"Including The Human Element"

As I've freely noted many times, my interest and background in photographic expression crosses many styles. Probably because my visual interests in the world around me fail to be confined...where my eyes will go, the camera is going to follow.

As often as I pause to wait for an unknown "someone" to slowly wander out of a scene I've framed to capture as a quiet landscape, I'll reconsider and look to include the otherwise offending individuals as elements to be included in the composition rather than be excluded.

Viewers can have a better time placing themselves within a photograph if they can more easily relate to being in the shoes of someone there in the scene. The setting may be along an alpine lake, or in Yosemite's famed Valley, along a sandy beach, or "elsewhere."

That human doesn't need to dominate the photo in size to have a strong role in affecting the overall impression.


This was captured in San Jose, California's Guadalupe River Parkway, autumn 2012. I was after a nice "human interest" impression with it, and settled for maybe 10 minutes with the bench, path, and trees alone. When this couple came along, hand-in-hand, I was visually attracted, but waited until they were unique background elements, still easily recognizable as fellow human beings, but carrying an "anyone and everyone" feeling by holding them out of focus.


The scene below is Ellery Lake, 9,600 feet high in the Sierra Nevada, just east of the Tioga Pass entrance to Yosemite Park. Winter 2011-2012 found the pass still open in December into January because of a lack of snowfall. That wasn't accompanied by a lack of sub-freezing cold, however, and Ellery was frozen with a layer of ice about 10-12" thick, making walking across the surface quite safe. We're seriously not used to this in California. (Wintertime will find our Sierra lakes under a blanket of snow, which actually insulates the lake surface from freezing more solidly than with direct exposure to the cold air...it's hard to trust what you can't directly see, and thin ice claims several victims falling through every winter.) So, a like this is really special...

 

...and easily catches our attention. He's taking in this cold alpine scene and lake, while standing on the lake rather than looking across it.

In other parts of the country and world, this is more commonplace during the cold of winter, with a frozen lake an opportunity for outdoor activities like ice skating or playing hockey.


The image to the right has my wife studying an abstract pattern within the ice, making her appearing even smaller within this large mountain setting.

Anyone ever go camping, and decide to take an evening stroll down a quiet back road after the evening meal? This couple did as Debbie and I were stopped to capture the aspen tree lined road in Lee Vining Canyon. I was otherwise happy with things. Upon seeing this couple from Santa Barbara, I initially paused the camera... ...then reconsidered and snapped a few frames as they walked, hand-in-hand. As much as I like those "empty" road images, I like the ones with the couple better. The made the scene more "fun" simply with their presence.

Is there a difference between these two - "walking into" the scene (toward the camera, here) vs. "walking out of" the scene below, strolling away from my point of view, below? Which can you better relate to; which is more "comfortable"?

One image I've long enjoyed was during the one and only cruise my wife and I have taken: from San Francisco to SE Alaska and back. One of the side trips we took was the historic narrow gauge White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad. At one point, our train had to stop on a siding because of an issue where some small rocks fallen on the track ahead of the train ahead to so a crew could come past and clear them.

The conductor walked back to yet another train stopped behind ours. Being that he's walking alongside the image's strongest "leading line," he may occupy only a small part of the overall image, but plays an important role in the impression.

I was simply standing on the rear platform, watching... I think this was one of a handful, as he moved along that curving line toward the background. Com positionally, he's near one of those "3rd's rule" points, but just to the outside of it. That leading line keeps the viewers' eyes captured to carry past the close proximity of that frame edge.





One of the impressions I actually had in mind when I started typing this entry is from along the Santa Cruz County coastline in the Bay Area, summer 2010...

...I can certainly relate to walking along the beach sands late in the day. Can you find yourself walking in their shoes in the sand?


For the record, I don't follow up on every photo op I encounter to include this human element.
Many? Yes. Most? maybe. Sometimes, I'm still happier just pausing to take the scene in with eyes only until the humans have cleared the frame. (I'd probably claim the age-old photographer's excuse that I was "waiting for the light to change" so as not to offend anyone.)