Using ‘no’ foreground interest _ Landscape Photography

Well, welcome to another vlog and welcome back to Woodwalton Fen here in Cambridgeshire. Not the same conditions today as I had last time. If you recall, last time was a really foggy, very foggy morning here in the Fen and I got some really nice atmospheric mood images in the fog that morning and this is actually my first time back since then. So it's now about three o'clock in the afternoon, sun's out. There is a chance that we could get a reasonable sunset, so again, similar to when I went to Holm Fen several weeks ago, my plan is to use some of that warm light during the latter part of this afternoon, hopefully to open up a few compositions here at Holm Fen, sorry at Woodwalton Fen. My aim here today was actually to rise to a bit of a challenge set to me by fellow vlogger and YouTuber Chris Sale. We both bought the 52 Assignments in Landscape Photography book that came out a few months ago from Ross Hoddernott and Mark Bauer and this book, as it says on the cover, 52 different things that you can do within the landscape, different challenges and just if you are used to shooting in a certain way, it effectively sets you challenges to go out and just try and think a little bit differently. One of the challenges that I've been given by Chris is to shoot with foreground interest, it's actually number one in the book, Into the Fore it's called. I very rarely shoot with any foreground interest and I think that's mainly because I tend to shoot more landscape orientation than portrait and portrait orientation generally lends itself to having something in the frame in the foreground leading you up to something in the background. So because I really do shoot with foreground interest, I very rarely use it as the focal point of my picture and therefore trying to emphasise something in the foreground leading nothing into something in the background isn't something I'm used to doing. So I thought I would be happy to accept that challenge and see if I can get some images that allow me to really emphasise foreground interest more. Now this isn't the perfect place to do it, in fact where I planned to do it was in the Peak District but that meeting got cancelled because of the storm and my plan was to use some of the rocks up there, maybe at Stanedge Edge to use some of that for foreground interest but it didn't work out so I'm going to attempt to do it here. My idea is maybe use some of the reeds here as foreground interest, really emphasise some of the reeds. You've probably just seen as I was walking through here the reeds were catching the sun backlight really nicely and just stopped and stood inside the reeds and tried to take some shots there, different shutter speeds from 60th of a second to 125th of a second just to get the movement and I quite like that. Maybe I can use some of the reeds with some nice light in the foreground leading you up to trees or maybe I can use these things, these bridges, they could make a good bit of foreground interest. One thing I don't like about foreground interest shots too much is when it dominates the scene. If you've got a big rock in the foreground of a shot and you've got maybe some mountains in the background then I think sometimes the foreground can dominate the scene too much and if you're using a nice bridge like this as foreground then you want to take the viewer's eye to a tree or something in the background. If you're shooting wide and emphasising this, this becomes the main subject which in essence it wouldn't be so that's something that I struggle with if I'm honest to try and get the foreground interest not to dominate the frame but to actually complement the frame and I think that's the key is to try and use that foreground interest subject to complement what you're hoping the viewer will lead you to in the background using maybe similar colours, just similar textures. So anyway, it's going to be a challenge, let's see how we get on. We've got a couple of hours of sunlight left, hopefully the warmth in the sun will give us some nice light on some of these trees a little bit later on so I like a challenge. Just behind me, over there, is a young deer in the wood. We just had a staring contest, I wasn't sure whether it was a tree trunk because it just wasn't moving at all, it didn't move for ages but it's just I think it's realised because I didn't move that it's safe and it's now moving around. So I'm going to try, I'm never going to do this, I'm going to try and just creep over there and see if I can get some shots. Creep being a word that I don't gone. I don't blame him. Oh well, never mind. I would have never have got it anyway. How the hell? I'm not getting any younger. Now I might have found my shot with foreground interest. It's not strictly a traditional big foreground leading up to something in the background shot but here in the fens there's not a lot in the background so I think the only thing I can use is whatever sunset we get later. There is some nice high cloud in the sky so we might get a reasonable sunset so if I can use that as my background. And I found this old fence post here with a fence that's been leaning over. The thing I like about this also is it's quite traditional. You find these all over the fen, fences and fence posts and things that have just been battered in the wind and it actually leads quite nicely out towards where the sun will set in a bit. And you've got these lovely reeds here as well blown which will catch some of the side light. So I'm thinking, well what am I thinking? I don't know if I'm honest. I quite like it here, there's some foreground interest but it's down here on the left hand side it's just mess and nothingness and I don't know what I'll be able to do with that. So maybe I'll come this side and keep this in the corner of the frame and then lead that through. But again you've got reeds all over the place and it could look quite messy. Or maybe I'll go around that side and just have the fence gate as the foreground interest. Again as I said earlier on what I don't want to do is to use the fence and the gate as you know make them too dominant in the frame and I'm thinking if I use the gate it might be too dominant, I don't know. You can tell why I don't do this that often. There is definitely a shot here and once the sun does come down low in the sky there will definitely be a shot here. Whether it will be my into the fore shot to tick it off the list or not I don't know. But there is a shot here so I'm going to just wander back into the fen. It's so wet in there. I'll tell you what without these wellies it would have been no point in coming here today. I've been walking in water nearly up to the top of my wellies. And the wildlife is fantastic in there. I've seen a fox and nearly saw that deer one. As I walked away from that piece earlier on there were two deer and they just ran off as I walked through. And yeah hares running across. It's just fantastic here, it really is. So yeah if you live in this area and just fancy coming down for a walk and just enjoying the wildlife it's a fantastic place to come. So I'm going to see if I can get in there, take maybe one or two shots in there before the sun gets too low and then come back and try and get this shot towards the end. So I'm actually really struggling if I'm honest back here in the fen. I just can't find the composition, I just can't see anything. It's frustrating it really is. The sky actually is not looking too bad over there. I'll put a little bit of b-roll up with a better exposure so you can see the sky. It might actually light up quite nicely, some high clouds. So what I might do is just head back to that composition off end earlier on and just focus on that and see if I can grab that shot rather than try and find something else that at the moment I can't really see. So yeah if you don't see anything else you'll probably see me back at that fence post with hopefully a reasonable sunset. So plans don't always go the way you want them do they? As you can see behind me the exposure is good enough in this camera. We've lost the light, the light has gone behind a huge bank of cloud and although we've got some really nice sky we've got no direct light so without any direct light hitting that fence post and gate and the reeds that shot just doesn't work at all so I've given up on that and all I've done instead is just walked away along the bank here and there's a big area of flooded marshland and I'm just simply using the reflection of the sky in this marsh water. Yeah that's it, it's a Fen Big Skies shot. So sorry Chris, didn't get the into the forest shot in this vlog, I'll have to try again another day but yeah this one should still be a reasonable shot. It's been quite a while actually since I've got a Big Sky shot and it certainly is quite a nice sky and we've probably got another 20 minutes before sun sets properly so this could light up a little bit more and make it quite an interesting shot. In actual fact I've done the complete opposite to what I set out and there's absolutely nothing in the foreground whatsoever so there you go. Well although this hasn't really worked out as I planned, still an enjoyable time here at Wood Walton Fen. It's getting very cold, getting very dark now and I've got to walk back through the fen to the car and with the amount of wildlife in there I'm easily startled so I'm going to sign out now so yeah I hope you've enjoyed this. Sorry there's a deer just crossing the bank and going down the other side. Amazing. So I hope you've enjoyed this and yeah a couple of images there, Big Sky at the end and some reeds at the beginning. Yeah it's just been a really nice time so I'll see you on the next one. Not sure where it will be but I will get into the fore in soon I promise. Ok thanks for watching, subscribe if you haven't already, give us a like and a thumbs up and I'll see you soon.