The Search for Texture by Ossian Lindholm

Intro by Skip Cohen

I love these short tips and reminders from Argentina's Ossian Lindholm. They're easy to remember and we've appreciated all the great feedback. As I write with each of his posts, think about what it would be like to spend a week with Ossian on one of Travel Vision Journey's upcoming trips.

This month, if you'd like to meet Ossian, he's going to be in New England doing some programs in the Boston area and also teaching in Maine, June 21 - 27, with The Art and Craft of Mindful Travel Photography workshop at the Maine Media Workshop. 

Whether you're an established pro or a serious hobbyist, we all have the same goal. Each of us are on a never-ending quest for the ultimate image. Each time we've got a camera in our hands, we're searching to isolate that one moment to set our work apart from everybody else's. We pay meticulous attention to lighting, exposure and composition, but so often we forget about texture.

Never miss the opportunity to bring texture into your images...and speaking of textures the dunes are the Superstars of the texture arena.

Here are a couple of simple things to remember, because just being at a dune some place on the planet isn't enough. In order to achieve that spectacular image you're in search of, for the dramatic image you hope to achieve, you've got to be there at sunrise. The horizontal light presents a pallet of shapes and shades in the waves on the sand. The fresh dust free morning air allows you to see even the smallest detail, which is also why I prefer early morning light for this kind of image, as opposed to sunset.

Next, set your tripod up at a low angle, not more than 40 inches from the ground. Now, choose a wide angle lens and a good aperture to get a wide depth of field.

The dunes in the image above are in Cafayate, a place we typically visit during sunrise on the second day of our 9 day Travel Vision workshop in North West Argentina .  The specs on the image were F8  at 1/30 sec with the camera set at ISO 100.