By Tony Bridge
Where’s the best place to position the horizon in a landscape? It's one of the most important decisions you can make when composing a landscape, so you need to give it some thought before firing the shutter.
If you take your time to study the scene (which is fun to do anyway), the task of positioning the horizon becomes much easier.
Landscape photography generally involves two key elements – land and sky. Ask yourself which one is more interesting, then adjust the position of the horizon accordingly.
With the black-and-white picture (below), I was struck by the dramatic, stormy clouds towering ominously over this small village on the plains. I was shooting in the last light of the day, and you couldn’t help notice how fragile the small buildings looked in the face of Nature’s awesome power. I positioned the horizon near the bottom of the frame and allowed the black sky to dominate. The final image captures a sense of man’s tenuous grip on the landscape.
In the other image (bottom of page), I did the reverse. The sky had nothing special to offer, but the land fascinated me. The tracks looked to me like exposed muscles; as if the skin of the land had been stripped away. Since I was fascinated by the nature of the land, I allowed the horizon to rise to the top part of the photograph.
Low Horizon: In this image, taken near the town of Volmoed, South Africa, the horizon was positioned low in the frame to emphasise the massive storm clouds towering above the modest village. (Photo by Tony Bridge.)
High Horizon: With an unremarkable blue sky, it was an easy choice to place the horizon near the top of this image to highlight the meandering tracks winding off into the distance. (Photo by Tony Bridge.)
Tony Bridge is a New Zealand-based professional photographer. See more of his images at www.thistonybridge.com
Article first published in Digital Photography + Design magazine (2011).