In a couple of weeks I’ll be making a short trip to Switzerland. No need to mention that I will be bringing my camera along. However since I am trying to improve my photography I should prepare myself to ensure that I’ll come home with stunning photo’s. So how to prepare?
In a number of posts I will highlight several aspects in my preparation. In this post I will focus on the subject. e.g. What to photograph?
Switzerland has a lot of things to offer, Mountains, culture, history, architecture. In short more than enough options. Since I live in the Netherlands, which is so flat you can fax it, the thing which triggers my imagination most is mountains.
So I want to go and photograph mountains, but that doesn’t entirely finish off the what question. There are many different kind of mountain images. Just type in mountain in Google image search. I use the Google image search to help me pre visualize what kind of photo I would like to make. In my case I am most moved by those pictures which help you feel the grandeur of the mountains with their own stories which remind me of the mountains in Tolkien etc. I would like to make photo’s which show that these mountains have a story to tell.
How to translate this into a picture. When I look at pictures I like I often see depth I have a feeling of the size and age of the mountains. In an online tutorial on www.jeffwignall.com it is explained what kind of elements help to create depth. If I want to create the illusion of depth I need to look for those elements. Another element which helps to create depth is shadow created by the mountains.
Conclusion
On my trip I’ll be looking to make photo’s of mountains. The photo’s should not be misplaced in a Tolkien kind story, so they should contain depth. Some sketches come to mind
- A foreground object (shed, house, ..) with some sort of road or river leading the viewer into the mountain. The image is most strong when this is layered by haze or fog.
- A very powerful image is a range of mountains reflected in a lake; it shows the full scale of the mountains
- Whit sunrise or sun set the first part to be hit by the sunlight are the mountain peaks and while the sun is climbing through the sky, the shadows chase each other through the mountains.
- Maybe a long time exposure of an after sunset sky with the first stars visible tracing their way on the sky
In the next post I will go into how to make this happen.
