What’s wrong with this picture?
T
here are four things that should not occupy a dominant portion of a photograph. They are dirt, gravel, asphalt, and concrete. In art, there are always exceptions, and I know there are some road shots, for example, that are excellent and where a lot of the image is taken up by the pavement on the road. Nevertheless, for the most part I believe this guideline is correct. These four things just aren’t attractive to look at. In the shot of this columbine flower from Zion National Park, I feel the background is less than ideal. It’s not terrible; it does direct our attention to the flower and there is nothing that could be called distracting in it except, perhaps, the diagonal lines in the lower left section of the image. Still, I just don’t like it. I find the texture and color unattractive. Because the flower is vertical in design, I thought a vertical crop would be
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