On a recent early morning ramble with my camera, my eye was caught by a certain granite boulder. It had an interesting geometric shape carved out by the forces of nature, where a slab had cracked and fallen away. Leaning against this rock was a lovely green fern frond. I made three images (each a slightly different composition) and wandered on my way.
As I walked, I thought about which of the compositions I might prefer. This caused me to ask myself – what is the subject? Was it the rock, with the interesting geometric shape? Or the delicate fern? Or was the subject both the rock and the fern?
OK, so that is probably a question I should have asked myself at the time of composing the photos. Implicitly, this question was probably behind the reason for the three compositions I made. However, my response to myself was that it is less about a subject, and more about the story of the rock and the fern together.
See my eye was drawn to the interesting geometry of the rock – but that was just my starting point. I was surrounded by rocks and boulders, and many had interesting and eye-catching shapes, patterns and textures. Upon seeing this rock, what confirmed to me that I should compose a photo was the presence of the delicate fern, leaning against the crack in the rock. Equally, there were many nice ferns around the area that could have been suitable subjects. However, they didn’t draw me to them in the same way. Therefore, I concluded that my ‘subject’ for this image is the story of these two elements together. Like a couple – a love story – their interaction, juxtaposition – that is the subject I chose to portray in this capture.
This got me thinking – can you have a ‘good’ landscape photo if it doesn’t have a clear subject? I’m probably guilty of taking many photos of nice scenes without a strong subject. A portrait or wildlife photographer has a ready-made subject – whether it be the person or animal, or certain feature that they seek to highlight in their image. But in a landscape, the subject may not always be as obvious. Yes, a clear subject probably makes the composition stronger, but is it essential? What if the subject is less obvious – a scene, mood or a colour – rather than a specific object?
Exploring this further, I consider a couple of examples of some photos that I quite like, but I don’t think they have a very obvious subject.
This photo, from the hike from Pine Valley into the Labyrinth in Tasmania, is one I love. It doesn’t have a clear subject – it would probably be stronger if there was a large pandani or the vibrant orange of the nothofagus gunnii in the foreground. But, that wasn’t the scene that was there. Unlike a portrait photographer, I couldn’t just arrange the scene to design the picture-perfect composition. Rather, this was the scene that I picked out – narrowing down from all the other trees, plants, mountains, sky that surrounded me at that time – because this was the image I wanted to make.
Why?
The reason for making this image was to capture the soothing green scene – the pencil pines standing sentinels in the mist, presiding over this monochromatic scene. It’s not super common in Australia’s landscape to find a scene all in green – so often there will be brown, orange, black, grey or other hues seeping into the mix. The little green pandani in the foreground is not the subject as such, but it does serve to catch the eye with its lighter shade, and it is this that probably holds the scene together with a little bit of contrast to the deep hues of the pines.
Is this a masterpiece? No. Will with will awards and accolades? Unlikely. Does it bring me joy? Absolutely! I’ve printed out an enlarged copy and also included this in my calendar for the year, because this scene brings me to a place of peace. I can look at it and engage in some virtual forest bathing when I sit at my desk, drowning in statistics and facts and figures, and I can look up and feel cool and soothed. So is there a subject? Maybe – the subject, or story, is the green alpine forest of Tasmania.
Another example of an image without a clear subject – my image of Narcissus river in the pre-dawn light. Again, no real subject here – what I like is the interplay between the river and land and the monochromatic blue. This image is about capturing the mood and the feeling of being there, on the jetty, in the cool, quiet stillness of the early morning.
Anyway, back to my three rock and fern compositions. Let me talk through my thought process in why I composed these, and which one I ultimately selected as the ‘keeper’ image from that shoot.
First shot – I had the fern, rock and a bit more of the surrounding ferns at the bottom of the frame. This captures the story of my subjects, but also gives a little more of the surrounds – i.e. there are other ferns, which suggests the main fern is probably close to the ground.
Second shot – really simplified the composition to include only the one fern and a part of the rock, with no superfluous ferns. I moved the camera up further to include more of the crack in the rock that first caught my eye. In the edit, I chose to crop this back to a square ratio to bring balance between the rock and fern.
Third shot – I stepped back and took the rock and fern in their surrounds. I kept the depth of field shallow so the background is not in focus and is only there for context with minimal distraction. I like this one because it shows the full pattern on the rock that initially caught my eye. But – is it about my subjects? I feel there is probably too much detail and we start to lose the story of the rock and fern. This one is more about the rock. Perhaps another time I’d play with this composition and tell the story of the rock – but that was not the image I wanted to make that morning.
So the verdict: the final image I would select from this mini shoot is the second image. I like that it’s a very simple image, with balance between the rock and the fern (helped by the square crop – the original image was perhaps more rock and the fern risked becoming a bit lost). I’m also happy technically with the lack of movement of the fern, and the way the texture of the rock can be seen – creating a contrast between soft and delicate and course and hard. I like that it captures the fern leaning against her rock in their own little moment.
And a postscript to this story …
I was even more glad I made this image when I did. Not only did the scene have nice cool early morning light, but there was no wind at that time. This made it technically easier to photograph, but that was also key to the scene. Later in the day we passed by the same spot, but a breeze had come up, and I noticed that the fern was no longer leaning against the rock as it had earlier. The rock was still interesting, but the magic of the fern and rock was no longer visible. This added to my pleasure at having captured a sweet and ephemeral moment in the story of the rock and fern. Witnessed only by me. Like a couple sharing an intimate moment in the quiet morning, before the kids and the business of life take over and sweep them away from one another.
And a final thought.
I have been reading The Boy Behind the Curtain, by Tim Winton. The extract below from the chapter ‘A Walk at Low Tide’ gave me food for thought on the topic of when something becomes a subject.
On the face of it there’s nothing here to see – an empty beach, a blank ocean…. And yet it holds me captive, has me returning morning and evening, high tide and low tide, because it’s never the same place. It holds its secret life close. …
…
Every day I come and most days I learn something new, but only occasionally do I really see because while I’m always looking I’m not necessarily paying serious attention. Half the time, I’m looking at shells and stones and stranded jellyfish as though they are objects, rather than subjects. A subject has a life. In its wake and even in its form it trails a story, a journey that can be as brief as that of the cuttlefish that leaves only the foamy hull of its backbone to memory and whose death can be read in the neat curve of toothmarks made by the dolphin that claimed it. …
…
When you observe long enough, the subject of your gaze seems, eventually, to respond. Or perhaps it’s you, the viewer, who is changed; something has stuck, something, in the end, is going on between you and it.
(Tim Winton, 2016, published by Penguin Books – from pp 55 – 57)
I like this. I’m going to keep looking for subjects that tell or hold a story in my photography, rather than looking at scenes and trying to find an ‘interesting object’ or a ‘good composition’. It’s about meaningfulness, and creativity and finding joy in the moment.