The Themed Shoot - Focusing on One Area

Too often I will find myself shooting random shots and most of the time with random results. I have discovered, the hard way, better results usually occur when I do two things; Shoot a Theme and Focus on One Area. 

Shooting a Theme simply means to have a purpose for your photo shoot. Things like flowing water, or big skies, Old Barns, or street photography are good themes to think about, but the concept is as diverse as the number of people using a camera. The only limitations comes from your own imagination. Focusing on One Area is a way to concentrate your efforts. By doing so, you begin to develop your photography seeing skills and will find more detail. It also helps you to refine the composition.

A themed shoot really does help you develop a critical eye. It causes your mind to concentrate on identifying objects that fit the theme and that will open your mind to seeing ordinary things in a new and exciting light. You begin to look at the world in a more focused manner and often a simple glimpse of something will trigger your photographer instincts to take a second look.


Landscape photography can be as broad and diverse as there are opportunities to shoot. The idea when focusing on one area and shooting a theme is to explore the diversity of your selected location and discover all of the various angles, atmospheres, and energies. When shooting a particular place try not to limit yourself to one lens angle. Instead explore the various looks you will achieve by using a wide angle or medium telephoto, and then focus in on specific eye catching points with a longer zoom lens. The different looks you achieve by employing this technique will often surprise you. What looks good with a zoom will often look great when that particular focused content is incorporated into a wide angle shot and then by moving in a bit closer you can eliminate some distracting elements that simply do not belong in the image.

If you have followed this blog very long at all, you will know the Tallgrass Prairie region is one of my favorite locations to shoot. It provides an almost never ending array of photo opportunities and is a great example of Focusing on One Area. When focusing on an area such as this, what it has to offer photographically starts to build on itself. You will identify specific locations seen in the middle of the day as potential early morning or late afternoon shooting opportunities. The next time around those same locations will possess a completely new look when seen under different lighting conditions. The beauty of focusing on one area is you build an opportunity list of subject matter and when the seasons change, the weather changes, or just because you can, you have a ready made place to start and from there, you can branch out and search for newer, fresher, locations.

I have also discovered how staying away from a favorite location for an extended amount of time will reinvigorate your ability to see it again with a more critical and creative eye. Places you may have bypassed before suddenly appear interesting. The landscape may have changed slightly, just enough to reveal what might have been hidden before as something possessing unique and challenging subject matter.

Shooting a themed approach brings you closer to your subject. It creates a more intimate and personal photographic moment and hopefully a more enjoyable and productive outing. Focusing on One Area while shooting a theme helps you to concentrate on what is truly important photographically. You begin to see the world with fresh eyes and identify details that may have otherwise been overlooked.

Doing More With Less - Simplify Your Composition

Composition as it relates to photography is a complex concept filled with so many subjective solutions it becomes difficult to narrow down the subject to a simple yet effective way of applying it. One concept does stand alone in its effectiveness that works well for beginners and more advanced photographers alike. That concept is to do more using less or put another way, simplify.

I suppose one of the most damaging of errors most people make when creating a photograph is to try to capture everything in one image. This almost never works in a composition as it tends to create a great deal of clutter that distracts from the main subject of the image. In fact, it often obscures the main subject so much that the image loses its focal point and becomes uninteresting.

As a photographer my purpose is to create order out of all the visual chaos. Sounds easy but it is not always so. The trick is to learn how to visually focus in on what is truly important. You do this by asking yourself a very specific question; What am I seeing that is truly capturing my attention?

Where does your eye keep going? More often than not if you can answer that question, you will discover the best solution to your photograph. When looking for the answer, the idea then is to simplify everything down to its basic elements and compose your image based on what you discover. You will find that by using less in your image you will actually create more. Doing more with less is a great way to learn how to compose images.

Isolating the most important part of your composition is an effective way to do more with less. I will often use a long focal length lens, something like 200mm to 500mm, to help me find and isolate what is most important. The long lens will by it nature create a blurred background and this alone will enhance that sense of subject isolation. However you can also isolate in other ways. Sometimes I will use a wide angle lens and use a dark or bland or uncomplicated background to isolate my composition. The sky for instance works well for this.

When trying to isolate your subject always think in the context of what fits. Simplifying your composition does not always mean your image will lack for complex details. What it means is everything that shows up is there for a reason and does not interfere with the composition. Nothing appears out of place. This does take some practice to develop your artistic eye, but is something even beginning photographers can grasp.

Doing more with less is a great way to develop your seeing skills. It is a matter of answering the question of what is most important about what I am seeing, then focus in on the answer.

Wait On The Photograph

Great photo opportunities rarely just suddenly appear and even when they do, more often than not we're not ready. I've probably missed far more great photo opportunities than I ever captured and as a result I was educated a great deal about what it takes to capture the few amazing moments that do appear. I wait on them.

One of the most difficult things for a lot of photographers to comprehend is the concept of waiting for the photo. The waiting process is what defeats us. We don't like waiting, we want it now, and so we too often try to force the image. The results are usually predictable.

Over the years I could count on one hand the number of truly remarkable images I've managed to capture, but the number of mediocre images I have forced are countless. Waiting on the photograph requires us to look thru the fog of clutter that interferes with the image we are wanting to capture, to recognize the potential of what is there. It is the potential we are waiting on, not the immediate situation. Recognizing potential often means we must return again and again to the same location sometimes spaced out over months, but most certainly over the course of hours or days.

I once heard Sam Abell, a former National Geographic photographer, say about photography, "Compose and wait." What he meant by this was to see the image, but wait for the situation to develop. The situation includes waiting on the light, waiting on the action, and waiting for the right moment to release the shutter. Work the moment while you have the opportunity and build your image in layers from the back to the front. See past what is there now, and wait for the opportunity to present itself. Think in terms of Setting, Expression, and Gesture. Compose and wait on the photograph. Look for graphic details, look for angles, look for reflections, and eliminate convergences. Convergences are those places where separation of elements need to happen in order to add strength and focus to your composition.

Often it is those subtle separations that help to define the image. I've been guilty as I am sure others are as well, of trying to see the big picture without truly looking at the smaller elements within the composition. A splash of color, the angle of the eyes, the leaning against a wall vs having a small separation from the wall, the highlight that defines an important element, and the timing of the shot can make all the difference. Subtle changes, soft movements, a horizontal line, a vertical line, a curved line, random crossing lines. Sometimes these are what moves an image forward and separates it from the ordinary.

Luck sometimes comes into play but more often than not the observant photographer can manufacture his own luck by thinking through the equation of what is required to create a given photograph.