Finding The Right Angle

I made this image at Combers beach near Green Point Campground during a low tide this past October of 2006. The light in fall time is one of my favourite times to photograph, as practically any time of the day is great to photograph. The real fun begins when I am trying to find my composition or "just the right angle" for a particular image I might have in mind, sometimes things fall into place rather quickly and other times I fiddle around with the composition never having the feeling of getting it right, I have never been taught formally as to what is a well composed photograph and what isn't, I like to study the work of other photographers and other artists including their paintings, this helps to a certain point, but when making photographs out in the field, things are moving along in realtime life, so it can be hard to figure out just what these artists were seeing. First off I look at all the elements around me and do some "sorting out" often good photographs are not what one includes in the image but what one leaves out. I try to simplify, with the image posted I thought to myself that I liked this rock jutting out into the sand, I worked with this element then tried to balance the smaller rock islands on the upper left and centre. I also try to use a balance of dark and light areas in my compositions, in this case the sunlight reflecting off the wet sand in which I was able to keep a little off centre to the right, even though there is the appearance I was shooting up high, the rock in the foreground is quite low, part of a much bigger barnacle encrusted rock usually under water at high tide, its a bit of an optical illusion. The image was made with my Tachihara 8 x 10 view camera and a 270mm lens.