Working the Scene

Posted July 29th, 2015 by   |  Photography, Travel  |  Permalink
Bell flowers and Icelandic mountain.

Bell flowers and mountain in southern Iceland. Nikon D800, 14-24mm f/2.8.

When photographing any scene, make a point to always photograph it from as many angles as possible. Working the scene is important, because you’ll never know which photograph looks the best until you get back to your computer.

Mountain and reflection

Icelandic mountain reflected in small pond. Nikon D800, 14-24mm f/2.8, Gitzo carbon fiber tripod.

On last week’s trip through the southern coast of Iceland, my co-leader Tim Vollmer stopped our photo van to photograph this beautiful mountain reflected in the pool of water. Our group took a few reflection photographs at the pond, then started looking around for different photographs in the adjacent field. We found a small cluster bell flowers in the field and used it as a foreground element in our landscape image.

The flowers provided an entirely different look than the reflection and greatly added to the diversity of images we created. It’s a lot easier to spend 10 more minutes at the scene while you on location than it is to try to recreate a photo once you get back home.

To work a scene, consider these options:

– vertical

– horizontal

– reflections

– flowers

– water

– people

– animals

– high perspective

– low perspective

– sunny

– cloudy

Just for fun, here are a few BTS (behind the scenes) pics of our group in action.

hagen_150718_0222

Photographers in the dirt

Photographers using the bell flowers as a foreground element in their mountain photograph. Nikon D750, 70-200 f/2.8.

Photographers in Iceland

Photographers shooting mountain reflection in Iceland.



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