Studying imperfect composition can lead to better photo technique.

Among my themes of Tracking the Light is the examination of photos for technical flaws, compositional distractions, and unintenional inclusion of annoying visual elements.

I save some of the ‘perfect’ images as illustrations for publication elsewhere.

The photo below was exposed of an outbound Amtrak Pacific Surfliner at Moorpark, California in July 2016.

To my eye this photo suffers from two flaws that detract from the compostion and reduce its visual effectiveness.

The first flaw was my choice of shutter-speed—1/500th of second—which just wasn’t fast enough to ‘freeze’ the front of the locomotive. As a result, the nose of Amtrak F59PHI 452 is ever so slightly blurred. This annoys me, since I used an f9 aperture, and thus could have easily bumped my shutter speed up to at least 1/1000th without needing to adjust my ISO higher. This would have minimized the blurring.

The other problem stems from my release of the shutter a fraction of a second too soon. If I had just waited for the locomotive to roll another two or three feet, it would have nicely blocked the trackside lamp-post immediately to the left of the locomotive. This lamp is partially visible and causes unfortunate visual tension while performing no useful compositional function. The photo would be better off sans lamp.

On the plus side; I find the locomotive’s blue and silver scheme suits the southern California afternoon sun, while the off-center arrangement makes for a visually compelling photo of the Amtrak train in motion.

Those are my thoughts on this ten year-old digital image.

Tracking the Light examines compositional elements