Morning Clouds

Composition is an element of photography that truly captivates one towards an image. Knowing what to use as your subject, knowing where to place that subject, and also what to complement your subject with is really an art. For me, I've always tried to learn what makes certain photographers so amazing, or what made some photographs 'pop' more than others - it's all in their composition. To me, although composition can be defined and spoken about at great lengths, it's only in the moment do you discover if you have it or you don't. Lighting set-ups can be mastered, metering can be read, but composition is something that can only be developed over time.

My latest craze, as you might have been able to tell, is clouds; cirrus clouds to be exact. Recently, we've been having a great showing of cirrus clouds due to some weather phenomena Guy Hagi tried to explain to me one time. When I first approached this shot, my initial idea was to simply create a panoramic view of the sky. But slowly as I took the scene in more and more, I decided I wanted to incorporate the elements of Makapu'u beach - namely Rabbit island and the parking lot. Rarely do I ever do vertical panoramas just because one, our eyes scan from left to right horizontally, and two, they're odd to hang, but once I saw the scene, I knew that a vertical composition would be a smart choice.

Naturally, the graffitied cement barrier would not have been an ideal object to complement the scene, but since I really wanted to express my surroundings, I decided to include it - and the blue shirt that you'll see if you look closely.