Digital Photography Composition of the Week

Mooring Line

A directional digital photography composition using a wide-angle lens to get close

In Copenhagen, I met up with Martin Joergensen, who does a weekly podcast entitled "On Location, with Martin Joergensen" for the Web site nikonians.org. He was kind enough to lend me his Sigma 10 - 20 mm, f/4 - 5.6, lens to pop on my Nikon D300 for a few hours.

Martin took me on a tour of a harbor in Copenhagen, where I came across a few mooring lines in a grassy bank. They seemed like a good subject to test the lens.

I was amazed at how close the lens let me get in order to frame the picture (10 mm is very wide, even on a small-sensor digital camera). Then, I was impressed that I could get as close as 10" (.25 m), enabling the capture of terrific detail. To give a feel for the amount of detail, this image represents about 1/4 of the captured frame, about 3 megapixels before reducing for this page.

After a few hundred shots with the lens, I decided I liked it so much, that I bought one shortly after the trip.

Photo Critique

	Mooring lines are full of texture, just waiting for the right light to bring it out. I was fortunate in this picture to have clear skies and bright sunlight that were up to the task. This composition draws on linear motion, mainly from the mooring line itself, but also from the twist of grass below the line.
	The highlights on the twisted line are too bright in places, blowing out the detail.
	Next pass, I would have played up the directionality more by placing the line at more of an angle to the frame. That would provide more sense of motion in the image to improve visual interest.