They say that Wilson’s Promontory–or simply The Prom as the local people affectionately call–has a number of the most beautiful beaches in Victoria. This little promontory is the southernmost part of the main Australian Continent. Along the shoreline, mountains cut into the sea and create magnificent bays, such as Norman Bay above.

Beneath, there is squeaky sand. The field is broad and smooth. Behind, there are trees & hills. On left & right, there are mountains. Ahead, the endless sea, dotted with tiny islands. And above, the ever-blue sky.

No single picture does justice to the splendor of the land that lies about. Nor does this panorama of 3 photos. However, the panorama comes closer in delivering what any single photo would have fallen short of–the sense of continuation, inclusion & space.

Location: Norman Bay, Wilson’s Promontory, VIC, Australia
Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/60s
Aperture: f/11
Focal Length: 18mm (3 photos)
Filter: N/A
Flash: No
Tripod: No

For me, the integral part of photo composition is arranging of subjects. No, I don’t mean physically placing in order the subjects to be photographed. (Some are a little too heavy or strongly-footed to be moved, especially in a landscape.)

But, selecting a point from which things appear to occupy different parts of the frame. Closer ones are bigger. Ones with more light falling on them are brighter. Ones that are at the focus-point of the lens are sharper. And they all stand a better chance of being looked at (in the photo) before others. If there is a distinct path in a picture along which most viewers’ eyes move involuntarily while savouring the visual elements, I would consider the picture at least neat, at most very appealing.

Here on St Kilda beach, the sun was setting. The light however wasn’t not low enough for a long exposure shot to ‘weave’ the water. An ND8 filter with the smallest aperture gave me an ample 10s period. True to my liking, what water! I raised the colour temperature to accentuate the pink tones of the sunset.

Let’s look. The broken branch is the entry point. That’s where we are taken to begin. Because it’s nearest & biggest. Then, most eyes will wander around the row of rocks and the surreal-looking water surrounding them in the mid-ground. And at last, many will end up gazing at the far-away line of boats and the sky behind them partially tinged with the setting sun. Some might repeat the order again.

Now, that is the path! Or, at least that’s how I wish it to be.

Location: St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia
Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR
ISO: 100
Exposure: 10s
Aperture: f/25
Focal Length: 22mm
Filter: ND8
Flash: No
Tripod: Yes

Shwedagon Pagoda is in Yangon, Myanmar. At 326 ft, it is considered to be the largest pagoda in the world. Depending on what is being looked for, large structures may demand a good vantage point to be seen from. While a close-up look (from the base of the structure) with a wide angle could infuse perspective & artistry, a telephoto shot from a good vantage point from some distance gives a big picture of how it stands (gigantically) among others on the surface of the Earth. Usually, a vantage point is higher or at least at half the height, at some distance.

I didn’t plan for this. I came to have dinner at the apartment of my friend’s. Then, there was this view seen from where we sat. The stage had been set. All that required was a camera and a tripod which I had at that time. The night time shifted all the focus to the pile of gold dazzling with the spotlights. I cropped top & bottom a bit to give it a (slight) panoramic feel.

Location: Yangon, Myanmar
Camera: Canon EOS 30D
Lens: Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS
ISO: 100
Exposure: 8s
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 85mm
Filter: N/A
Flash: No
Tripod: Yes

Balance matters. Even in photos. It is as if the subjects (those that are not part of the background) in a photo weighed proportionally to their apparent sizes. When we look at a photo, we hold it up in our mind and hang from the middle of the upper edge to see if the picture would tilt to either side, depending on the ‘weights’ of the subjects in it. Our intuition as regards things placed on a see-saw, further dictates that the further a subject is from the centre of the frame, the heavier it affects on the frame. If different-sized subjects are placed at appropriate spots, it is possible that the picture would not tilt to either side. By then, we would find ourselves looking at a well-balanced photo.

I was absorbing the early morning lights on this quiet beach in Anglesea. A light drizzle had just come. Rain clouds were still hanging from the sky. As they were beginning to disperse, the heavenly rays pierced through them, spraying the spot with warm lights. There, I came across the structure. Not sure what the intended use was. But someone did put a hat on the pole, and I found it pleasantly interesting. I was going to take a photo of it.

As I circled around for a good viewpoint, the car came to stop at a short distance. I decided to include the car in the photo frame I was going to create, in hope of giving some life to the desolate scene. From where I stood, the apparent sizes of the two–the structure & the car–were far from equal. Placing both on each half of the frame fairly & squarely would have tilted the photo to the left, I felt. So I put the smaller one–the car–closer to the right edge than the other one to the left edge. Now, the effective weights were about equal.

The colours & cloud formations in the sky were interesting. So was the texture of the ground on which the structure stands. So I opted to put the horizon in the centre to include the heaven & the ground equally. If it were up to me, I’d always have some clouds in the sky, even at sunrise. They give shapes to the otherwise plain sky. At first, I thought of illuminating the structure with flash. But seeing it as (almost) silhouette against the early morning sky with vibrant colours conveyed a greater sense of longing. So I left it as it was. A GND8 filter was used to keep the sky dark enough to be seen. Such warm colours!

Location: Anglesea, VIC, Australia
Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/50s
Aperture: f/9
Focal Length: 18mm
Filter: GND8
Flash: No
Tripod: No

Sometimes, we want it slow. Especially with moving water. Water at unrest exposed to slow shutter speed, morphs into silky shroud spanning the defined space. Or so it seems. How slow is slow then? It depends on the speed of the water itself. But often, a couple of seconds minimum is required.

A few seconds exposure isn’t hard to get at night. However, if it is in bright daylight, the lens and the ISO simply cannot be stopped down (narrowest aperture & lowest ISO) enough. In this shot in Williamstown under overcast afternoon light, after stopping down to the lowest, a proper exposure still demanded speeds lower than 1s. The last recourse was a gray *ND (neutral density) filter. Here an ND8 filter was used, meaning the scene was darkened 8 times (3 stops). Voila, there came a 5s exposure!

Another deal breaker was the sky. The afternoon overcast sky was still a lot brighter than the gray rocks. Exposed to the sky, the rocks are totally dark; exposed to the rocks, the sky turns white. For those who prefer controlling the photo optically as opposed to digitally (such as HDR), a #GND (graduated neutral density) filter is the one. Place the gray half where the sky is. Now, the sky has been made less bright and we can see the distant clouds.

This is simply an ordinary stack of rocks. But they look interesting upon close inspection. What is more, the silky touch on the water in the little ‘pool’ among the rocks! Look closely at the nearest rock, and the one after, and the next. They lead you to the faraway sea, which further vanishes into the distant clouds. Nothing should be left behind. So a wide angle of 18mm (~27mm in film mode) was used.

Location: Williamstown, Melbourne, Australia
Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR
ISO: 100
Exposure: 5s
Aperture: f/22
Focal Length: 18mm
Filter: ND8, GND8
Flash: No
Tripod: Yes
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It is often said that photos taken from heights other than eye-level tend to be interesting because we normally don’t see from that angle of view. When I saw the leaf, I wondered how it would look from its ‘height’. When we look at another fellow human being, we see the person and the background that stretches towards horizons.

To achieve the same nature of background, I brought the camera down to the height 2-3 inches above ground. Already too low for most tripods. Some tablepods might do. But in my case, I decided to handhold. The only way of reaching the viewfinder of the Canon 30D that low was for me to lie down perpendicularly to the direction the lens was pointing to. (Bringing a mat would have helped but I wasn’t expecting the opportunity, so had to lie on the ground. Another useful accessory would have been a vertical viewfinder.)

Another thing about the background was that I didn’t want it to appear too ‘far’ behind the leaf. Neither did I want it to be sharp enough for it to swallow the leaf in. So I chose a spot about 3.5 meters from the leaf and zoomed in to 85mm so the depth of the background is compressed. The aperture was set to the maximum for that focal length, f/5.6, to keep the background sufficiently blurred.

I felt that when some people appeared in the background (i.e. at the back of the leaf not too far behind) as in the picture, the leaf became ‘one of us’. I waited for the moment. Finally, I gave it a little bit of warm touch in post-processing.

Location: University of Melbourne, Australia
Camera: Canon EOS 30D
Lens: Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS
ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/200s
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 85mm
Filter: N/A
Flash: No
Tripod: No