Compositional Analysis: Twistleton Scar
11th April 2021
In: Photography Tips
Last week I had the opportunity to make a brief stop at Twistleton Scar near Ingleton in the Yorkshire Dales en route back down south from Scotland. I hadn’t intended to be there at sunset and was merely thinking it would be a recce for a future trip, perhaps playing around with a long exposure if there happened to be a blue sky with fast-moving clouds. As it turned out, I arrived around 50 minutes before sunset and, having done my research, knew exactly where I needed to go to find the section of limestone pavement I wanted to photograph.
After a 20 minute walk up the hill (not too steep, but a little strenuous with camera gear!), the limestone pavement was laid out in front me. So, where to start with finding a composition? On doing a 360 degree panorama of the scene, I could see that the hillside of Ingleborough (one of the hills making up the Yorkshire Three Peaks) was in the opposite direction to where the sun was setting. I could also see there was a band of light where the sun was breaking through the clouds moving across the tops of the hills that would eventually reach Ingleborough. I therefore decided to use this as my background.
On surveying the limestone pavement itself, I could see a distant lone tree and so made my way a little further up until I reached it, finding a position to place the tree somewhere in the middle ground to provide a focal point to the viewer with Ingleborough behind.
Before placing my tripod down, I finally turned my attention to the foreground. I already knew the limestone would give perfect foreground interest, with the detail and crevices in the rock grabbing the viewer’s attention at the front of the image. I settled on this particular spot as you can see there is a gap in the limestone acting as a lead-in line to draw the eye towards the tree. I then positioned the tree slightly off centre to the right so that the summit of Ingleborough could still be clearly seen to the left, with the upper branches of the windswept tree pointing towards it. By this time the light I had been waiting for had arrived, illuminating the hillside with a wonderful orange glow. I fired off just a couple of shots before the light disappeared... and there you have it!
It sounds like quite an arduous thought process, but as a seasoned landscape photographer, I’d say all of the above happened within just a couple of minutes. You have to learn to evaluate scenes and make decisions quickly, especially where there is fleeting light, and more often than not composing a shot becomes second nature.
Technical info:
I used a circular polariser and neutral density graduated filter for this image - strictly speaking the polariser was perhaps not necessary given the position of the sun, but the graduated filter has certainly assisted with controlling the sky and not letting it be over-exposed. I used an aperture of f13 allowing me to focus approximately a third into the image to ensure the limestone at the front would be sharp but giving the depth I needed to reach the back of the image. I used a shutter speed of one second to correctly expose the image.
As always, if you have any comments on this post or any questions I can answer, please do get in touch!
After a 20 minute walk up the hill (not too steep, but a little strenuous with camera gear!), the limestone pavement was laid out in front me. So, where to start with finding a composition? On doing a 360 degree panorama of the scene, I could see that the hillside of Ingleborough (one of the hills making up the Yorkshire Three Peaks) was in the opposite direction to where the sun was setting. I could also see there was a band of light where the sun was breaking through the clouds moving across the tops of the hills that would eventually reach Ingleborough. I therefore decided to use this as my background.
On surveying the limestone pavement itself, I could see a distant lone tree and so made my way a little further up until I reached it, finding a position to place the tree somewhere in the middle ground to provide a focal point to the viewer with Ingleborough behind.
Before placing my tripod down, I finally turned my attention to the foreground. I already knew the limestone would give perfect foreground interest, with the detail and crevices in the rock grabbing the viewer’s attention at the front of the image. I settled on this particular spot as you can see there is a gap in the limestone acting as a lead-in line to draw the eye towards the tree. I then positioned the tree slightly off centre to the right so that the summit of Ingleborough could still be clearly seen to the left, with the upper branches of the windswept tree pointing towards it. By this time the light I had been waiting for had arrived, illuminating the hillside with a wonderful orange glow. I fired off just a couple of shots before the light disappeared... and there you have it!
It sounds like quite an arduous thought process, but as a seasoned landscape photographer, I’d say all of the above happened within just a couple of minutes. You have to learn to evaluate scenes and make decisions quickly, especially where there is fleeting light, and more often than not composing a shot becomes second nature.
Technical info:
I used a circular polariser and neutral density graduated filter for this image - strictly speaking the polariser was perhaps not necessary given the position of the sun, but the graduated filter has certainly assisted with controlling the sky and not letting it be over-exposed. I used an aperture of f13 allowing me to focus approximately a third into the image to ensure the limestone at the front would be sharp but giving the depth I needed to reach the back of the image. I used a shutter speed of one second to correctly expose the image.
As always, if you have any comments on this post or any questions I can answer, please do get in touch!