner without them. However I’d never remove a natural object and just accept that nature doesn’t always offer neat and tidy for us.
My intention when composing an image such as this is to try to anticipate how I would like the viewer to read it. In this instance my plan was very clear. That being to use the high contrast, bright, colourful areas to lead the eye through the frame on the path I selected. Any viewer may choose otherwise but my intent was that they would start with the bright green contrasty, sharp grasses in the foreground. Next they would move following the line of the nearest angled rock towards the right hand boulder. From there, they eye goes through the reflection of the cloud and heads for the brightly illuminated mountainside before exiting through the brightest white of the cloud.
A brief post script.
The reader may note there is no mention of the ‘Rule of Thirds’ nor some other compositional devices. I've written elsewhere that I do not see these ‘rules’ as instructions that must be followed in order to produce well composed images. I have always viewed them as tools to help the analyst understand why some compositions work better than others. They may of course be helpful to those starting their creative journey.