I do a lot of traveling and I have seen a lot of places. Let me tell you about one recent trip from my perspective!

I don’t think many people wake up with branches arching above them and a window-view of orange leaves at their feet, but I am used to waking up in unusual places. From my spot by the window, I like seeing the movement around me. I love just staring at trees!

This particular morning, after a yummy breakfast, I found myself buckled in with straps and a hat tucked snugly on my head. Yay! I love rides in the front carrier. Everything is so colorful! And what fun to ride to the top of a ladder from the floor of the ravine.

Wait . . . back into my car seat? Maybe we were going to another colorful place?

But it didn’t seem to be the case. We went on and on and eventually I fell asleep, lulled by the movement and rumble beneath me. When I woke up, I ate and stretched before falling back asleep.

Eat. Sleep. Eat. All day, same thing!

I slept that night again in my bed by the window. Next day, I went back in my car seat and watched the sky. Only this time we kept stopping, starting, stopping, starting, and stopping again!

Later, after a very long nap, I woke up hearing my parents’ excited voices. Plum? Dugout? Creek? What were they talking about? The van door slid open, letting in a blast of wind. Whatever it was, it looked like I had a chance to get out and stretch again!

All around were trees. Only these trees were brown. No orange or yellow or even red. I looked over the edge at some puddling water and saw long brown grass. I heard Mommy say, “We are on the actual banks of Plum Creek!” We were suddenly posing for a picture. Why was Mommy so excited about a scrubby place like this?

We walked through a big grassy field. Mommy said something about a storm coming across the prairie. She started walking faster and I felt something wet hit my nose. Suddenly, here it came! Oh dear, look at Daddy running with his black box in the rain!

That night I slept in my travel bed in a big warm room. Daddy and Mommy said something about being in a hotel and it sounded like we had finally reached our destination. We ate breakfast in a big, open space with lots of little tables and strange people sitting around. Later we went to a church where I saw more people. They were putting lots of fluffy white stuff on a big tall arch at the front of the room. I thought maybe we would be here a while, but nope! I went back in my car seat, back out to see more trees. At least there were colorful colors again!

I heard Daddy say something about this being the perfect place to bring the bride and groom tomorrow. We all got back in the van and started to drive down the road. Then I heard Mommy say, “Wow! Look at that!” We stopped and Daddy jumped out with his black box again.

The next few days were lots of fun. We saw lots of people and I sat with Mommy and watched a girl in a white gown walking with her daddy to the front of that room, the room with that white fluffy stuff. And I made some new friends–Faith and Jenna were super nice and I liked talking to them. I even got to sit at the head table with the wedding party!

The next day we went to church and after the service I went back in my car seat. We hadn’t gone far when….

Stopping again?!

Why was Daddy taking so long? Oh, that’s right, I’ve heard him say that before: the 1st photo is ok….but it isn’t good enough. And why is the first photo not good enough? Well, let me have Daddy explain it to you. He’s really good at explaining these things!

While Mordecai and Julianna hung out in the front seat of the van, I enjoyed a spontaneous photo opportunity. Let’s analyze my shots from that wind-swept, North Dakota sideroad!

Of the two photos below, which one do you like better?

The one on the left is my first photo. It’s ok. Captures what made me stop in the first place, the lone tree. But to me, the second perspective is better. Why? Well, I’d say I’m filling the frame more in the second one. I think this draws attention away from the man-made elements of the powerline poles and introduces the viewer to the field in which they are standing (or more accurately, sitting).

Now, we could stop here and go hop back in the car. But it was a Sunday afternoon and I wasn’t in a particular hurry, intentionally wanting to take in and enjoy our last day in North Dakota. Plus, I felt like I could make this photo better.

What would you do to make this photo better? I’m on-location, so I can tweak things a whole lot easier here than I can trying to improve the photo on a computer at home.

My thought was that, while my initial composition nicely showcases a tree in a cornfield, it doesn’t offer the “vast” feeling I was experiencing at the moment. True, I could intellectually deduce by looking at this photo that we were in big sky country, but I don’t get that feeling by just looking at it. So, what shall I do?

I shall add some sky!

Replacing the larger portion of field with a cloud-brushed sky makes a wonderful difference!

My initial photo is the one on the left. But can you see a problem with it? The foreground is neither intentionally blurred out nor intentionally in focus. It’s f/11 on a telephoto lens with foreground elements up close. Changing aperture to f/4 now makes that depth perception more intentional. Which I tend to like better.

I’m sure Mordecai was thoroughly perplexed by this time, wondering why on earth Daddy was no longer sitting, but now lying stretched out flat on the ground with his black box. But never mind what others think! My real concern at that moment was my dress pants. 🙂

But I wasn’t finished.

I got what I wanted with the telephoto lens, but I wondered what this location would look like with a wide angle lens. So, I switched over to the 16-35mm.

Now here is where our analysis gets interesting. Before, getting down low was better. But what about here? Which of these two perspectives do you like better?

Personally, I think the one on the left, the one taken from up higher, looks better. Why? Because there is a composition element in the foreground that isn’t in the second photo: lines that are pulling you from the foreground (bottom left corner) to the background (bottom right side). They don’t lead your eye off the edge of the photo (which would be a bad thing) because the visually attractive tree and clouds sweeping in the opposite direction bring your eye back into the photo to explore it some more.

And what about the background telephone poles? Because of the choice of focal length now, they are so small that they are no longer a distraction drawing attention to themselves.

So, what do we conclude from this composition analysis? We can not conclude that bug’s-eye view is always better. Nor can we conclude that eye-level is always better. The conclusion is, regardless of what perspective you take, if there are compositional elements that keep your eye inside and moving through a photo, then it will look better than the photos without them!

As much as I like the eye-level photo above, I don’t think it’s interesting enough to stare at for a month as a desktop background. So I hope an in-between perspective is good enough. Though the foreground lines to the right are not as strong, there is just enough diminishing perspective evident in the corn stocks that it does inherently the same thing.

A Baby’s-Eye View
Countryside near Kelso, North Dakota
Download as a free desktop background in the next Latest from Lenspiration update (subscribe)

Of course, if I were here at golden hour, sunrise, or sunset, this photo would be a whole lot better. But there are some things you can’t change when a family man’s occupation is not officially landscape photography. 🙂 But I hope I did the best I could with what I had!

And as for Mordecai? Well, he liked playing with leaves better than just looking at them. Though he may not have appreciated the scenery as much as we did on that long trip to North Dakota, he certainly is learning how to be a good travel buddy! 🙂