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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Nine: Composition -- putting it together > Fisher Towers, Moab, Utah, 2006
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22-SEP-2006

Fisher Towers, Moab, Utah, 2006

The late afternoon light makes it seem as if there is a glowing city of stone just beyond the curve of this rich red dirt road. I deliberately walked well back from our parked car in order to use this gradual curve as my foreground and lead-in line. A large chunk of earth, capped by sage, provides an anchor at lower right. This anchor is diagonally opposed to the mountain supporting the Fisher Towers.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50
1/320s f/5.6 at 13.0mm iso100 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time22-Sep-2006 16:32:23
MakePanasonic
ModelDMC-FZ50
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length13 mm
Exposure Time1/320 sec
Aperturef/5.6
ISO Equivalent100
Exposure Bias-0.33
White Balance
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis21-Jan-2008 19:13
Good -- glad you understand the importance of "leading lines," Vera. The foreground area is an ideal place to draw viewers into an image. Use it well.
Guest 21-Jan-2008 16:36
I am amazed at how my eye follows the road craving to know what is around the bend. Very good lesson for me here.
V
Phil Douglis10-Jan-2007 22:26
Thanks, Jenene, for sticking with this. I try to bring an expressive purpose to everything I do as a photographer. Glad you were able to grasp what I am doing here and why I am doing it.
JSWaters10-Jan-2007 21:42
I agree that some photographers would try to 'straighten' this, and what a pity. I stayed with this image for a long time after my original comment, and concluded that it would not be nearly as expressive any other way. You've definately succeeded in allowing me to see and feel what this place was like. (Difficult to do in a two dimensional medium.)- J
Phil Douglis10-Jan-2007 20:26
As well you should, Jenene. We are on a hill that flows down into a valley. The cliffs are also slanting down from this hill, coming into the valley from another direction. The road curves right, and leads us nowhere. So yes, you should feel imbalance. That was my intention. There are some photographers that would try to level everything off out of habit. I try, however, to give the viewer a sense of what I saw and how I felt as made this image. And if we both feel a bit out of kilter, that's the way we should feel. Thanks for this observation.
JSWaters10-Jan-2007 19:58
I feel very off balance looking at this image. The road drops sharply off near the bottom right and the rest follows like a huge drain in the desert. Even those beautiful shadows tumble down the face of the Towers to follow this road. The weight of the cliffs on the left is so massive, yet I still feel this imbalance.
Jenene
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