Digital Photography Composition of the Week

Weathervane

The strong contrast of this photography composition arises from bright afternoon sun and a clear, blue sky

I have learned to appreciate my wife's antiquing ventures! They often yield great photo opportunities.

On occasion, we visit a favorite antique shop in Harbert, MI. On the last trip, I spotted a weathervane out the back window of the shop. It was mounted on a small eight-foot tower. I'm thinking that was so people wouldn't bump into the windmill at the back of the vane.

The height allowed me shoot with nothing but sky and trees in the background. But, because of the trees, I used my widest aperture to keep them blurry. The result of that decision was shallow depth of field, so I needed to be as perpendicular as possible to the plane of the windmill so that each blade would be in focus.

While there was an interesting horse that shows wind direction on the other end of the weathervane, the blades proved more interesting to me.

Photo Critique

Two characteristics dominate this image: color and line of motion. The intensity of the blue comes from using a polarizing filter. The intensity of the reds and oranges comes from the bright sunlight (and a bit of contrast enhancement). The ends of the blades define a diagonal line that carries your eyes from bottom right to top left. The uneven ends and the arc of rotation assure added interest. It is only coincidence, by the way, that the previous photo composition also featured windmills.

The image loses some sharpness in the top right, at the bolts and above (perhaps a bit tough to see at this small web page size). This is because the blades were over my head and I was shooting up at an angle. A smaller f-stop would have improved the photo sharpness. The trade-off would be less blurriness of the trees. But, with a smaller aperture I could have moved a bit left to take the trees out of the picture.