Capturing Shapes and Patterns in Outdoor Photos

You know there's no question that the great outdoors offers us so many different kinds and varieties of patterns and shapes. And, you know, come fall season, one of the great ways to get cool shots is to kinda forget about the big picture. Start condensing, start coming down small. One of my favorite techniques is taking two leaves. Two fall leaf, say a large yellow maple and a small red maple for example.

And just put them, pinch them close together hold them up to get the sun. Look what happens instantly. You start seeing the veins from the leaves, but because you're stacking them, you're also getting a shadow of one leaf embedded into another leaf and you can come in and do closeups just a corner of one of the tips, or off to the side of the whole leaf. Using that sun in that backlight is this reinforcing compositional element to really make a strong photograph. And you can handhold this.

You can pinch them together. You can change the shapes. You can dye different leaves, different colors. All of these combinations can make a really exciting fall shot. By just going small and using one or two single leaves.