One main foreground subject against a compelling background

Near Lake Louise, Banff.  Full-frame camera with 20 mm lens @ f/13.  Hyperfocal focusing.

When shooting landscapes, I like to look for two main components.  The first is an attractive background.  That often means sweeping vistas, places where I love to explore anyway.  Some of my favourite landscapes include the Rockies, Badlands (like Drumheller), water-carved canyons, and carved seashores.  Many of my best shots have been taken at such locations.

The second thing I like is some near subject to shoot against such majestic backgrounds.  Often it may be flowers but it can also be interesting rock formation, animals, benches, trees, etc.  Within this framework, I like to photograph people, sometimes individually but more likely in small groups.  They can, in fact, be the subject themselves.  I often use fill flash in such situations to provide a little extra saturation and contrast for the members as it improves their contribution to the overall image.

Within all of this I will tie compositional aspects of photography.  Thirds, lines, framing, story, and so on to further enhance the image.  In post I will then play with editing tools to crop, straighten, enhance, and improve the image.  AS I shoot raw files the extra latitude, white balance control, and lens correction algorithms all allow for further improvements.

It is not unusual for me to take 20 or 30 images of a scene to find only one or two that I like.  Although I keep everything (10 TB hard drive), only a very small percentage of all the images are chosen and saved as what I consider good.  The above photo was taken in 2016.  It has sat happily on my hard drives since then for me to use it only today.

I knew I would eventually use it!

Thanks for reading.     www.ericspix.com

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