Exercise 12 Positioning the Horizon

These photographs were again taken on Long Mynd

The first image below shows a much higher horizon which takes up 2/3rds of the photograph.  The beauty of cloud and the sky make the shot interesting and takes your mind over the hill tops and into the distance. There was a significant amount of roll cloud on the day but sadly this is not really captured in the shot.  But the purpose of the trip was the sunrise and I this is why the placement of the horizon works well here.

Image 1

Image 2 is far more balanced though as the exercise brief suggests it is a little static.  The horizon is set centrally and the photograph a tad boring.  However the potential is there and I feel the third image harnesses the elements of a much better landscape composition.

Image 2

I took the third image at a much lower level making the foreground more prominent with a switch from 2/3rds sky to 2/3rds foreground.  The sky is no longer the only focus of attention.  Now the land also draws you further into the photograph. 

As I moved further out some more detail was captured in the foreground with the ground level foliage leading the eye through the range of hills and again off into the distance.  To me it looks like a great walking area and a good depiction of it for any visitor.



Image 3

The final image contains mostly foreground.  I am not keen on the image as I feel there is too much foreground now.  The drama has gone from the sky and the undulation of the ground has been lost in both distance and with the confusion of so many points.  Although the land is beautiful the lighting and the lens has not captured it well enough to be the focal point of the photograph, and in that and the other problems the image fails as a reference for the day.



Image 4

Conclusion

An amazing exercise to show what I was attempting on my photographs from the day.  I thought about what caught my eye and that determined where I placed the horizon.  The purpose of the photograph initially was to collect an image of the sunrise, but as daylight broke it became apparent how beautiful the hills on and around Long Mynd were and from that my compositions thoughts changed. 

Having never visited the spot before it became my mission to focus on two main points for the composition and to achieve a balance between them whilst also delivering a result on this exercise. 

The impact of horizon placement did have a huge affect on the photographs I took on the day.  My personal favourite is image 3, it totally depicts the great day I had on Long Mynd, along with another lesson learnt.