WINTER WANDERING - NEW IMAGE
New Image: "Winter Wandering"
I recently curated my images and organized them into collections, an introspective exercise that revealed distinct types of images, as well as compositional tendencies, that I was not necessarily pursuing intentionally. If you haven't, take a look at those collections (in the site menu), and you'll see how the images in each category have clear, often surprising, similarities.
An interesting result of this exercise is that now that I have identified types of images that I obviously enjoy doing, I find myself thinking of ways to create new images that will fit these collections. A perfect example of this is the Explore collection, a surprising theme given that it took me a few years before I considered putting a person in one of my landscape images. Even then, at first I thought those images were "just for us", for our memories of a place, but I would not share them publicly as part of my photography. Eventually though, I realized that I really DO ENJOY placing a human figure in certain images... And also, that my wife is a very willing model!
Now, this is still a small collection, and may remain a small percentage of my portfolio, but it's something that I plan to keep exploring. When it works, it is often the human figure that allows the viewer to place themselves in the image, by achieving an understanding of scale that would otherwise be lacking. "Winter Wanderer" was captured near Isabella, Minnesota, during a snow shoe walk. This image just did not work as well without the human scale. The framing effect and scale of the trees really begged for a focal point to ground them.
Technical Information
I overexposed this image by 2/3 of a stop, hence exposing "to the right", careful to not blow out the highlights. The image was shot handheld with a stabilized Canon EF 70-300 f4-5.6L IS USM lens mounted on my 5D Mark IV. It was captured at 95mm, using an ISO of 640, shutter speed of 1/200 sec and f/7.1 aperture.
Enjoy My Blog and My Images? Help Me Spread the Word!
If you like my work, please share with others! Selling pictures is great, but the real fulfillment for me is in sharing images with anyone who appreciates them. If you use Instagram or Facebook, please consider following me there:
Instagram Page (@ernesto_ruiz_photography)