(gentle music)
- Hi guys,
it's Ross Hoddinott for NatureTTL.com.
Today we're going to be discussing using
foreground interest to create depth in your compositions.
(gentle music)
(camera shutters)
(beach waves roll)
What I'm looking for is some nice tidal pools
or rocks that I can place in my foreground
to help create a really nice
three-dimensional feel to my images.
The beach is generally a very chaotic environment
so I'm trying to simplify the composition
as much as possible
and hopefully, as we wander around,
we'll find something really appropriate.
And actually,
I think this would work really well here,
in front of me now.
We've got some really nice rocks dotted
amongst some really nice tidal pools,
which look really quite attractive.
The light's a bit flat at the minute
but I think if we get the right conditions,
this could work really nicely.
The nice thing about this scene
is the rocks in the foreground
act as stepping stones into the image
and that gives the shot really nice depth.
The viewers eye should hopefully start at the beginning
and then just follow stones into the shot,
into the middle distance
and then towards the horizon.
And as a landscape photographer,
you're tryna construct a shot which implies depth
and leads the viewers eye
basically on a path around the shot.
And this is what these particular rocks
in the foreground do really well.
You might think I should be closer to the foreground rocks,
go in very wide angle
and make them very large in the foreground
but actually that can make them too dominant
and instead of your eye wandering through this shot
and being led through towards the distance,
the foreground object becomes too dominant
and it becomes much more about the foreground object
than it does about the entire scene.
So from here,
I think I can capture an image with a lot more context
and it's about the entire scene
rather than just the objects in the foreground.
You've probably hear of a compositional rule
called the rule of odds,
which dictates the odd number.
An odd number of objects work very well in photographs
and here we've got three rocks
just in this tidal pool
and they work really nicely as a trio.
What I'm tryna do is compose this scene
to use them as my foreground.
And the rule of odds dictates
there always has to be a centred object,
and our eyes generally tend
to get drawn to that centred object,
which makes the approach more successful
than if there was an even number
of say two or four or six.
A good foreground can make for strong landscape composition
and in this instance,
these rocks in the foreground
give us these stepping stones into the shot
which works really well.
We have this little peninsula of sand
which comes in from the bottom right hand corner,
which just subtly points the eye into the scene as well.
Often,
good foreground is quite subtle.
It doesn't have to be really dominant,
it doesn't have to be really in your face.
You're looking for subtleties that just
encourage the eye into the shot.
That's the thing you're tryna do,
you're tryna encourage the viewers eye
to explore the frame.
And this kind of scene just works so well.
This kind of foreground is just perfect.
(wind blowing)
The light has finally come out
and I'm just going to take a couple of shots now
just as the light just starts to pick up
some of the cliffs in the distance here
and hopefully in a minute
we'll have some light in the foreground as well.
(camera shutters)
(soft music)
I really like that photograph
with the reflections in the foreground.
But there's lots of different ways that we can create depth
in our landscape photographs.
One of the best methods
is to utilise lead-in-line.
There's lots of different things within the landscape
both natural and man made
that you can use to direct
the viewers eye through the shot
from the foreground right through to the distance.
Such things as pairs,
jetties,
roads,
paths,
and even this river could work really nicely.
Just to drag the eye through the shot
and create a really nice feeling of depth.
In this instance,
I'm not going to use the river,
I'm going to wander further into the beach
and hopefully find some nice rocky ledges
and perhaps the incoming tide as well
to create depth and interest in my shot.
(water running)
Leading lines don't get much better than this,
these fins of rock in front of me
just lead the eye into the image really nicely
and I've composed this image
so that I've got the rock coming in from one corner,
so I've got a really strong diagonal through this shot.
And this viewpoint's so much better
than if I went over to the left or right of me
when there's either too much rock
or it's just lots of sand
which doesn't create any depth of interest.
The only thing I think would make this shot better now
is a bit of water motion.
I'm hoping that the tides going to come in
in the next 10 or 15 minutes
and wash between these bits of rock
and really add some nice interest
and also separation between the rock in my foreground.
I'm just going to wait now
and fingers crossed I get some good shots in a minute.
(water rushing)
When you include foreground in your shots,
you typically want to have
an extensive depth of field
to ensure that everything from your foreground object
to the distance is acceptably sharp.
In order to do that,
it's very important that you think very carefully
about where you focus within the scene.
Depth of field falls approximately
one third in front of the point of focus
and two thirds beyond it.
So a good rough and ready way of achieving
a very large depth of field is to focus
a third way into the frame.
Another good method is double distance focusing,
where you look at your scene,
you look at your closest point
and then you double that distance
and focus on that area.
And that's exactly what I'm going to do here,
I'm going to look at this foreground rock
and I'm going to double the distance
and then use in live view,
I'm going to focus on that point
and that should ensure
that I have really good extensive depth of field
and my image is sharp throughout.
The final way to get really good
depth of field in your shot
is to use a hyper focal distance.
For more information on this,
click on this link.
So the tides really coming in now
and the water's just put a lovely separation
between these rocks.
And effectively the water motion
is acting like another leading line,
it's dragging the eye into the shot.
I'm using ND filter here,
a six stop ND filter,
just to add a little bit of motion
to the water as it comes in.
And effectively what I'm doing
is generating my over foreground interest
by my choice of exposure.
It's very important to understand that exposure length
can really affect the way you capture foreground motion.
I'm going to shoot from here for as long as I can safely.
All this white foam is just going to blur
and hopefully look really nice.
The sky's looking really quite moody as well now,
it's quite stormy,
and hopefully these results are going to look
so much better than the shots I took earlier
without the water motion in this image.
(gentle music)
Well that's nice.
That is nice!
(gentle music)
(camera shutters)
(waves rolling)
(gentle music)
As you can probably see,
the tide is coming in really quickly now
so I've had to retreat
but I hope you've enjoyed this video
and don't forget to subscribe to Nature TTL
for more exciting,
weekly tutorials.
(gentle music)