Project 30 – Wide Angle Views – Near and Far

I would say that this type of low viewpoint – wide angle photography is the trademark of my landscape work, particularly those seascapes taken from a wide sweep of sandy beach. So, I feel very comfortable shooting near – far landscape scenes for this project.

Yesterday I went on a photo shoot to Moulin Huet Bay particularly with idea of imitating the painting of the rocks in this bay painted by Pierre Auguste Renoir in 1883.

Replication of another photographers work was the task for P29, but I thought who more famous than Renoir and so I wanted to have a go at duplicating his famous oil painting of this south coast bay. (See results in P29)

Of course, once the camera is out creativity kicks in and I took far more than the required photographs, however several are useful examples for the criteria of this project .

Here are three that I took using a tripod, a wide angle lens and a low viewpoint

These two shots taken from exactly the same vantage point use filters to enhance the colour and contrast. For the left hand photograph I use a graduated ND filter and for the second shot (which I have cropped slightly) I added a flat neutral grey filter. I’m not sure which I prefer, the right hand image does look a little false, but it is interesting.

I always seem to be taking seascape / shoreline shots so here are two that are not.

In both the camera viewpoint is near the ground, at a vantage point at the bottom of a slight incline. The camera is angled slightly upwards, the lens is at 15mm and the aperture small giving a good depth of field. They demonstrate that this near – far style of landscape photography with the juxtaposition of foreground interest with features on the skyline can be successful in both horizontal and vertical format.

My final shot returns to the sea, and Dixcart Bay, Sark. Here the slow shutter speed and the capture of motion adds to the foreground interest whilst the rocks and the boat bring the eye to the rear of the frame.