Landscape Composition

I was photographing a couple at one of my favorite spots, Huntington Beach at sunset. I had to post a couple of the sunsets, just to let all my friends on the east coast see how our weather is. Landscape composition varies depending on what part of the ’scape you want to emphasize.

Our first frame shows a classic 1/3rd land and a 2/3rds sky of a beautiful sunset.

Our other images show a version where we have about 4/5ths sky and 1/5th water, while we also have a 2/3rds water and a 1/3rd sky.

My last frame is actually a bit of a rulebreaker. Why? I’ve placed the surfer walking in the lower right area of convergence, but he is walking out of the frame. Normally, you want to leave space for our subject to walk or run or even look into. Why? Because it helps our viewers eyes to remain engaged and not stop viewing our image. It also emphasizes the ocean over the sky.

Lastly, we can’t forget our friends on the east coast who encountered one of the largest snow storms to hit in a number of years.  Looks like a white Christmas for them and we will just have to suffer through another wonderful sunset. BTW, that’s Catalina Island in the background.