A different kind of landscape

The current photography “assignment” on the Pioneer Woman is landscapes.  Yesterday, I went hunting through my photo archives to see if there were any landscape shots I wanted to share.  And I soon made the discovery that I don’t really take many landscape shots.  In fact, a startling large majority of my shots are of details.  Now what does that tell you about my personality?  Ok, maybe I don’t want you to answer that question.

I ended up going quite far back in my archives, landing on pictures I took just about a month after getting my DSLR camera.  I was just beginning to learn about composition and how to use my camera to its full potential.  I am still learning about composition and how to use my camera to its full potential, but I had even more to learn then.  I was visiting one of the most stunningly beautiful places I’ve ever been to–and believe me, I’ve been blessed with visiting some extraordinary places.  Sapa is set up in the mountains of Northern Vietnam, and is a remote haven of terraced rice paddies and uncultivated beauty.  Knowing what I know now about photography, I would love to return someday.

As I looked through my pictures for “that shot”, I had to laugh at some of my experimentation in composition.  Like I said, I had a lot to learn.  I was particularly drawn to a series of pictures I took of a lone standing castle-like structure.  Here are the SOOC (straight out of camera) shots:

Here, I’ve diminished some of the drama of the building by zooming in too close to the structure.

Here I was likely trying to frame the shot, but the tree ended up being more of a distraction than an appropriate frame.  I also don’t like that the building is centered in the picture.

Attempt number two at framing is also an utter failure.  Once again, the bamboo pole is only a distraction, not an enhancement.

My favorite of the shots was actually the first one I took, and employed the rule of thirds well before I knew what the rule of thirds was.

The “empty” space to the left enhances the drama of the building.  The intrigue of the “castle” is increased by cutting off the access bridge to it on the right.  The fogginess of the mountains in the backdrop lends a mysterious and moody air to the photo.  However, as a SOOC shot, it’s not packing a lot of punch.  That’s where photo editing comes in.  I decided to play up the mysteriousness, moody-ness and drama and ended up with this:

This may not be exactly what comes to mind when you think “beautiful landscape.”  However, I love the mood of the shot now.  The light and shadow plays up the mystique of what appears to be an abandoned mountain retreat, creating a memorable, if not traditionally beautiful, scene.