Composition: Arabian Landscapes

The latest instalment of Cee’s Compose Yourself Photo Challenge calls for landscapes. Like many ‘generalist’ photographers, I take a lot of landscapes but for the purposes of this post I decided to confine myself to ones from the Arabian peninsula.

Taken in the desert outside the oasis city of Al Ain, this image has a strong leading line, while the rocks in the foreground provide perspective:

This was also taken just outside Al Ain. In terms of composition techniques, the road provides a diagonal, but, with camels grazing beneath electricity pylons, I like it as a metaphor for the entire country: modernising while trying to retain and respect tradition.

This third image was taken in a small bay near the city of Muscat, in Oman. Not all of the Arabian peninsula is covered in sand dunes, and in Oman the volcanic rock of the Hajar mountains provides an impressive backdrop to the beaches and cities. Technically, you have the rule of thirds and the parasols on the beach provide perspective, while the contrasting colours of the orange buoys in the blue sea are also a compositional feature:

Finally, two photographs taken on the nature reserve of Sir Bani Yas Island that feature all these compositional factors. On the left, another example of the same contrasting colours, while the slope of the hillside gives a diagonal and the two groups of antelope give perspective. On the right, a solitary oryx heads off into the sunset. The two pictures were taken at more or less the same time, towards sunset, and it’s interersting to see the difference in the quality of light depending on whether the sun is behind the camera or in front of it.