Landscape Photography – The Principal Interest
Nov/110
A landscape, like any other kind of picture, needs a principal item of interest to which the eye naturally travels. This, as a rule, lies in the distance or middle distance.
The main item of interest may be emphasized by adjusting its tone scale and placing in the final picture. It is not often possible to emphasize it by differential focusing, because most lenses render the middle distance and distance equally sharp at all apertures.
But there is often some atmospheric haze in the air and this splits up the picture into more or less clearly defined planes. This haze lightens the tone and softens the edges of shapes in the far distance. There is less haze between the closer planes and the camera, so the nearer they are, the clearer and sharper they look. And the shadows of nearer objects have a thinner veil of mist over them, so they appear blacker than more distant objects.
This natural separation of the picture planes can be reduced by the use of color filters.
But the interest must also be prevented from being led out of the picture. Straight, horizontal lines: fences, roads, waterways, and the horizon itself:tend either to divide the picture or to direct the eye out of it. But so long as the line is broken or hidden by some other object before it reaches the margin of the picture, it loses most of its distracting power.
One useful way of keeping the interest within the boundaries of a landscape picture is to frame it with dark foreground objects, e.g: a gateway or overhanging trees.