In this month’s Better Photography, Ignacio Palacios takes a light plane flight over a remote Brazilian river and returns with some amazing abstracts – but look at his starting points and think about the creative decisions he made along the way!

Writes Ignacio, “Great compositions often come down to the degree of contrast and it’s certainly one of the main tools we can use to inject interest and energy into our images. Contrast at its heart, is when two different forces or subjects create conflict or come to resolution with each other in an image and this division or coming together is what makes it such a great instrument for telling a story. Contrast can present itself through colour, subject or even tone and this image has a dash of all three.

“Colour contrast exists through the dominant reds finding a balance by their placement against the cooler blues, which live on the opposite side of the colour wheel. The high tonal contrast between the lighter dunes and darker rivers add drama and energy, while the dune itself provides some subject contrast through its smoother consistency, relative to the intense texture pervading the rest of the image.”

To read the full article, subscribe to Better Photography magazine – or you can also jump over to Ignacio’s own website and buy one of his ebooks on composition – https://iptravelphotography.com.au/award-winning-shots-landscapes-vol1