- Is there more to landscape photography
at our oceans and beaches
than golden hour, long exposures, and textured water?
So in this video, I put to test,
can I find woodland photography compositions at the beach?
So if you watched my video a few weeks ago,
you'll know I talked about my lessons,
the things that I learned in 2021,
and things that I'd apply in 2022
in terms of my photography
and one of those things is about slowing down.
One thing I have done in terms of slowing down
is if I have got my camera or my smart iPhone,
I've been taking it out,
having a look around at different locations close to home,
things that sort of speak to me
and images that I might like to create,
and really thinking about why I wanna create them.
So when I was here a few weeks ago,
I realized this would be a great place
or location to return to in different conditions,
take some really unique woodland photographs
of the coastline of Australia
with these beautiful coastal banksia trees.
So the purists might say
this is just a group of trees at the beach.
True, this is just a group of trees at the beach.
But is it any less of a subject
than the magnificent old-growth forests
or the unique landscape of the Australian bush
with our towering mountain ash trees?
So by embracing that thinking,
we're limiting our opportunities
to practice landscape photography
and whilst traditionally woodland photography
would be a forest or a bushel of trees,
there's no reason why here these beautiful coastal banksias
can't be part of our creative vision,
and again, the more opportunity
we have to practice landscape photography,
but also the better photographs we can take.
So many flies.
Now, things are looking promising here.
So I am gonna move locations in a moment
and take a different composition,
but whilst,
it's starting to spit again and the sun's out,
but I do like what I'm seeing
straight behind the camera there,
so I think there's an opportunity there
with the forms of the two dead coastal banksias.
Let me walk you through the scene.
So first problem we've got here
is, as I said, this water fountain here.
This is a public beach.
But doesn't matter, we can rid of that in Photoshop.
So let me walk you through the composition.
So these beautiful coastal banksias.
So what really draw me to the scene,
and I'll just show you back here,
is just the way the nature of the trees
shape in different directions.
It creates a real frame in the image.
So we've got some beautiful side light.
The sun rises to my east.
My east.
To my left.
And as you can see here,
the shapes of this dead tree arching over
and the top of the frame,
so I'm looking at a 16x9,
and we've got this tree here as well
and then the background separating the trees
and really paying attention to the top of the canopy here
to try and create that separation of those branches,
which is a hell of a lot more challenging than you think.
I think that's one of the things about woodland photography,
is that to have a successful image
or one that's actually visually pleasing
is paying attention to those small details.
(mellow music)
All right, so I've gotta take one more shot,
so I've framed up again.
I've put the aspect ratio back into 16:9,
same as before but with flat light,
focusing on the front tree just here,
and f/8, 1/40th of a second ISO, 100.
So unfortunately when I got home,
I loaded the images into Lightroom
and I wasn't really happy with them overall
and I think there's some lessons we can take away
from my time at the beach
and whilst I think coastal woodlands
is certainly an opportunity to explore,
there's a lot of things
I still need to learn about that location
and the conditions to get those images right.
So let's have a look at those raw images
and just talk through my thoughts
around why those images didn't work.
So this image here is where the light actually hit the trees
and we can see here on the coastal banksias
the golden light coming through
and that does create a little bit of depth
and sort of interest to the image.
But what's really lacking here,
and there's some really obvious flaws in this image
and I'm not sure why I didn't see that on location,
so things like this dead branch here,
I don't really know why I didn't notice that.
It's in the middle of the frame.
So I find that quite distracting.
The fact that the light is hitting the front
or the foreground of the image here,
naturally, my eye wants to go to that bright spot here,
which is actually overpowering the image.
Now, admittedly, when I took the image on location,
I was looking at a 16x9 crop.
So if we just quickly do that,
just have a look at what it might have looked like.
What I thought my eye was seeing
was probably something like this
but I don't think I had the right focal length.
I was using a 50-mil lens.
So perhaps I could have stitched it together as a pano
because I feel it's too tight at the bottom here as well
with that 16x9.
And what I was trying to capture in this image
was, yes, the tree canopy giving a frame
to the top of the image there
and I wanted the eye to lead through here into the ocean
and realize you're at the beach, as I said,
but you understood that these trees
were the hero of the image.
But yeah, it hasn't really worked.
The other image, which I think is probably better
and has got more potential,
was the second composition.
I really like in this image
how this dead coastal banksia mirrors this one here
in terms of the shapes
and I do like how we've got that archway
across the center of the frame
by these two trees here.
And I actually also like, on the far right here,
these two trees.
Even though they're not separated well enough
for this image,
there's some potential there.
So, again, I think with a different lens
and maybe backing further up
and sort of coming in from this angle,
I could have separated those better.
The other thing as well,
which is clearly a problem for me,
is, again, the top of the canopy.
I don't know why I've just missed that canopy completely.
So for me, this image has potential,
this location has potential,
but different light,
sorry, different lighting and conditions
would probably help,
but also just working through
to create that separation would be more important
to create a more interesting image
and visually pleasing.
Hopefully you found that useful
to have a look back at the opportunities and mistakes
that I made in terms of my own composition today
and, you know, as landscape photographers,
I think that's the thing that we need to continue to do,
is to continue to drive ourselves forward to improve.
If you'd like to learn more
about photography mistakes I hope to avoid this year,
be sure to watch this video.
I'll see you in the next video. Bye for now.