The best photos of the outgoing week (September 12-18) from National Geographic

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

This week Catherine Karnow, photo consultant National Geographic, continues to comment on photographs from different parts of the world, showing and telling how the author got this or that picture, for which certain techniques are used, and how to achieve even better quality, interesting and colorful pictures. Akin to the ones you see every week in this weekend photo collection.

12-th of September

Maruf Hossain's photo shows a girl from Bangladesh riding a swing. Moreover, the author, with the help of a simple technique, managed to convey the speed, movement of the object. The technique is called "shooting with wiring", but it consists in setting a long shutter speed and, as if "escorting" a moving object with the camera. Then the subject will remain sharp and everything else will be blurred.

13 september

The success of composition lies in the fact that objects are positioned in the frame along a graceful curve, and so that it is convenient for the eye to trace along this curve all objects "inside". The contrast between the soft, gentle snow slopes and the sharp, jagged black peaks makes us feel both the temptation of mountain peaks and the fear of them that a climber must feel when climbing a mountain at such a height. Three tiny figures of climbers show us how huge and majestic the mountain peaks are. And the footprints left on the snow-white snow, like a thin snake, lead our gaze into the distance, to the peaks, emphasizing the elegant shape of the snow ridge. The gaze follows from the bottom left corner, where the climbers are, to the middle of the frame, to the "dead center", and then rises up to the black mountain peak, which is a powerful compositional center. Harmony is the success of the composition.

14 september

Sports events can be filmed in very different ways. This photographer, who filmed the training of young climbers, decided to embellish his shot with graphic elements of vertical lines that form from multi-colored small bumps on a climbing wall. The photo was taken absolutely straight, keeping the lines perfectly straight and parallel, which only emphasize the bizarre figures of the athletes, frozen in weight. By the way, the fact that the figures are in the extreme right position adds to the humor of this image. Sports events don't always have to be dramatic in a photo - humor and bold graphic elements will only decorate such a photo.

September 15th

Experienced photographers know that the most interesting and unexpected photos can be taken if not looking at the stage during a concert, performance or any other performance, but looking behind the scenes, where the participants in the performance are less tense, but just as spiritual, mysterious and beautiful as on the stage. So, the ballerina, "swimming" into the wings, bathes in shades of blue light, which makes her figure seem unearthly, alien. A graceful wave of the hand emphasizes the slenderness and beauty of the figure, the half-profile adds mystery to it, and the small figures in the background, although not in focus, serve as a kind of completion of the composition.

16 of September

Taking photographs in caves is always very difficult, in particular, due to the lack of lighting, and also due to the inability to choose the most convenient and interesting location for filming. Here, in the sacred Cenote, a well in Chichen Itza, an ancient Mayan city in the north of the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula, the photographer was able to highlight the combination of warmly lit stalactites and stalagmites, intense turquoise water, and an unusual stone "pier" that add intrigue and dynamics to the plot. In addition, the lucky element is probably the only reason this photo was taken because it was a ray of light coming from somewhere in the ceiling of the cave. This beam of light and circle of light on the water makes the photo truly magical. So you do not need to be lazy to return to the place that interested you again and again, perhaps a good moment lies in wait for you there already at this minute.

September 17

Another copy of an extremely successful, graceful, poetic composition. Although I doubt that the photographer happened to be in the desert at this very place just as these five women were passing by. To get such a photo, you need to follow along with the people you want to photograph. In this picture, the harmony of movement, in every step, in every fold of the saree, tossed up as the women took a step. The photographer had to take more than one "shot" to capture this kind of symmetry. He may have had to walk or run alongside women for long enough. So the perfect shot takes a very long time.

September 18

Black and white photography is ideal when you want to bring out the texture of the background or subject in a photo, especially when it comes to retro style, when the photo has a sense of nostalgia or is completely timeless. Therefore, the stone walls of the buildings shown in this photo, the cobblestone street, and the classic Volkswagen look perfect in black and white.