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Many years ago, when I made up my mind to get serious about photography, I read a book called How to Photograph Landscapes by Joseph K. Lange. The book was designed to be a soup to nuts explication on landscape photography. One piece of advice in the work that has stuck with me all these years is the importance of what Lange called a “center of interest” to an effective landscape photograph. (I have always suspected that the concept could be extended to any genre of photography.)
What is a center of interest? It’s something that will serve as the primary compositional focus for the viewer in a given image. It’s the thing that will grab the viewer’s attention right off the bat.
At first, I tended to think of the center of interest as something quite tangible—a lighthouse, a mountain peak, a waterfall and so forth—and often times it’s just that. But sometimes, the center of interest is something less tangible and more conceptual in nature. It might be a pattern, as we discussed last time around. Or it might be a color or a group of colors. It might be a mood or an ambiance. That’s covering a lot of ground, of course, which makes this a bit of a tricky concept for many budding photographers to fully grasp. The notion of a thing as a center of interest is easy to follow. But the intangible center of interest usually takes a bit more time to both conceive of and to implement in the process of image-making in the field.
Regardless, the point is, it the center of interest be something. The effective identification of a center of interest is an indication of an image with a purpose and that’s something that most viewers can relate to and want to view again and again and again. And that’s one definition of an effective photograph.
Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday. To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog: Lightscapes Nature Photography.
I love reading your stuff Kerry. All three photos are super. They all evoke a feeling of either dampness or heat, yet they all have serenity.
Thanks very much, David.
The lighthouse is in Oregon – right?
Yes, that’s Heceta Head Light, just north of Florence on the Oregon coast.
I was there in June. Fell in love with the whole state!
I was in the Pacific Northwest for two weeks in July of ’09. It took me four tries to get a shot of that lighthouse from the (second) overlook south on the coast highway. The first three times I tried, the marine layer made the lighthouse a rumor. The fourth time–on my way back toward Seattle from Bandon–I took a flier and re-routed myself about 100 miles in the very early morning in the hope I’d get one last shot. When I arrived, just after daybreak, it was fogged in again. I waited a few minutes, and had essentially given up, when the marine layer lifted a bit and I finally had a clear view. I scrambled to set up my tripod, and shot for about 30 minutes. Just as I was wrapping up, the fog thickened and the lighthouse disappeared from view again. I couldn’t believe my luck.
And then, about 45 minutes later I was beginning a leisurely drive toward I-5 in Eugene, perhaps 10 miles east of Florence early on that Saturday morning, the right front tire of the rental car I was driving blew out, beginning a very unpleasant adventure and making me wonder why I ever felt lucky. But that’s a story for another day…
Hmmmm … centre of interest. I´ll try to bear that in mind from now on. Thanks for the tip.
You’re very welcome.
Yeah, this is a tough one. I struggle with making sure there’s a center of interest as well – lots of images where I go “what was I photographing?” As you’ve noted, taking time and thinking about what you’re composing is really the best therapy to ensure there’s a key subject and complimentary elements around it. And when you get it right – wow!
Agreed. When it all comes together it’s something special.
Great post, I often talk about that as well, though it has always been referred to the point of focus here.
Thanks, Leanne.