Learning to See: Creative Compositions: Part II

The first post in our Learning to See series explored the topic of Creative Compositions. Remember those tips we mentioned...?

• Find a new location to shoot that icon
• Experiment with different zoom lenses
• Change elevation of your camera
• Get up close to focus on textures and patterns rather then location
• Use reflections if available
• Place a human or wildlife element in the photograph

Here are a few examples to illustrate the point.
For the first photo, Varina shot directly into the sun with a Canon's 135mm f/2.0 L-series lens. You're looking at Everglades National Park. By using a 135mm lens on 1.6x camera, Varina was able to fill the frame with the few low hanging clouds on the horizon. It's not a typical shot from that location - though you'll see those famous back-lit spider webs in the foreground if you look carefully.

In the next two examples, Jay used human or wildlife elements as foreground points of interest.

And for this last shot, Varina used macro lens to capture this tiny leaf against patterned sandstone. The shot was taken near the Hanging Gardens in Page, Arizona - since the light wasn't right for broad landscapes, she focused on details and patterns instead.