“In a good composition, one has the distinct impression that nothing could be added to or subtracted from the picture. This sense of completeness–of balance–is the key.“

- Art Wolfe

I occasionally get it in my head that if I remove some of the distractions in an image I will make it better.  Yet, often when I do this I find that I ruin the balance within the image and start to make if look plastic. A look I am sure is a bit of a current popular phase, rather than an enduring look.

Perfection in a landscape looks false to me.  Plastic.  I stop believing it’s reality.  I know that the era of believing a photograph as truth is sadly fading.  If it isn’t fading, it is seriously being questioned.

I look at my sea gulls on the beach in the above photograph and momentarily I wonder if there are too many birds.  Yet, I think if I remove one or ten, I loose something important in the photograph.  

I know that when I compose, and when I choose my work to show others, I am assessing that sense of balance that a photograph has.  When it’s right it’s fantastic, when it’s not the artwork fails.   

Sea Gulls, on our Abstract Photography Workshop.  South West Rocks.  Photograph and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2018