Making Sense of the Landscape - The Art of Seeing
A personal take on Landscape Photography

Yesterday's special presentation was all about landscapes and the art of choosing not only a subject but choosing all the elements of a composition. Eddie is clearly a consummate photographer and this expertise is the result of carefully 'seeing' what's in the viewfinder and making a multitude of decisions.

“Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer and often the supreme disappointment”

— Ansel Adams

Eddie began with the key criteria of landscape photography - the rules of composition and key elements. Composition, does 90% of the work in a good photograph but remember lighting, atmosphere and keeping it simple! Eddie showed many examples of simplicity with some remarkable subjects: planes, castles, beaches and storms.

Make use of leading lines and as examples he showed fields, railway lines and other compositional devices including the path to nowhere, the river to nowhere and the road to nowhere!

Another gem of an idea was to ask yourself 'Is there more than one picture within the view?' Eddie enlarged on this theme by explaining his use of different focal lengths - 50 to 200 mm, 109 to 500 mm to select different compositions.

Moving forward to woodland captures Eddie invited us to embrace the chaos and be aware of the power of light. Also he said use the marcescence of beech leaves especially when combined with mist and fog. Mist and light in woodland are heaven on earth!

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