Landscapes - Sarah Weintraub

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                                                 Photo 1 - Shutterspeed: 1/500, ISO: 640, f/11


Photo 2 - Shutterspeed: 1/500, ISO: 250, f/5.6


Attempting to take dynamic and interesting landscape photos was difficult for me because I much prefer taking photos with a close-up subject in focus and I've found it hard to take a landscape photo that doesn’t appear flat or bland. 


I’ve been unintentionally including a more dynamic depth of field in my images through taking photos with subjects in the foreground and background, mostly because I prefer the look of focusing on something up close rather than a flat image that looks like a default computer wallpaper, but I did struggle with making sure everything was in focus.


The images I decided to include in this post were taken at Tenant park from last week's field trip. Over the weekend, I visited a couple other places including the Arboretum tower, but I made a couple mistakes that made the photos quite bland. Firstly, I went out during the middle of the day, so the photos turned out flat. The view from the tower is blocked by tall trees as well in a way that was difficult to frame in an interesting way without entirely blocking the background. I also went to a beach park, but again the dynamics were lacking. Ultimately, I chose the images from Tenant Park, even though it was very foggy, because I liked that they emitted some sort of feeling of eeriness, and the focus on the cattails in the foreground gave a more dynamic view especially because the background was blurred by the fog. If I could go back under the same weather conditions, I would try to find a plant with more color to potentially pop out and contrast the foggy dull background. The main thing I would change to focus more on the landscape is the aperture and focus point. I would see how the view looked with an aperture of f/8-f/11 and see how it changes the look of the background. I would also like to use the tip from the landscape video that says to move the focus point to the one third line and see how that changes the focus of the image as well. I am aware that the cattails are the primary focus of these shots, but the images I took at this landscape felt more dynamic than the several other landscapes I’ve visited over the past few weeks. 


With what I know now from this class and specifically the landscape tips video, I would’ve tried using an aperture of f/8 or f/9, I’ve been leaning towards either using f/4-f/5.6 for up close images and f/11-f/16 for landscapes or images with a subject from a further distance, but it seems I’ve missed this sweet spot. I also wish I had rented a tripod from ATUS, because I think it would’ve helped me a lot. A lot of my pictures came out at a lower quality/not as good as I would’ve liked because the camera is either shaky and out of focus or the image is slanted. I also keep forgetting about the ISO, in part due to setting it to auto mode, but I need to remember to keep it in mind to avoid graininess which many of my images have.


There’s also dust that might show in these pictures, which is unfortunate because I’ve cleaned my lens several times, but before Thursday’s field trip I will find a video that helps me clean the lens and sensor properly when I have the time. 



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