Category: Location (Page 7 of 8)

Masterclass :: Mastering Composition

May 16, 2010 / Hitzeman Photography / 0 Comments

Assignment: Composition on Location

“Imagine that a magazine or website has asked you to illustrate a feature on the techniques of composition and choose a famous landmark as you main subject. Use every trick in the book to produce an unusual interpretation of a well-known local feature.”

— from Digital Photography Masterclass by Tom Ang

Results

This was fun. I try to “use every trick in the book to produce an unusual interpretation” on all my shoots. Or should I say, I look around and try to capture something beautiful on all my shoots.

The tricks are not all in a book, though. I believe they come more from inspiration.

Choosing a single famous landmark for Chicago was something I tried to do and could not. Sears (now Willis) Tower, the Hancock Building, Navy Pier, Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, boats, lake sunrises, and on and on. What’s your favorite Chicago landmark? What says CHICAGO to me is the Chicago skyline, and I was able to capture it in pre-dawn light, lit by its own city lights glow.

“Chicago North Panorama”, (C) Harry Hitzeman

See this panorama in full screen slide show mode at my Chicago Set on flickr, as well as images from Navy Pier, Ohio Street Beach, North Avenue Beach, and Millennium Park.

“Building Bloom Vertical”, Smurfit-Stone Building, 150 North Michigan Avenue, from Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois

Death Valley

May 2, 2010 / Hitzeman Photography / 0 Comments

Death Valley National Park surprised me with countless textures and shapes and colors of rock and mud and clay and stone. I wanted to stop the van every few miles and capture images. And there were vast open spaces, no cars or roads or telephone poles or power lines to litter the eye. Not even trees to block the sight line to the bases of mountains rising up in a snowy patchwork.

Even the weather surprised me with its variety – snow (in the upper elevations), some rain with standing pools of water turning the dust red, surrounding dried-out sage brush. Imagine photographing steam rising from the clay furrows at Zabriskie Point! And there were just enough mostly scattered clouds to give color and texture to the sky.

What Death Valley National Park shows me are the phases of an ongoing geological process that’s over 5,000,000 years old. Pretty long time. 70,000 lifetimes or so. I’m glad I had a chance to see it in this one.

Death Valley National Park has the widest variation in geological forms and colors I have ever seen. This image shows the Mesquite Sand Dunes like waves of gold stretching below the Grapevine Mountain Range.

Mesquite Sand Sunes, Death Valley National Park, California

This trip also included a drive to Lone Pine, California, in the foot hills of the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They’re called the Alabama Hills — unusual and beautiful rock formations and a few arches. In the early days of movies, westerns were filmed in this site because of its scenic rock formations and nearness to a local town.

“Sierra Gold Sunrise”, Lone Pine Peak, Sierra Nevada Range, California

Zabriskie Point is a part of the Amargosa Range in Death Valley National Park. Its erosional landscape is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago. The site was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the early 20th century. The company’s famous, iconic twenty-mule teams transported borax from its mining operations in Death Valley.

Manley Peak, view from Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, California

Masterclass :: Obtaining Ideal Color

April 20, 2010 / Hitzeman Photography / 0 Comments

Assignment: City Streets

“Working in an urban area where there are plenty of people present, try to capture the busy scene in a balanced, well-composed image. You can either record a general view, or get in close to take a more intimate shot. Take advantage of colors and shapes when composing and organizing the shot.”

— from Digital Photography Masterclass by Tom Ang

Result

This assignment was about looking for ways to compose with color and shape in an urban area with people present. The famous Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park is always surrounded by people. This image uses a clear blue sky to define the three spikes of buildings poking upwards like asparagus, with a huge silver melon of a sculpture stealing the show in the foreground.

Man’s Vegetable Garden.

Antelope Canyon

March 29, 2010 / Hitzeman Photography / 0 Comments

I am grateful to the Chicago Area Camera Clubs Association (CACCA) for awarding my image named “Entry” with an Acceptance Ribbon in its 2010 Annual Spring Salon Competition.

CACCA was founded in 1936, and is a progressive photographic organization composed of about forty clubs in the Chicago area. Over 1000 members are actively engaged in every phase of photography.

“Entry”, Antelope Canyon, Navajolands, Arizona

An Acceptance Award is granted to the highest scoring one-third of submissions, and means that the image will be included in a promotional DVD. It scored a 24 (average of 8 from each of 3 judges) with the highest possible score being a 27 (9 from each of 3 judges).

From the CACCA Judges Handbook:

An image that scores an 8 is a very strong image. Such an image is technically correct and much more. The elements of the image must work together. If there are flaws, they are minor and hard to find. Obvious flaws must be compensated by other elements in the image. Images that score an 8 may break the “rules”. When the rules are broken, they are broken for impact. Technical excellence is expected to a high degree in an image scoring 8. Difficult exposures, effective use of selective focusing and depth of field, as well as other advanced photographic techniques are commonly found in such an image. The image exhibits SEVERAL elements towards which those who are working at polishing their craft should be striving.

Garfield Park Conservatory :: Composition in Nature

March 15, 2010 / Hitzeman Photography / 0 Comments

“To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravity before going for a walk. Such rules and laws are deduced from the accomplished fact; they are the product of reflection.”

— Edward Weston

Reflections in Green – Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, IL

Composition in photography is a big topic.

Just what is “good” composition? Can it be defined by a set of rules? If it could, a camera company will put a program and some sensors into your camera and you won’t need to think about it anymore. We already have automatic exposure and automatic focusing . Just add automatic pointing and automatic zooming and automatic shooting and automatic developing (correcting color and contrast) and soon you can just send your camera out on its own and look at the pictures it posts on Facebook.

We think we like to have rules so we know if we are “doing it right”. What’s more important in creating art is how it “feels”. How do I feel when I look at a scene? How can I frame it and expose it and focus it, so that when I see it later on a monitor or in print, it still makes my soul breathe deeply. And what sweet added joy to know that someone else (such as, my wife!) may cry with joy when she sees the symbolism of the arrangement of all these captured and tweaked pixels, my vision in light of life.

In a class at the Morton Arboretum in DuPage County, Illinois called “Composition in Nature”, taught by Willard Clay, we discussed several rules that can be used in creating a composition in nature. These rules are more aptly called “tools” because it is always the artist’s decision and vision that determines when and what tools will or won’t be used in creating a composition.

The biggest rule — in art and in life — is to create what you love. The rules in composition are about creating an image in a two-dimensional rectangular pattern of pixels of colors and lights and shadows that results in lifting the soul of the viewer to experience beauty (or some other emotion). The rule in life is to breathe deeply in the beauty around us.

Side by Side, Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, Illinois

Category: Location (Page 7 of 8)

Masterclass :: Mastering Composition

Assignment: Composition on Location

Results

Death Valley

Masterclass :: Obtaining Ideal Color

Assignment: City Streets

Result

Antelope Canyon

Garfield Park Conservatory :: Composition in Nature

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