Roadside Beauty

Taken on the way back from the lavender farm...100 degrees out,

despite a snow covered Mt. Shasta!

Beauiful landscape!!! Really like the fence in he foreground.

Very lovely colors, exposure and focus. I think it would be a lot stronger image though, if you cropped about half of the sky and some of the foreground.

Thanks to some great advice (thanks, C Brake!) Ive revised this and have cropped out excess sky and foreground...see my other pics for the result; Im sure you'll agree that cropping the excess out made for a more dramatic picture!

I think I would prefer a higher viewpoint which might show the road and the fence leading towards the mountain. As it is the fence and the distant row of trees seem to block off the mountain.

Hi again, CHarles!

 

I see your point...a higher viewpoint would really have made the mountain stand out...the road also bugs me, but still this is one of my favorite shots of mine. Gonna try this shot again with your suggestion and see what I come up with.

Are you left handed, or do you read a language that reads from right to left? Many of your compositions have diagonal elements the flow from right to left, rather than left to right. If you'd placed the mountain in the right half of the frame and used more of the road as the diagonal lead in it would make a much stronger picture. Left to right diagonals are associated with downward motion, and right to left with upward. In this case, we need to raise our eyes to the mountains...

Interesting comment. My wife reads a language right to left, and I was reading a book on photography composition asking which was stronger, and she uniformally picked the opposite of the intended "good" example (showing leading lines, placement, etc.) Oddly the book did not mention that a tendency to look at an image from left to right might be cultural or learned. Yet, it may be the case. I found it fascinating.

Hmmm.. maybe. But I only read two languages - English and German, and they are from left to right. Ive talked to a few pros about this guys comment, and all I got were eye rolls and head shakes. However, now that you have provided a bit of credibility to this comment, I will check it out. When I took this photo, tho, I didnt really care about the rules of composition as they pertain to diagonals. I simply wanted to capture the fence post, which very much captivated me because of its age, texture, etc. I thought it lucky that I was able to capture the mountain too...I wouldve lost everything I wanted in this photo if I had run across the highway :-)

 

All that being said, I do very much appreciate your time to comment and your valuable feedback! :-)