Landscape Photoshoot - Anna Pfluke

 

I took both of these photos on our Thursday field trip to Tennant Lake. For the first photo I walked down the trail until I found a place with an opening and visible water to try to capture the reflected light of the trees. I like this symmetrical effect- the visible trees above the water and their reflected image below. In the bottom right corner there is a bit of the shore and shallows visible, and I think this gives the photo some depth and context. I don't like the lighting in this photo; the sky and water both feel too bright. In retrospect I should have tried changing the shutter speed or aperture to try to reduce the glare of the back-lit sun while not darkening the trees too much. I think the contrast of the light and dark is nice, but this photo feels too intense to where it becomes confusing to the eye.  

The second photo was also taken walking down the trail, this time focused away from the water. I saw a Chickadee in a tree and was trying to get my camera to focus on it, but my camera is auto-focused and only seemed to want to capture the trees behind the bird. I kind of like the effect this had on the photo- the supposed subject being both blurry and back-lit, and the background being well-lit and in focus. It is contradicting what a photo should be. It also is a very crowded frame, which does not have a good effect. The dark object in the foreground (tree and bird) makes the image confusing to the eye, as there is not one clear focal point. The contrast of light and dark also add to the crowded nature of this photo. If I could re-do this, I would try to get a photo of just the chickadee in focus on the tree, and lower the camera so the background is just sky to simplify the image.