Busy flowers and clouds

MitchP · Mar 28, 2022

Still trying to develop my landscape techniques. It's harder than it looks and it's not even trying to fly away from me! This is too busy, right? I suspect it needed a nice big rock or something in the foreground in place of the wildflower/weeds? I've lost all objectivity

Jeff15 · Mar 29, 2022

Lovely sky.....

MitchP · Mar 29, 2022

Jeff15 said:
Lovely sky.....

Thanks Jeff. Not very happy with this image, not sure about using that much vegetation as foreground. And then the second "layer" of the shoreline is complicated by itself. Hmm... Still working on it.

zulu42 · Mar 29, 2022

The horizon is tilted - or that very strong line is tilted, catching my eye and creating major tension. The colorful flowers (nice colors throughout by the way) draw the eye out of the frame. There is no visual anchor, like you said maybe a rock or at least show where the flowers come out of the soil. There's a road in the frame which should be part of the composition or left out. The wandering shoreline could have been shown better from a higher vantage point. The sky is nicely exposed. Landscape is harder than it looks!

weepete · Mar 31, 2022

@MitchP, it's not the busyness in itself that's the issue, but more that your shot is lacking a visual path through the image, and is a bit unbalanced.

A nice foreground anchor can work really well. I've seen a few shots with wildflowers where the photographer has positioned themselves with one, or a few flowers, very close to the camera which increases their size and prominance in the image. This can also help as wildflowers tend to be small so helps with visual impact. It's harder to pull off than it sounds, but if you get the proportions right, it can be very effective.

Paths, roads, streams, and the like can often be used to draw the eye and keep it moving in a kind of zigzag pattern. Pepper in a few anchors, like a building, some trees, bushes at the zigzag points, then going into the distance is classical landscape shapes, and really help to keep the eye moving and provide a sense of depth.