La Paz, Bolivia - the extent of the housing on the steep mountain flanks is impressive!
Phase One IQ4 with A-Series body, 180mm Rodenstock lens, f11 @ 1/250 second, ISO 50

When photographers learn about the rules of composition, one suggestion is to look for patterns - patterns of trees on a mountain side, the patterns of cracked mud in a dry river bed, or perhaps a number of shells sprinkled on a beach in a pleasing fashion. Humans like patterns. They like repetition. Two is better than one, three is better than two. I don't know why.

But as photographers, we don't need to know why, we just need to acknowledge that patterns and repetition can create a strong photograph that attracts attention. And in this congested world of social media and billions of posts of uneaten meals and hammed-up selfies, we need to call on all our compositional skills to create images that get noticed.

Travel photographers are often looking for viewpoints that provide an overview of the destination. Whether we're on the edge of the Altiplano overlooking the Bolivian capital La Paz, or up the top of the Eiffel Tower surveying Paris, the buildings below are full or repetition and can be a great way to set the scene for a travelogue.

The general approach framing these overviews is to include the sky (perhaps including a sunset). They are important photographs to take and I'm not suggesting you don't for a minute, but this approach when compared with all the other photos out in the world is a standard view. It may struggle to attract attention.

One option is to use a telephoto lens and crop out the sky. Now, rather than having a frame divided between sky and an urban foreground, you're focusing the viewer's attention on a pattern of buildings. And the distinctive shapes and colours of the buildings will do a great job telling the viewers about the location you're visiting - creating the story.

If you can, consider zooming in a little more so you fill the frame with the buildings. If the pattern extends to the edges of the frame, this indicates to the viewer that the pattern extends forever, further enhancing the impression of an endless repetition. 

From this viewpoint above La Paz, I've pointed the camera down to exclude the sky. I could have zoomed in or cropped more tightly to include just a pattern shot of the building in the centre of the frame - but then it is just a pattern. And like selfies and food shots, there are lots of pattern photos around as well, so somehow we need to introduce something in addition to that pattern. Here, my addition is to include the crest of the hill - a skyline - and more buildings in the distance behind. What I'm trying to do is break the monotony of too much pattern by including some differences within the frame, because while humans like repetition, they also get bored very easily and so our job is to maintain the interest.

A good light helps every travel photo. We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours watching the scene change as the afternoon light merged into sunset.

** Viewing Note: One of the problems I have is downsizing a 150-megapixel image to 600 pixels, which is what you see in the newsletter. I actually size it to 1000 pixels, hoping that your browser has a little more information to work with. However, if you use Outlook, the 1000 pixel image breaks the formatting of the newsletter, so I have been told to keep the images at 600 pixels - but try as I did, I couldn't get this image to work at 600 pixels, it just looked horrible. I also know a lot of you see these newsletters on Facebook and Instagram - which seem to introduce a further range of changes to the original file. So I continue my struggle to share the beauty of a large format image on a small resolution screen. Maybe this is a little project for 2025! **