Frosty Mornings

Frosty mornings can present you with a lot of photographic material. With the recent cold snap in the NW I have taken the opportunity to get out a couple of mornings for some frosty shoots – once in the yard and a couple times out in the local areal. Frosty leaves and flora are a classic and I just can’t get enough of them.

What am I looking for when shooting frosted leaves or plants?

1. Nice color – rich subtle hues or bright  primaries.
2. Simple compositional elements – oblique lines, circles, triangles, etc. without random crossing lines (like those caused by blades of grass). You might have to do a little finger pruning.
3. Are the corners filled or balanced and symmetrical?
4. Geometric pattern of color or just nice balance?
5. Is there a single element that draws the eye within the apparent chaos?
6. Nice frost.

Applying these to the blog images here is what we see in the first image:

1. Rich brown tones.
2. Diagonal composition formed by the leaves.
3. The corners are symmetrical. If there were leaves in three corners and only one with grass it would feel unbalanced.
4. Balanced with triangle in the corners.
5. For me the leaf near the upper right attracted my eye.

For the second image (this will look nice as a large print):

1. Beautiful mix of orange, yellow and green.
2. No real strong compositional element but a strong repeated pattern. No rogue grass blades, twigs,etc.
3. All corners are filled.
4. The individual colors are evenly spread throughout the image maintaining balance. Look at each color and see the balance.
5. For me the lighter green leaf cluster near the upper right caught my eye.

Was I thinking about all of this while shooting the images? Actually I was. It is pretty automatic now due to experience.