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A lone yacht makes its way up the estuary of the river Conway to its berth at Conway Morfa, while overhead cirrus clouds dance across the expanse of the sky.
It's always tricky, in the heat of the moment, to avoid the temptation to cram everything you think is pretty or interesting into one photographic composition. The usual effect of this over abundance of subject matter is to render the photo meaningless to anyone other than yourself, as there's no clear focal point.
I came close to making this mistake when I took this photo at Conway Morfa. I had interesting beach pebbles at my feet, the river, the yacht, the sky, some interestingly shaped hills and a fantastic floating jetty all screaming to be squeezed into the one frame.
I'd just started reaching for my 17-40mm zoom when I finally got a grip of myself and remembered the age old adage 'less is more'. So I drerw a breath and re-assessed the scene in front of me, identifying those elements that worked best together and ruthlessly excluding anything that drew attention away from the main thrust of the image.
This photo is what I was left with, and it makes much more sense than the hodge-podge composition I was first tempted to base this image around.
Filename - yacht 02.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 24mm
Exposure - 1/50sec @ f11, ISO200
Location - Conway, North Wales
This image - 640x800px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Polarising filter used to enhance colours.
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.