Comment by caseyohara
1 day ago
> I like the wide shot from the mountaintop better because it's lively and has people in it
Agreed. And strongly related to your other comment about selfies/bugs/flowers/boring landscapes…
One of the best pieces of advice for leveling up from novice snapshots to compelling photographs is: take photos about things, not photos of things.
Purposefully including people in the frame goes a long way to make photos more interesting because it instantly attaches a narrative.
I've been through this with sports, the hierarchy is
(1) good portraits
(2) photos that show players in opposition to each other
(3) photos that tell a story
Developing the habit to do (1) consistently is important because photos like that are still usable. If you just chase the action in most sports the ball is between you and a player and you get a lot of shots of people's behinds so looking for the places where people are open is foundational.
(3) is tough because a play involves a number of events that don't usually appear in one frame except for a few shots in a game like:
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/114849463914827733
Alright, so continue the exercise. In the image in the article, what is the narrative for the people in the foreground? We can’t see where they are coming from or where they are, and their actions don’t seem well defined.
Then in the middle there is a train station(?) where the narrative is also absent or muddled. The people arrived by train to do what?
I would argue the tight shot of the mountain and house is the best capture, because it tells a story of a beautiful place where someone lives.
I like the mountain and house myself. The wide shot isn’t a bad photo but it is pretty cluttered and the parts don’t really work together like you say.
I think there likely are ways to effectively include the people, by getting to a angle where you can isolate a couple of them and include the mountain. I suspect you could also get a good shot with the wide angle by moving closer to the people, although this would emphasize the people more than the mountain.