Optimizing Your Angle
Here’s another photo critique request my mom sent me. This one is a prime example for a post on optimizing your angle.
I love this mossy bridge in a private Japanese garden. The composition looking down the path set with stepping stones is inviting, and the deep green is refreshing and nourishing. The big tree in the foreground is a beautiful accent that serves to frame the scene.
My photo critique? This is essentially two pictures. One of a mossy bridge leading to an inviting path set with stones in a Japanese garden and another of a large pond with tufts of tall grass and large trees around it. I’m not really sure which to look at, and the pond being in the center of the photo and taking up two thirds of the frame, I feel a bit like if I ventured into the photo I’d walk straight into the water and fall in.
Here’s where optimizing your angle could made all the difference. Imagine how the mossy bridge would look if you were to take just one or two steps to the left and turn your camera to take a portrait style shot instead of a horizontal landscape. Then try taking in just a few more inches of the creek to the right of the bridge to put the path squarely on the one third line as per the rule of thirds.
By optimizing your angle in this way you can bring the large tree in the foreground closer to the path, and cut off much of the expanse of the pond. The eye will be directed straight down the path and you will have a truly frame worthy Japanese garden photo with one theme instead of two.
Thanks to my mom, Carol Wilkinson for this photo critique request. I’d love to see the result if you get a chance to go back to this Japanese garden to take the mossy bridge from a more optimized angle!
Stay tuned for more photo critiques, and let me know if you have a composition to submit.