Happy Sunday! This week, Patti leads the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge and she’s really making me think and analyze to find the perfect images to represent this week’s topic – Exploring the Foreground, Mid-ground, and Background.

Scouring my archive, this picture caught my eyes. It was taken at the Crater of the Moon National Monument in Idaho last summer. I remember purposefully getting down low with my camera to get this picture because I wanted to achieve a hilly effect. I remember trying different angles and compositions but nothing stood out until I squatted down.

I wanted to write down the name of those white plants on the ground but my mind was blanking out as I wrote this post.

I actually took a photo of this exact scene last autumn but I will use this photo as it’s a better representation of the topic. I am choosing this photo because I feel the three elements – foreground, middle ground, and background are well-represented. I found the trees and lines clearly mark the boundary between the foreground (trees) and the mid-ground. Then obviously, the mountains behind the mountain are the background.

If one ever visited northern Utah, you’ll see scenes like this just as soon as you drive up the mountain.

I am choosing this photo as my closing photo. It is that of a sunset in Taipei. This is one of my favorite kind of cityscape photography because instead of getting down to the city streets, I get to focus on a big-picture perspective. In this photo, I decided to put the hotel I was staying in the foreground, the city in the mid-ground, and the mountains in the background. I love how the haze from the air pollution made the mountains look like a water-color painting. It’s so faded that it looked as if it’s been painted on.

I wasn’t staying in the large red building. I was staying in the pavilion – the smaller red-roofed building below it. Still, it was the same hotel.