By Scott Shephard
I’ll have to admit that when I took this photo, all I was concentrating on was the line of bare cottonwood trees along the shore of Lake Yankton. More specifically, I was trying hard to get my flying camera (Mavic 2 Pro) at just the right angle so the reflection of the trees in the very still water was close to a mirror image of the actual trees.
It was only when I got back to the “darkroom” (aka Adobe Lightroom and Aurora HDR Pro) that I noticed the clouds. I shouldn’t admit this because I know quite well from studying the photos of Ansel Adams and others that clouds are a key element in a landscape photo. I have read that Adams would lug his huge view camera to the same mountain scene several days in a row to get just the right clouds.
I am no Ansel Adams, of course, but I will say that there are a few photographic principles at work in this photo. First, there is the Rule of Thirds - the tree line is almost exactly 1/3 from the top. The idea here is that the main subject in the photo should never be in the middle of the fram.
Another element is a principle that helps improve many landscape photos. I’m not sure that there is a name but the idea says that there needs to be something of interest in the foreground that helps fill the frame. In a landscape there should be something of interest in the foreground, middle ground and background.
Finally, the brightest part of the photo should be the focal point, in part because our eyes will almost always go to the brightest part of the photo. When I look at this photo, my eyes immediately go to the line of trees. But then I see the whole frame - including the remarkable mirror image of the clouds both above and below the trees.
Is this a good photo? I can’t say. It’s tries to evoke interest and maybe even emotion, but only the viewer can say if it works. I will say that on this pristine December day in southern South Dakota, you should have been there with me. I figure it was the last warm day of 2020 in our state and I felt lucky that I was there just as the setting sun lit up this row of trees. Five minutes after I captured this image, the strong light was gone.
Mavic 2 Pro 1/120 sec f/5.6 ISO 100 (3 frame HDR)