How to Capture Awesome Photos by Including a JCB

Awesome rainbow but no JCB in this photo

So how is including a JCB going to improve the image?

If you’re a landscape photography you may or may not know what a JCB is?

Its a phrase coined from the work of outstanding landscape photographer Joe Cornish but before I explain let me ask you this: –

Have you ever seen an awesome scene in front of you, grabbed you wide angle lens – 24mm or maybe even as wide as 16mm – so you can get it all in and then been disappointed that the image looks really ordinary when you get it on your computer?

The thing about the was very wide angle lenses render images, is that they give disproportional emphasis to the foreground of your image. The foreground dominates the scene and its often boring… like the foreground of the image at the beginning of this post.

This is where a JCB comes in. Joe Cornish is famous for including boulders in the foreground of his images to provide foreground interest. JCB stands for Joe Cornish Boulder. Now your images doesn’t have in  include an actual boulder, but when using a wide angle lens, there needs to be something in the foreground to avoid the wide open boring space.

When I saw that awesome unusual rainbow formation, first off I grabbed a shot – with something like this you never know how long it will last. To get the whole rainbow in I used an 8mm (16mm FF eq) but there’s this huge expanse of nothing in the foreground. So I looked to create some foreground interest. It could have been someone walking their dog coming towards me… but there was no one around.

But by moving to my left & getting down really low, I was able to include the patch of daisies in the foreground – adding a lot more interest to the photo

Your foreground interest, your JCB can be anything. An actual boulder. A patch of flowers. A person walking their dog. A clump of reeds or grasses. Some rusty iron work. Keep your eyes open, get down low, stop your lens down and use the hyperfocal distance and see how it improves your images.