I got the best compliment on this photo from my wife. Normally her comments on my work range from “That’s nice” to “Mmmm Hmmm”, and the occasional “Ewww”, and once, (I didn’t speak to her for the rest of the night), she said my image looked like a postcard. This time however, she said “Wow, that’s art!” I have to say that I’m happy to have such a compliment from her .

About This Photo

I was walking along the Virgin River and I began to notice these interesting patterns in the sand so I scouted around until I found a leaf in the right place. As I was setting up and framing my shot the gentle water carried a second leaf to a stop right next to the first. I was happy to include the second leaf with the first which seemed to stop there just for my purposes .

Do you ever stage photos like this? Personally, I don’t like to stage my photos but I see it all the time, particularly this fall at Zion. I saw a photographer open a ziplock bag full of leaves she collected on her hike to the Subway and place them in strategic positions for her compositions, there was another guy splashing water onto an area of rock to make it wet and more pleasing for his image. My favorite was when I was shooting at the Subway though. I was setting up to take this shot and another photographer who was shooting next to me actually picked up a handful of leaves that were naturally in my foreground to move it to where he was shooting! I was so stunned that someone would do that but I just laughed to myself, moved forward and recomposed my shot.

It’s all personal preference I suppose and I mean no offense to those who do stage little scenes like this (except the guy at the Subway who stole my leaves), but I always prefer natural looking scenes. How about you?