In the Field: Photo Blog by Richard Wong

Photography field reports by Richard Wong. Richard’s work has been published in magazines, books, advertising, and offers fine art prints of his work. Images may be licensed as rights-managed stock photos by contacting Richard directly at Richard@rwongphoto.com or (626) 422-6151. California stock photography, fine art prints, photo blog: www.rwongphoto.com

Conceptual Photography

Posted on | July 4, 2006 | 2 Comments

The difference between a successful photo and a pretty good one hangs on a very slim margin with that difference being thinking about how you want the final image to look like. Some photographers refer to that as pre-visualization but that sounds too scientific to me. I’d rather think of it as “thinking man’s photography” or conceptual if you will. Most landscape photography is rather formulaic if you want to achieve pretty pictures. To achieve those types of pictures, you’ll typically see a perfect balance of low, wide-angled foreground leading into a nice colorful sky. Nice, but not really all that memorable or requires much thinking to do. Here I will show several back to back photos of the same subject matter with subtle adjustments in composition that make or break the image.

Montara State Beach at Sunset, Montara, California

With this first image, “Sunset over Pacific Ocean, Montara State Beach, California”, I have a nice sunset with colorful clouds and an interesting little creek flowing into the ocean. When I shot this I was exploring the light and composition, then it occurred to me to find a place that emphasizes the S-shape of the creek leading my eye into the sun. To find that, I backed up around the bend and position my tripod in the water so my position in the creek had both the S-shape and the sun at the end of it. It sounds simple enough but if I hadn’t been consciously thinking of the final image and looking for ways to improve upon the first composition, then I probably would not have gotten the shot shown below.

Montara State Beach at Sunset, Montara, California

In this 2nd group of photos, I will show how achieving the image you want is impossible to duplicate twice. This image, “Train Passing over the Falls of the Ohio and Downtown Louisville, Falls of the Ohio State Park, Indiana”, resulted from me walking around the waterfront park looking for ways to capture all of the local icons all in one image: the bridge, the train, the Falls of the Ohio, the Ohio River, and the Louisville skyline. Very rarely in landscape photography are we blessed with so many major elements all in a single line of sight. Getting them all in one shot on the memory card or film is even more difficult.

Train Passing over the Falls of the Ohio and Downtown Louisville, Falls of the Ohio State Park, Indiana

I walked around various perspectives around the bridge looking for a way to capture all the local icons, so I decided on framing the skyline underneath the pillar of the bridge and the left corner of my frame, then find a high enough perspective to see over the trees so I could capture the Falls of the Ohio and the Ohio River on the left and far right respectively. The next element going for this image is the vanishing point that the bridge provides from the left side to the right side, which is also the way a person tends to read something. The vanishing point helps me achieve what I want because the focal point of the composition is the icons. While I was walking down below along the river, I’d heard the train roaring from above so I kept that in mind while shooting this composition. I composed then waited for the train the pass by again before snapping this shot. This image is easier said than done considering all of the elements described above, a result of conceptual photography.

Now let’s compare the above image with my attempt to improve upon the light. The first image was inspired, while this image is merely me trying to improve upon a pre-visualized image. The colors are more vibrant just like I wanted, but I just could not get the Falls, skyline and river the way I liked it from the first time not to mention no train was passing by on this day apparently. It goes to show that even if you try to improve upon or copy an original idea, the 2nd time around is never as inspired.

Bridge Framing Downtown Louisville and the Falls of the Ohio, Clarksville, Indiana

I try to approach all of my photography in this manner but a lot of times the elements required aren’t there such as inspiration, ideas, light, subject, composition, etc… But my favorite images that I take generally fall into this category. I’ll let the viewers see if they can find other examples on my website of the methods I’ve described here.

Category: Technique
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Comments

2 Responses to “Conceptual Photography”

  1. L. Davidson
    June 30th, 2010 @ 8:25 am

    Hi there, I just want to let you know that your website needs to be adjusted. It is so far over to the left that I can’t read or see all the text or the first bit of the images.

    Best wishes,
    L. Davidson

  2. Richard Wong
    June 30th, 2010 @ 11:30 am

    Thanks for bringing that to my attention. May I ask what resolution you have your monitor set at and what web browser? I’ve checked on Firefox on both a Mac and a Dell PC laptop but it looks normal to me.

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