portraits

Put people in your landscapes

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Put people in your landscapes Too often photographers go to great lengths to ensure there are no people in their photographs. This is often something difficult to do especially when on holidays and in touristy places.

Why not get the people to work with the landscape? How can adding a person or two improve a photograph? One of the most helpful things a human figure can do in a photograph is create a sense of scale

I was trudging along the shoreline in Antarctica, scattered with beached pieces of ice berg left by the waves and tides when I came upon this lovely scene. It was missing something, and I was alone, so I decided this was a good job for the 10 second timer on my camera. I stuffed my tripod into the snow, ran into the landscape as far as I could, and did my best to “look into the scene” in time for the shutter to release. Running back and forth was actually pretty good exercise, and pretty fun! I encourage you to try this environmental self portrait in your next sunset or interesting landscape shot, I’d love to see them if you do!

Technical facts: It’s important to note, on my particular lens (Canon 16-35 f2.8 L) and many other lenses, that when I stop down to f/16 I get a beautiful star shape out of bright objects like the sun. The number of aperture blades employed in the lens determines how many points you see in the star, even more reason to go with the “sunny f/16 “ rule!

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This is a blog post originally posted on http://www.kylefoto.com, if you like this be sure to check out the Antarctic Worlds Gallery here!