Simple Photography Tips - Using cloud, and foreground.

Six simple photography tips on what to do when faced with unusual opportunities- Camera and Phone-Camera

• Do your best to notice distractions and work out how to exclude them

• Experiment with angles to add interest to your photographs

• Use bushes to hide unwanted objects

• If you have lens options, then experiment

• check the depth of field and shutter-speed if you're using a camera

• Try to avoid post-adjustment

  
  

A while back I was on a trip back from the North of England, which took me down through the village of Brill in Oxfordshire, where I came across a windmill. A little research shows Brill Windmill to be Grade II* listed post mill dating from the 1680s, a little bit of extra for you.

Image One - Brill Windmill © Michael Blyth

The cloud conditions lent themselves to variable and interesting photographs, and I spent some time experimenting with some of the options on how to photograph a windmill like this. I was using my iphone 14.

Image One is wide-angle lens option, Note the way I've used the approach track running from the bottom left, leading the eye across the picture towards the building. It's a simple photography tip to tuck away in your knowledge base, it has many applications in landscape photography, and used properly is very affective.

In this case it's particularly effective because I've positioned the camera so that the track actually goes right across the image from left to middle right, and more or less onto the intersecting third, leading the eye right to the base of the windmill. A less dominant effect would be to have the windmill set on the left intersecting third, but this would then have given the bench dominance in the image - bad idea!

A couple of other things to learn from this image. The houses to the left are a distraction, as is the bench. I could have hidden the houses by crouching down until the greenery masked them, but that technique would have backfired by making the seat too dominant.

Image Two - Brill Windmill © Michael Blyth

Image Two, i've moved in nearer to exclude the bench, and to use the bramble bushes to mask the houses. The lens use is not quite so wide angle as the first image, and you'll notice that in positioning myself to avoid the bench, I've lost some of the leading effect of the path.

As ever, the sky can make such a difference, these images wouldn't have been nearly as effective without an interesting sky. Try searching Google forphotographs of Brill Windmill and see what I mean.

Image Three - Brill Windmill © Michael Blyth

From Image Three on, is to my mind where it gets really visually really exciting, I'd been doing a bit of the old 'looking until you see', and wandering around the site, came across the cow parsley Anthriscus sylvestris, you can see in these final images. In all three images it's use in the foreground adds so much depth and interest.

In Image Three I've positioned a taller flower in such a way that it leads the eye to the windmill. But, I didn't get it quite right, part of that flower is in focus, but not all, and if blown up as a large image this is noticeable

Image Four Brill Windmill © Michael Blyth

Image four is similar to Image Three, but as you can see, I've gone for a wide angle image, and feel that the dominant piece of cow parsley in the former image, although leading the eye, as it does to the windmill, is a less balanced and less pleasing image. I prefer this composition.

Image Five - Brill Windmill © Michael Blyth

Image Five, is my favourite, taken with the ultra-wide on my iphone, and benefitting from the way that the effect of the lens on the cloud draws the eye to the windmill. The cow parsley in the forground is not quite so dominant.

Interestingly, I've positioned the mill and horizon more or less in the centre of the image. The reason for this is that it allows a balance between the interesting sky, the equally interesting foreground, with the main objest sitting between them.

All this illustartes the fact that although there are a few wrongs, there are many rights, as well. Just play with the theme and enjoy yourself. Think through some of the photographic ideas I've put here and in other photography blogs, and you will find they come to mind the more you practise.