Monday, May 17, 2010

Photographing Nature – With People in the Way

On Saturday afternoon we took a ride out to Catoctin Mountain Park. Well, it was very busy on a sunny Saturday afternoon, but well worth the trip. I would like to come back at a time when it wasn’t so crowded, though. As you can see, people were climbing all over the place and it was impossible to take serene nature pictures of places like the falls.

I don’t always like people in my photographs, but I know I have to have them in there sometime for both visual interest and for size comparison. I particularly like this one below, which I took of a little boy at the cherry blossom festival but never got to use. I think it is because I didn’t want to imply that people pick the blossoms or damage the trees. Yes, I know that sounds crazy but if I write for the public I have to try and be a little responsible at times.

Part of the problem with people is that they don’t match the colors of the subject that I’m photographing. For example, people will wear screaming red or orange. This makes them appear as a bright blob in the background when I don’t want anything detracting from the color of nature. I think I’ve become a bit redundant with my close-ups of pretty colorful flowers, but oh, well. For my “What’s Blooming in Baltimore ?” slideshow this month I tried to give some of the photos more of a sense of place. I stuck them in the middle of the slideshow, though because they are not as splashy. I’m working on it, though. I’m also disturbed that the photo at the top of my article appears so green on my monitor, but Examiner is fruity this morning so I don’t want to try and remove it or I may just frustrate myself.

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