January 2010

Photo of the Month - Eric Horan

This image represents January in my 2010 Lowcountry Calendar http://www.southernlight.biz/. It was made while exploring the upper Broad river, on an especially warm evening, in my 13ft. Boston Whaler. Since January is not the best time to capture the beauty of the spartina grass but frequently a great time of year for witnessing the drama of the setting sun, I thought I would underplay the grasses and focus on the sun. I like landscapes that have a strong “sense of place” so the viewer can easily identify the geographic location. At the coast we don’t have the same drama of the western Rockies, or the Pacific Ocean, but what we do have is a very distinctive looking topography; and though I did not want to show the drab grey- brown of the winter grass I did want a foreground that would help define this place and at the same time, support the main subject, the sun. I looked for a camera position that would allow me to show the shapes of the grasses against the skylight reflected in the water.

January 2010

Photo tip: When we talk about the photographic cliché, sunsets are at the top of the list. Mostly, I no longer go looking for sunrise and sunset pictures by themselves like I, and a lot of other photographers do when we’re starting out. But having said that, the best times to shoot are often right around sunrise and sunset. So today I try to think more about using the rising or setting sun as elements in more dynamic images. It does get harder and harder to capture a sunset that will stop and hold an audience even for a few seconds so we have to thing about making more interesting pictures using the sun as part of a collective composition, whether it’s a silhouette of a bird or a strong environmental landscape.

http://www.southernlight.biz/

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May 2009	April 2009	March 2009	February 2009
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