Boring Landscapes

Ernicus

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I'm having some trouble with my landscapes. I'll put some up here in a bit after I go through them. To me they are boring. I'm sure a lot of it is subject matter, but I'd like to think you can make anything somewhat interesting.

I think what I'm struggling with is portraying what my eye sees and what I feel in a given location to the picture. For instance, I went to see St. Croix Island. It is nothing special to look at really...however it feels neat to be there and be walking on the rocks and shooting the pictures. I don't know how to get that feeling into a picture.

I am finding this with much of the scenery I am shooting. Cool to be there, neat to look at, boring picture.


Went ahead and posted a few for examples. Didn't do much editing 'cause theres no point wasting time on a boring photo.

I'll put what I was feeling and thinking on each shot to help portray what I wanted to get in the photo.



$DSC_0256-1.jpg
This one was cool to up here, up on a cliff making my way down to capture sunset. Looking through the trees to the distant river bank. I chose to frame the right side of the bank as seen through the trees. B&W just because, wasn't sure how it'd look so I thought I'd try. I wanted to capture not just the beauty of the scenery but the coolnes of being up there looking down and outward.

$DSC_0390-1.jpg
This was water running out of a large drain then going over an edge to make a water fall behind me. I cut out the drain cause it was ugly. I wanted to capture the awesomeness of being here, crouched down, watching water rush by me so fast...I could feel a slight breeze even from it. After review, it just looks like boring water.

$DSC_0045.jpg
This one I just wanted to capture the serene feeling of being up on the cliff looking outward at the river. I messed up on the horizon placement a bit, but the framing mindset was to get river, some trees and the kinda cool clouds, showing calm peacefulness. Just looks kinda blah now.



I dunno why the fourth image is showing as an attachment, but in the last one, same kinda thing, up on a cliff looking outward. Being there felt awesome, the view looked nice calm and serene, I could sit there a while and just enjoy being there. I put the tree in on the right side to break up the rather boring look to it, and the sky with no clouds really didn't help much. The muddy bank, to me, is even cool to see. However, once again in the picture, its boring.


Bottom line is what I see does not portray on the pictures. These places really do look kinda cool in person and are not as boring as the pictures portray.
 

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2 thoughts:
1. Get a wider lense to capture more of what you see in a single frame.
2. Spend more time on your composition. Good landscapes often have intriguing foreground and background elements that give the picture depth and visual interest.

Your pictures and my thoughts:
1. Too cluttered.
2. No frame of reference. Instead of standing above the stream and pointing the camera down at the water, get perspective lower to the ground that is more telling of the scene; that shows us where this water is coming from. The surroundings.
3. A bit busy, nothing really pulls you in to this image. Feels a bit snapshottish. It could be improved by a nice foreground.
4. The best image of the set. Calmer water, a foreground interest, and clean colors. The sky is a bit blown and the horizon tilted.
 
Here is the Island one I was speaking of. I went out to capture sunrise and was surprised by fog. I thought it would be ok as a pic of lifting fog might work out well. Well, this is as much as it lifted as it shortly turned to rain instead. So a bust there, but again, I'd like to think this could be interesting.

I did no editing or cropping whatsoever, just didnt hit me as worthy of trying to fix up.

I have more with more fog as well, but this is the one with the least amount as it lifted a bit.

I also included a further shot of water coming out of drain. This looks totally drab on a picture, but in person, even with the foggy morning, it really was neat to be there and looked like a kinda cool scene...even with the mud from low tide.

$DSC_0559.jpg$DSC_0564.jpg
 
2 thoughts:
1. Get a wider lense to capture more of what you see in a single frame.
2. Spend more time on your composition. Good landscapes often have intriguing foreground and background elements that give the picture depth and visual interest.

Your pictures and my thoughts:
1. Too cluttered.
2. No frame of reference. Instead of standing above the stream and pointing the camera down at the water, get perspective lower to the ground that is more telling of the scene; that shows us where this water is coming from. The surroundings.
3. A bit busy, nothing really pulls you in to this image. Feels a bit snapshottish. It could be improved by a nice foreground.
4. The best image of the set. Calmer water, a foreground interest, and clean colors. The sky is a bit blown and the horizon tilted.


Thanks for chiming in. I think I need to read more on what makes a good landscape picture. This is one of the areas my desire really is in, I have not posted much because they are crap. I agree with the "snapshot" look to them, that's how all of them are turning out. Looking back at my older ones from last summer its the same thing, so I have not improved in this area at all.

Yeah, I didnt edit to fix skys and tilts and so forth. Usually I can clean all that sort up ok. I wanted to put up natural shots for better critique, not so much on how to edit them, but how to better frame, maybe crops, or different viewpoints. That sort of thing.

Lens. After I purchase my macro lens next month, my next purchase will be a good lens for landscapes, so it will be a bit before I can do that. I agree though, a better lens to capture more would be great.
 

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