Does the Foreground Dictate Where you Shoot? | Landscape Photography

Andrew Marr
Published on Jul 24, 2020

It had been several months since I had managed to visit the southwest region. So I headed down there soon after the regional restrictions eased to soak up some of the amazing views this part of WA has to offer and get some long needed landscape photography.

I caught up with Matt Fields, a photographer I had caught with previously for a drone shoot amongst the salt lakes in the Wheatbelt. This time we decided to go east to Black Point.

We meet up at the Karridale Roadhouse and took a route into the D’Entrecasteaux National Park from the west along the coast, through some beautiful parts of the forest. Not being the main entrance to the park, the track has less traffic. For the most part, the track is good, however, there are one or two sections that probably require a 4wd vehicle.

Once at Black Point, we checked out the east side where a group of surfers were carving up the waves breaking around the point. We then moved to the west side to explore spots for sunset that evening. The location is gorgeous, but it took us a little while to settle on a composition as we had the challenge of the black Basalt Rock backlit by the setting sun.

I positioned the camera at the end of one of the naturally occurring rock channels leading out to sea. The sun was setting about 90 degrees to my right. Not only was the sun not in the shot, but I was getting some sidelight on the dark rocks. When it came to the polariser, I was playing with two options, remove the reflection on the water or retain the detail in the rocks. Which would you go for?