Adventure in Arivaca

Last weekend I got to spend some quality dad time with the kids. Brandie had a commitment for the afternoon so the kids and I were able to venture southward a bit to the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge has a walking trail in Arivaca, AZ. The loop is a bit over a mile and trails are smooth enough for the kids’ wagon. I certainly did more pushing than they did walking; exploration happened nonetheless. My plan had been to spend an hour or so at this place and then drive about 15 miles to the main entrance of the refuge and try to find a body of water for sunset photos. We’ve had some rain recently so my chances of locating water were reasonable. From there, I planned to let the kids run around wherever I set up. We brought activities, binoculars, bug nets, bug boxes, bicycles, helmets, a camping table, and sandwich dinners. As best laid plans prophetically go, we barely got there in time for much of a sunset. We pulled through the gate just a few minutes before sunset and I hurriedly pulled over at the first body of water I saw (passing up a reasonable opportunity to photograph a tarantula perfectly centered in the road).

As I’m trying to work on my composition, I’ve found a lengthy list of techniques via Google. For this particular outing, I was too hurried to take the time to identify compositions matching the techniques I intended to practice. The following photo-composition pairs may be a bit of a stretch.

This photo was taken off the side of the road en-route to the wildlife preserve. It follows the basic Rule of Thirds. The technique seems to be the most well-known and probably over emphasized technique but it works here. The difficult part about the edit here was the 4-wheeler (which is now gone) and the glint of the sun off the leaves of this cottonwood. In the wind, cottonwoods are shimmery – very beautiful and look like sequence on a ballroom gown. In the photo, they look like over-saturated highlights. I’m still not sure how successful I was but they don’t seem as bad as they once were.

Symmetry is the next technique on the list. I didn’t notice it in the moment (again, I was rushing), but the clouds here have a hint of symmetry. To call this symmetrical is questionable but this is art. It can by symmetrical if I say it is. The clouds almost make a “W” and had the tree on the far right been scooted in a little, it would’ve made for a relatively symmetric photo, especially for art! As it is, I’m still happy with how it turned out. A better angle on the reeds may have been helpful (or perhaps the absence of them). I’ll show a different crop of this same photo because it’s more appealing to me.

I think I prefer something not symmetrical in this particular instance. I like the silhouette of the reeds. This photo is cropped down quite a bit – I didn’t see this particular composition until I was editing. A higher angle on the reeds may have made the photo less busy but the angle may have come at the expense of the clouds. Thinking more, perhaps a lower angle would’ve been ideal.

Foreground Interest and Depth – Here is an opportunity I feel like I missed. This composition technique is basic and simply indicates that there is interest the foreground that is highlighted by the background (or something to that affect). Since I used a larger aperture here and was located very near the foreground, the background doesn’t have anything too interesting. The foreground certainly stands out. I wish, instead of using blur to pull the foreground out, I would have shifted my angle on these Smartweed blossoms. Had I placed them in front of the darker background of the water or dark green reeds on the right, they would’ve stood out and I could’ve put the background in focus. Your eye gets pulled to the blossoms but there’s not enough interesting to observe for any length of time. An in-focus background, however, may have changed that fact.

Additionally, a smattering of other pictures I found enjoyable: