Creative Practice Landscape - Ex.2 Research - Scale, The Golden Ratio and The Rule of Thirds

Scale:

The definition of scale in photography is: the ratio of the distance between two points on an image to the actual distance between the same two points on the ground.

There are three main things that will change/ warp the scale of the object you are photographing.

• Point of View

• Lens Choice

• Relationship of Elements in a Composition

Point of view - Having a very low or very high perspective can change the viewers perception of scale. Lying on the ground and photographing small objects can make them look larger than they are. Being up above something and looking directly down at it will make the object appear smaller. Distance from the object to your camera lens will affect scale too. If you were to stand under a tree and look up at it it would appear very large just as if you stood far away from the same tree it would appear smaller.

Lens choice - Very wide or very telephoto lenses will warp the scale of the objects in your image. Those lenses show a different perspective to what our eyes see. A standard lens of 50mm is considered to show the closest perspective to our human eyes if it's on a full frame camera. This gives a true sense of scale. Telephoto lenses compress distances in photographs which gives the viewer a distorted perception of the sizes of the objects and the true distances between them. Wide angle lenses will display whatever is close to you as being larger than it really is. Things that are farther away, will appear much smaller when you use a wide angle lens. The wider the lens, the more distorted the viewers sense of scale becomes.

Relationship of Elements in a Composition - Including a person, or anything that is easily recognisable, in a photograph is the most reliable way to give a sense of scale. This is because we instinctively know how big a person is for example and can make an easy comparison.

The purpose of understanding/ presenting scale in your photographs is to help the viewer read the object/s in your image correctly. For example, the actual size of a boat. Scale can be interesting to experiment with as you can distort it to create fun and creative images that give us an alternative perspective on the world. Sometimes it’s fun to give an illusion of the size of elements in photos being bigger or smaller than they are. This is called forced perspective.

Lanscapes and scale - A photograph is two-dimensional and to show the third dimension and depth in your photo, you need to portray dimensionality. In landscape photography you can also do this by including elements such as a person in your shot to give the viewer a point of reference to understand how big or small everything else is in the photo. To create depth, include a natural item in the environment that you're shooting and include it in the foreground and you'll have a sense of depth in your image. The object however needs to stand out from the background so it doesn't get lost in the scene. Contrast too is a technique for scale in landscape photography. Find something, like a tree as shown below, that contrasts in terms of scale with the the main object of your photo, ie. a mountain. This contrast will amaze your viewers as they'll become aware of the shear scale of the "mountain" due to the smaller and familiar sized item. Even though the viewer won't know the exact size of the "tree" they will still be able to comprehend the contrast in scale.

Russ Burden - is a contemporary wildlife photographer, running private wildlife workshops and visits safaris in Tanzania three times a year fo rsafari photography workshops. He is internationally published and he has been writing the PhotoTip of the Week for the Outdoor Photographer website for years. Russ is a multiple time winner of the prestigious Nature’s Best Windland Smith Rice Award in many categories in addition to having numerous safari photos honored and hung in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC and the Iziko Museum in South Africa.

An example of scale in contemporary photography.

Ansel Adams (1902-1984) - an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West.

"Jackson Lake, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming" - you can see in this image that Adams has presumably used a wide angle lens as the old logs in the foreground appear much larger than the mountains in the background, thus warping our sense of scale.

Another Ansel Adams photograph.

"Saguaro Cactus, Sunrise, Arizona" (1946) - Adams has used a low perspective to warp the sense of scale and make the cactus appear grand and very tall. It takes up the entire image which gives us the sense of this being a very important and powerful cactus.

The Golden Ratio - Since the center of an image is often perceived as static or uninteresting, this division of space is often used in visual composition. The photograph is divided into nine rectangles along two horizontal and vertical lines according to the golden ratio.

The golden ratio is 1.618 to 1, and it is based on the spirals seen in nature. Spirals and waves could easily be captured using the golden ratio as they are natural spirals.

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004)

"Gare Saint-Lazare" (1932)

Unknown photographer. Contemporary example.

The Rule of Thirds - The Rule of Thirds is the process of dividing an image into thirds, using two horizontal and two vertical lines. ... When you position the most important elements of your image at these intersection points, you produce a much more natural image.

When shooting landscape you can frame your shots with the rule of thirds in mind or use the potential guide on your camera.

Historical example of the rule of thirds.

Henri Cartier-Bresson - "Hyères, France. 1932"

Unknown photographer - contemporary example of the rule of thirds.

You can produce work too that purposefully breaks the rule of thirds which can produce different and interesting outcomes.