Making of 40 Photographs #6
This is #6 in my series ‘Making of 40 photographs’.
This is Elgol, one of the most over-photographed regions of Skye, an island in the north west of Scotland.
It’s over-photographed because it seems to feature quite heavily in a lot of the Amateur photography press.
I’ve seen countless images of this place all taken in exactly the same spot where Joe Cornish made his landmark image. I guess if you love reproducing an image that someone else has done, that’s fine. But for me, I’d like to come home with something a little bit different. So i’m keen to get ‘my’ view on a location, particularly a famous place, if possible.
This leads to some issues, as some places are simply too distinctive to do any other way (take the Taj Mahal for example).
Anyway I digress a little here. We’re after all discussing the making of this image.
I shot this on an Ebony 45SU large format camera. Large format is, without question, a beautiful format. I however had difficulty with it and afte 2 years, I decided to part with it. This image is one of my ‘hits’ as opposed to the many ‘misses’ I had with the system.
What I love about LF is that you can alter perspective. I used a little bit of fall to keep the perspective (no converging lines) straight – literally pointing the camera exactly at 90 degrees to the horizontal, while still being able to look down. That’s how I got the foreground perspective of the rocks.
I think that with most wide angle shots, the key to success is to fill the foreground. There’s not a lot going on in the sky, so the majority of the composition is around the coast line. But I did keep a fair amount of the sky in the shot too, because I liked the smooth tones that were happening, and I needed a bit of colour in the shot too. It’s almost mono-chromatic. As is often the case with a nice image, it’s a really simple shot. There is interest in the foregound, mid ground and then the horizon has some really interesting mountains.
So I shot this with a 90mm lens (equiv to 30mm in 35mm land), Fuji Veliva, an ND grad on to control the sky, and exposed for the foregound.
I’m glad you posted this image in your 40 photographs series, because it was this particular photograph that I saw when discovering your website and portfolio in general. I always have been quite fond with the composition here, the foreground is just as spectacular as the background. In fact, the unique rocks in the foreground is what draws me into the photo first, my mind doesn’t recognize the sky and mountains until I finish marveling at the sunset-lit rocks and their contrast with the water. The mountain light is fantastic as well, I’m not sure if the rocks compliment it or if they compliment the rocks in my mind, but they work extremely well together in my point of view.
Thanks for posting this image!
Comment by morgangray — 16 September, 2009 @ 11:29 pm