Piha

Went to Piha for a small walk, with a 50mm lens. The weather was oppressively humid and cloudy, but then the sky began to clear slowly. I set out to capture the contrast between the shiny foreground (where the sun was beginning to shine) and the hazy cloud at the back. The life guards came into the scene just at the right moment.

With this photograph, I'm trying out two new things: firstly, I read that 2x3 aspect ratio is too tall for vertical viewing and causes the viewer to scan the image from top to bottom, which is not natural. 4x5 is (apparently) better for that purpose, so I cropped off some vehicle tracks in the sand. At the time, I included because I thought it looked interesting. In hindsight, I much prefer the look of the clean sand.

Secondly, it's the rule of third thing. The life guard's boat is (almost too precisely) on the left-top third point. This influenced the framing decision (horizontally) as well as the cropping decision (vertically). I thought that the rule of third made very boring photographs - And that I knew so much better and I should be breaking that rule left right and centre.

I guess I was wrong - I like it right there than anywhere else.