Project 12: Positioning the Horizon

The brief for this project was to find a view with a reasonably interesting landscape and in which there is an unbroken and clear horizon. Consider different placements of the horizon and take 6 photos where the horizon is placed from bottom to top. Initially my thoughts were to head up to the Northumberland coast where there are so many such landscapes to choose from. However I ended up choosing a hilltop view closer to home, simply for logistical reasons. When viewing the shots however, the nature of the landscape probably leant itself to the project better than a seascape would, due to more foreground interest.
As the sky was not particularly dramatic at the time of shooting, my preferred compositions were with the foreground making up most of the weight in the image as shown second from the top. This also gave a perception of the depth of the view, which is quite dramatic. The one problem with this image is the amount of weight allocated to the field, which is quite uninteresting. If I was to retake this image, I would probably take it from a lower viewpoint in the field to balance the image. I did not feel that the composition with the extreme high placement (shown top) worked as some sky was needed to balance the landscape.

The mid horizon placement showed that this particular view doesn't really suit a static mid horizon composition, because it lacks a key point of interest which would balance the central positioning (such as a monument).

I believe that a dramatic sky could probably make the low horizon position (second from bottom) work quite well. There is still some capture of the depth in the foreground, which would hold interest against the sky.

The final placement shows the horizon almost at the bottom of the image. This particular composition is so much sky that it would only work with a particularly attractive sunset, cloud formation. I also think it may need some strong shapes in the horizon to give it more prominence and compensate for the foreground being placed so low. Therefore this particular view isn't really suited to this low placement.