El Captain is magnificent and I have photographed it often. Here I am trying to focus in on how the texture and color of the granite are beautiful within the grandeur.
Glad you both agree with my reasoning regarding that small branch in the lower left hand corner of the picture. In my workshops, John, I have always referred to rules as guidelines. Art has no room for rules. The great nature photographer Edward Weston once said that "following the rules of composition when making a picture is as meaningless as following law of gravity when talking a walk." In other words, we walk instinctively. And the best of photographers organize their images out of instinct, as well.
Thank you both for your comments - I intentionally left the branch in though I must admit it was more for scale than message - I also think the branch balances the shadow of the lower right side of the image.
Guest
07-Nov-2004 03:06
Correct Phil, leave the branch in. This gives a feeling of scale for those who have not witnessed first hand the awesome size of this rock. For quite sometime I have referred to the Rules as guidelines. I find it easier to break guidelines than rules.
Austere, forbidding, and everlasting. You abstract the face of El Capitan and give us its essence, rather than its form.
I am sure there are some out there who would tell you to clone out that branch at lower left. They will call it a "distraction." Don't let such small minds prevail. Keep it in. It breaks the rule that tell us to either include a whole branch or no branch at all, but such rules are made to be broken. I like it because it links the permanent part of Yosemite to the transitory, vulnerable, living part. And by making that branch so small in scale, it reminds us how insignificant a tree really is when compared to something that has been created by nature over millions of years.