Large Format Landscapes

[mathomas]

One from a couple nights ago at a neighborhood open-space park (lucky to have them)
Arca Swiss F-Line (old 171mm frames)
120mm Super-Symmar
Arista Ultra 400 in Rodinal 1+25 (experiment -- think I'll stick with lower dilutions from here on out)
A bit of back tilt on the rear standard, and a bit of rise on the front. I'm pretty new to this, but I'm happy with the result.


cherry knolls park by Mike Thomas, on Flickr

[krishmandal]

One from a couple nights ago at a neighborhood open-space park (lucky to have them)
Arca Swiss F-Line (old 171mm frames)
120mm Super-Symmar
Arista Ultra 400 in Rodinal 1+25 (experiment -- think I'll stick with lower dilutions from here on out)
A bit of back tilt on the rear standard, and a bit of rise on the front. I'm pretty new to this, but I'm happy with the result.

I think it's fantastic. I mistook the framing when I stopped scrolling at a point that made the frame a perfect square, so I understood eventually to keep scrolling. The picture stands just fine as framed, and can even stand a different format (square!) so I think you've got two perfectly good images here!

[krishmandal]

Hello, I'm just arrived in this community.
This is a shot taken in the kindergarten of my children, near Lake Maggiore, Italy. In front of me the quiet, behind the din of the children ;-)
Rodenstock Grandagon 115, Tmax 400 4x5 in HC110 1:47, printed on Rollei vintage 111 24x30
Andrea

Andrea, I hope you don't find my critique too critical, but I feel that the scene has too much foreground in it. Is there a reason you framed it almost half trees / half ground?

[Christopher Nisperos]

Andrea, I hope you don't find my critique too critical, but I feel that the scene has too much foreground in it. Is there a reason you framed it almost half trees / half ground?

I agree: It's an interesting image, but much stronger when cropped to be a square ... in my opinion. Anyway, as I said, interesting shot!

[AlexGard]

This is a subject that came up on another forum I use (that a couple of other posters here I know of use as well), and in the "Landscapes" thread, someone replied to a traditionally aesthetically 'correct' image

Would be a lot better if you weren't trying to slavishly follow the rule of thirds.

The thought had crossed my mind a few times. I am an absolute sucker for just slavishly following the rule of thirds, and seems that many people quite easily question it when it isn't followed unquestioningly. I understand that 'breaking' the rule may be hard to execute well and should probably be 'broken' with pre-meditated deliberation? I'm not sure.. a lot of the photographers from this other forum seem to haphazardly ignore this 'rule of thirds' and pull it off exceptionally well. The criticism of Andrea's photo just seems to be pushing it back into the 'rule of thirds' or something, I'm not quite sure how to articulate my argument but I am becoming more aware of the rule of thirds being a super-dominant defining law in landscape (in my short 10 or so years of taking photos)... I'm not sure, perhaps trying to stimulate argument here, perhaps a little drunk... but I appreciate people trying to challenge the rules...? (Unless this is an old, tired argument in which case I will shutup and go away)

[Corran]

Alex, I think you make a great point. A good composition is not merely putting something on as many thirds as possible.

My eye is drawn to the center line formed by the pathway and tree, so if anything I personally would've considered taking a step left myself and tried to make an inverted cross shape between that line and the horizon - but as it is I think it's engaging, and the tones are certainly excellent. Nice work!

[darkrat]

Andrea, I hope you don't find my critique too critical, but I feel that the scene has too much foreground in it. Is there a reason you framed it almost half trees / half ground?

I always need the gaze of a third party to better interpret my own photographs. The foregroung is so big because I like to give breath to the eye, although the result is actually a bit "weak". Live there is a greater three-dimensionality, especially "entering" in the woods.
Thanks for the tips!

[krishmandal]

I always need the gaze of a third party to better interpret my own photographs. The foregroung is so big because I like to give breath to the eye, although the result is actually a bit "weak". Live there is a greater three-dimensionality, especially "entering" in the woods.
Thanks for the tips!

I absolutely understand now. I would say, however, that the 3-dimensionality often tricks us into taking images that aren't as strong as they could be, or in some cases, outright failures (yours is not a failure by any means, fyi, it's a strong image, but in my estimation just needs some cropping).

All that nonsense aside, I've fallen into this trap a lot of times, and still do occasionally. What I've taught myself to do is to look with one eye closed. Or through a hole I create with my fingers. That stops the dimensional trickery that your brain does to you. I came upon this myself, but apparently Ansel Adams also wrote it in his book "The Camera." You start to flatten it out by seeing with only one eye, and then it's a truer representation of what will end up on the paper.

I'm sorry, I don't know if this actually helped you any, but I hope it did.

[j.e.simmons]

I generally consider corners and edges most. When looking at the print, I find things at thirds so that one might think I focused on those instead.

[Christopher Nisperos]

Thank you so much.

Mohammad, your photo is quite nice, too . . . but I was trying to comment on the photo by mrzine in post #11845. Apologies for my gaff.