Description

I was driving from New York to North Carolina when I saw the Philip Morris cigarette factory in Virginia. I am a non-smoker, but I stopped anyway to take a look. I found out that they had a tour, which I took and learned more than I needed to know about how cigarettes are manufactured. What really made that stop worth it was this picture. The sky, so big and beautiful in the background and in the foreground, this big monument to smoking. How ironic.

Technical Explanation

If you have problems centering people or buildings in your photographs, try taking a picture of the sky. It doesn't move, and it is so big that you really can't miss it. What is important however whenever taking pictures of flat distant objects, such as the sky is to be sure that your picture is properly framed. Framing gives some depth and feeling to the picture. It doesn't take away from what you are photographing, it only adds. I wanted to fill a majority of my photograph with the sky. As you can see here, I framed the picture on the bottom and on the right. It is important to frame your picture on at least two sides. The trees and hill on the bottom serve as one side. I like to have a very close object peering into view. So I chose the trees you see on the right. If you play with your depth of field, you can choose whether or not the close object is in focus. I chose to have it in focus here, though if I increased my shutter speed, (and brought the trees even closer) I would guarantee that they would blur. I really like contrast in my pictures. Sometimes contrast can be seen between light and dark. Other times, it can be seen with very colorful objects, and a black and white object. This picture has a very different sense of contrast. It is the beauty of nature, and the large cigarette, as I like to call it. When people "get back to nature," it usually means that they are dropping all of their old habits and cleaning up their act. To me, smoking is something that is unhealthy. Putting the two together seems like such a big joke. Then to glorify it by taking a great picture of the two is just hysterical!