Thinking Photography - Seal Rock
Edward Weston said, “Composition is the strongest way of seeing.” Sounds so easy doesn’t it? It isn’t. Especially when you’re out there in the changing light, rising tide, howling wind or the first drops of a downpour.
It’s also not some formulaic thing. Sure, there are a lot of “rules” that get taught in art school (and even more simplistic ones in photography magazines), though they’re more principles that, admittedly, often have a lot of validity, but rarely in themselves “make” an image. Even when you apply several of the rules into a single photograph (believe me, I’ve read my share of articles discussing the multiple various rules that got implemented in an image that simply did not stir any emotion in me), there are no guarantees.
I think a large part of it is feeling it in your gut. You’ll know when it’s right, or not . . . you may keep pushing on right past it while you’re photographing, but when they’re up on the monitor, there’s a reason why one will often jump out at you. Now, I firmly believe it’s worthwhile learning the various principles artists have worked so hard over the centuries to uncover, but they can’t be applied blindly and it’s probably best to learn them, understand what’s behind them, and then forget the rule. I also think it’s definitely worth training your eye by examining visual-arts masters - photographic and otherwise - so you develop what I call a sensitivity. That way, you know when it’s right because it feels right. And last, it’s worth studying images that touch you, to figure out why. Sometimes it’s purely emotional, but other times it’s because of the composition and in those instances it’s worth asking the question, “Why?”.
And that’s why you should revisit your work, like Ann has been doing recently (and me over her shoulder on my work breaks), because sometimes it takes awhile for your brain to realize what your gut told you to do. Now, this really isn’t one of those instances, because this concerns what I believe to be one of Ann’s best images . . . certainly one of her best prints. But her monitor had this image up with a few other images that immediately screamed out to me “BLOG POST!” because of the lesson it showed.
To provide some background, the image is of Seal Rock, Oregon, taken on a morning where we’d stayed at the beach a bit longer than normal and had been gifted with some lovely light (perhaps the light was the reason we stayed there so late). Our presence there, on that particular day was no accident. Due to the phase of the moon (not visible in the image), one of my favorite photo-planning apps - Tide Graph - told us that morning was going to have a particularly low, low-low tide in the early morning. Our options for that weekend had been Bandon or Seal Rock - we opted for the latter. Most times, the foreground rocks are under water. Not that morning.
In my grand quest to try and figure out what makes a good landscape photograph, the main image of the blog post (and the supporting cast), have much to offer.
Often, but not always, interesting landscape images have clear foreground, mid-ground and background elements that contribute to the image in some way. One of the things that I just cannot relate to are those folks that get down low (hands and knees low) to get a small foreground flower to look like a giant land-of-the-lost anomaly to have a “foreground subject.” For me, the foreground can’t seem contrived. Ann’s really good at not doing that, and this first image has that. There’s much for the eye to examine and encourage the eye to roam around the foreground and explore.
The middle of the image also does what Ann does so well - it incorporates elements that are composed in a manner that leads you through the image, as if you’re there and you want to walk out into it. Left foot on the rock in the bottom left hand corner and a short hop with your right will get you to the large flat rock that will take you farther into the view.
And, of course, there is the well-lit Seal Rock in the background. That morning it was more beautiful than I’d ever seen it.
The above photograph seems to have all the necessary elements (especially the foreground) to be a successful image. But . . . the gut says something isn’t quite right. Good . . . but not right. I think Ann sensed it too at the time.
So what does she do? She continues to work the image to see if there is a better image to be made. She does this by moving forward (I think to that larger rock off to the right in the foreground (now you know why we wear water boots when we’re on the coast)). To repeat Saint Ansel (again), “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.”).
What does moving do? Well, it simplifies the foreground a bit. As much as I enjoyed the foreground of the image above, it perhaps offered too much and took away from the final destination for the eyes, Seal Rock. The foreground in the image below may not be overly interesting, but it doesn’t keep your eye down on the bottom of the frame, it lets your eye immediately lift up to that row of rocks that leads diagonally from the bottom left of the image through the frame to underline Seal Rock . . . still lit in beautiful soft light. Plus, moving forward helps accentuate the reflection in the pool, further emphasizing the subject.
However, something is still not right. The image seems . . . unbalanced. And it is. Again, I’m sure Ann was well aware of it at the time. So she continued to work the image, pushing her eye, brain and heart to make the image even better. As much as I love photography and photographing, there is a reason I call it work. It is tiring, both physically and mentally, but sometimes you cannot stop until you feel that it’s right (or you’re convinced you can’t make it any better than you have . . . that day).
From the image above to the image below, I think Ann did four things (other than to develop the image in black and white) that makes the image below something special.
First is she moved to her left a bit (maybe a foot, probably more). You can tell this by the parallax shift between the rocks that form the mid-ground and the background rocks. The bigger rock that visually overlaps with the Seal Rock leg that extends to the left shifts over to the right a bit in relation to Seal Rock (more on how that contributes to the image later) and the birds sitting on the rocks to the very right of the edge are no longer directly below the right edge of Seal Rock (though that in itself is insignificant as far as I can tell). She definitely moved her tripod, and thus camera, to the left.
Second, Ann rotated the frame of the image to the right. Recall, I said I thought the above image was unbalanced. I think it was because Seal Rock was too far to the right in that frame and, when combined with the visual weight of the foreground rocks to the left, that mass causes the image to visually rotate clockwise and seem unbalanced. There’s nothing in the bottom right or upper left to check that visual unbalancing of the frame. In the image below, Ann, by including the visual entirety of the large round rock behind Seal Rock in the frame, shifts Seal Rock towards the center of the frame, stabilizing the visual weight, and helps give context to the larger landscape. Rotating the camera any farther to the right would have included the landscape shelf seen in the first image, which I think contributes nothing to the image.
Third, Ann tilts the frame downward just a bit. I think by visually adding the top half of the two rocks just left of center on the bottom of the frame as well as including the triangular rock in the water, the frame has at least some of the foreground visual interest that the above-image lacked. It helps ground the image in a way that respects the edge of the frame. Plus, tilting the frame downward a bit includes the line of water off to the left so that it extends from the corner of the image, leading the eye into the frame along with the mid-ground rocks. The bottom edge of the frame has a coherency lacking in the above image.
Fourth, and this really is important even in landscape photography (perhaps especially so on the coast), Ann timed her photograph well. To start with, the “timing” gives an element of life in the image. While subtle, there is the energy of the waves crashing over and washing down on the rocks that brings the image to life. Ann let the first set of waves wash over the rocks to give them definition, and then caught the second wave as it reflected off the rocks into the air. Then there is the solitary bird flying just to the left of Seal Rock. It looks like a small dot on a screen, but print the image larger and there is an unmistakable bird in flight. Sure, all of the images have plenty of gulls in the mid ground and on the top of Seal Rock, but that one bird gives the image life and turns the birds on the ground into living animals instead of white specks.
Another subtle element about the timing has to do with the waves again and also involves the movement of the camera to the left (which moved the larger mid-ground rock to the right). The wave action breaks what visually appeared in the first two image to be a solid wall of rocks into what is really there - a series of rock outcroppings. There is the exploding wave to the left between two big rocks, but also the cascading flow of crashed wave just to the left of the larger mid-ground rock (made visible by Ann’s moving the camera). That breaking of the solid mass of rocks also adds depth to the image (as if the leading line were not enough).
I won’t even begin to get into other compositional considerations such as the inverted arcs formed by the two rows of rocks in the foreground and the arc formed as Seal Rock as it descends to the rocks in the ocean below, the mirroring of the form of Seal Rock and its protruding rock formations with the clouds immediately above, or the use of reflections in the foreground to contribute to the depth of the image. Or even try to comprehend the brilliance of deciding the image should be presented in black and white.
The reality is, that it is perhaps only the last of the above choices - the decision to develop the image in black & white - that may have been the only “conscious” choice. All of the rest may have been done “by feel,” and that’s ok. Because it works.
It’s a stunningly beautiful, seemingly simple image filled with complexity and critical decision-making.
It’s enough to feast the eyes, and the brain if one so chooses.