Church of our Lady | Weekly Photo #66
This is the Dijver Canal in the picturesque city of Bruges, Belgium. Taken from the Wollestraat Bridge, located just along the river from the more popular view of the Dijver Canal as it zig-zags past the pretty Relais Bourgondisch Cruyce Hotel, I took this photo while on a photo walk on a clear summer’s morning in the city.
For a longer read with lots of the photos I took during our weekend in this beautiful city, pop over to my On Location post here: On Location Photographing Bruges.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 17mm | 1/13th Second | f/11 | ISO200
Anyone that has been to Bruges or has seen photos of the city will probably be aware of the popular viewpoint along the canal, right in front of the Relais Bourgondisch Cruyce Hotel but even though I visited the spot during the day, at sunset and sunrise, I couldn’t get a shot I was happy with from where most people stand. The composition didn’t work for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pretty scene and popular for good reason but a good view does not necessarily make a good photo. To me, it felt unbalanced, lacked a foreground and the hotel was too dominating in the scene.
I wasn’t defeated. I knew there were some good photos to be had along the river, I just needed to explore, look for compositions that I did like that also reflected my style of photography. I didn’t have to wander for long and before I knew it, I had captured some photos I was happy with. Two of them have already been shared in this Weekly Photo series (see links below) and the third is this image looking along the canal towards the bell tower in the distance belonging to the Church of Our Lady.
As I crossed Wollestraat Bridge, I decided to photograph this charming scene as I liked the balanced composition with the bell tower on the left and the hotel on the right. Both sides of the canal lead the eye nicely into the photo towards the tower and the reflections in the water add some great foreground interest. If I had to change something, I would remove the cars along the left-hand edge of the frame as they are not really in keeping with the rest of the photo, but they are quite small and not overly distracting in my opinion.
Onto the tripod went my Fujifilm XT2 and wide-angle XF10-24mm lens and I went about capturing the photo you can see here.
As mentioned above, this is the third photo of Bruges I’ve shared in this Weekly Photo series from a trip I took back in 2018. You can see the other two photos using the links below.
Dijver Canal | Weekly Photo #32
I don’t buy into the opinion that when visiting popular spots serious photographers should avoid taking those postcard shots. In fact, I don’t buy into telling other people what to photograph at all but when I do visit places like this, I’ll often grab the postcard shot first and with that saved to the card, I am free to explore and hunt down other unique compositions. You won’t always get the shot you had spent time planning for, there are too many variables we landscape photographers have to deal with to guarantee a perfect photo but when it doesn’t go to plan, try not to be put off, instead of feeling deflated, take advantage and search for other, unique compositions. You never know, you might come away with something you are much happier with.
Talk to you next week.
Trevor
This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.