A Picture Perfect Place

by | Oct 13, 2012 | Impressive Places, Tips & Tricks | 0 comments

Just had to comment on a few shots from one of the photo excursions in Montana:

Alone, Yet Not Alone

1595_Near Bloomfield-Montana-USA_Canon EOS 40D, 200 mm, 1-500 sec at f - 7.1, ISO 200

Odd looking hay bail, eh? I could hardly believe there was a moose as far east as Bloomfield. The locals said it had been maybe 20 years since they’d seen a moose in those parts.

Grainary on the Prairie1559_Near Bloomfield-Montana-USA_Canon EOS 40D, 17 mm, 1-320 sec at f - 9.0, ISO 200

Classic shot. Simple, colorful, full of character. It’s nice that the light was on both the front and side of the structure facing me. Both sides in shadow is bad, one side in sunlight is best, but two sides in sunlight works just fine. Squatting low gives both a creative angle and a bluer sky; as a rule on a clear day, the further from the horizon, the bluer the sky.

Montana Countryside

1560_Near Bloomfield-Montana-USA_Canon EOS 40D, 21 mm, 1-250 sec at f - 8.0, ISO 200

This is my favorite pic from the morning. I really wanted to show the terrain in which the building was standing yet I found it quite difficult to do. The problems were fourfold:

  • First, I was forced to shoot northward because the front of the building faced south (and the backs of buildings usually don’t make the best pictures). There wasn’t much to see in that direction.
  • Second, if I stepped more to the right to include the left side of the building (to produce a feeling of greater depth), the building would then cover the only background hills that were worth including in the shot.
  • Third, I couldn’t shoot super wide angle like I usually do because then it would make the background objects appear so small that you would hardly be able to notice them. Neither could I shoot telephoto because then it would blur the background to the point that the details in the hills were lost.
  • Forth, I couldn’t do a cool perspective like shooting up at the building because then the foreground elements would again cover the hills (or at least sufficiently eliminate the mid-ground, or ground between the foreground and background, to produce a disconnect between the objects).

So after several tries, I finally found that sweet spot in focal length and positioning that allowed all the elements to fit together perfectly. Or at least as perfectly as I could make them. It took some time, but I am pleased with what I was able to get.

To see more from the excursion, view the Montana Countryside Album.

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