I have not been that active on this website for a couple of reasons, one being rather busy with work – like recording sessions, other enjoying summer and cycling and outdoors.
This time I would like to share my though of nature photography, and why for quite some time I sucked it it. And I still do, but there seems to be a solution to this.
You have to select a story to tell
Just a nice view is not enough, yes it would make a nice picture, but it will not be personal, nor it will touch the viewer. For quite some time I envied people who made staggering nature photography, and all my attempts had been futile, with some exceptional mishaps. And then It hit me – I was not telling a story or selecting the featuring element. I was not making it personal.
It does not meter for whom you make it personal to, as long as it does mean something to someone. Either you share a story or even emotion that makes you feel. No think, feel. Images are not to be contemplated, they are to be felt first, this is what makes the photography successful.
Other problem I had with nature photography was that, I wasn’t selective, I always thought as nature view as a whole. A collective wonder that in it’s complexity is the wonder, but there is no what how to share it in one image, at leas not an easy and inexpensive one. I can’t make 10m picture walls, or posters with nature at 1:1 scale. Thus I have to be selective, selecting a key point, story, idea to be shared. Something for eye to catch, and there comes the craft – finding and capturing the moment so that you direct viewer’s eye to the spot you selected. Sometimes it is enough to use some little bit of vignette, sometimes you have to select perspectives accordingly, sometimes you have re-frame (crop) picture to leave all unnecessary visual information out.
I’m still learning, but I start to see that I’m on the right path, hopefully.
Gallery: Nature photography