Tag: practice

Sunset – Photography Experiments
Looking for a sunset and wandered here from somewhere else? Check out all the 40 Photography Experiments.

It’s almost summer in the Northern Hemisphere and that means it’s time to tune up your sunset taking skills. For those South of the equator, you still have time to participate!

Sunset Examples

Sunset From Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur, India

UnCruise Adventures in Hawaii

Washington State Ferry

A couple playing with dog on beach at sunset, Whidbey Island, Washington, USA Shutter Speed: 1/400th of a second

Bryce Canyon National Park

From the Green River Overlook in Canyonlands National Park, Utah, the sun cuts dramatic shapes around cliffs and buttes before setting across the horizon. This viewpoint is a short walk at the end of the road and an excellent place to enjoy the splendor of the park.

Out past the congestion of LA, along the California Coast, Point Vicente Lighthouse stands guard over the Pacific while warning sailors of the constant danger of the rocks at its base.

Mexico

Kathmandu with a brilliant sunset in the distance

Here’s the experiment you can run:
1. Start by scouting a great sunset location. Don’t have a great one handy? Find a good one instead. This may mean choosing a location that allows you to play with silhouettes in front of the setting sun. If you need some help finding locations, try using The Photographer’s Ephemeris to aid with elevations and shadow lengths.
2. Next, plan out five different shots you want to take. Don’t leave it up to chance. Know where the sun is going down and plan. Some things, like cloud cover, aren’t easily planned for, but you can bank the odds in your favor by being prepared. Your list might look something like:
  1. Sun to the side of tree
  2. Disappearing behind mountains
  3. Reflected off building glass windows
  4. Sunstar high over wheat field
  5. Long human shadows on the beach
3. Go shoot and post your results here, I’d love to see them!
Some other ideas:
1. Straight down the street you live on
2. From the roof looking over neighborhood
3. Reflected in the mirror of a car
4. From the top of a nearby hillside
5. Viewed through the leafs or branches of a tree (think closed down aperture and sun stars here)
Done!

Important points to not forget:
1. When you change your point of focus, you change your metering. That experiment is an important read. It’s why, when you move the camera just a little off the side of the sun, you might get a completely overexposed sun.
2. You don’t always have to be facing the sun for great sunset photos.
3. Bring a human along to add some excitement to the scene.
4. Think about the mood. Then shoot that. Photography is about helping people connect with your subject by giving them something they can relate to. Calmness, serenity, being at peace…..sunsets say a lot of things. Also drama, excitement, beach party.
5. If you need some more help, I have a post for you here.
Now, show me those cool sunset pictures!

Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, and its companion 40 Photography Experiments, are series written by professional photographer Peter West Carey. The series are designed to unravel the mysteries of photography, helping you can take better pictures. Subscribe here to receive all the updates and bonus material. Your comments are always welcome.

If you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan!
April 22, 2021
Photographing Shadows – Photography Experiments

Yesterday’s topic was Photographing Silhouettes.

This is part two in a mini-series. This series looks at silhouettes, shadows and light through smoke. They are all essentially the same thing, but we’ll pull them apart to see the subtle differences.

Examples

Bottles on cycle – Elevated view – Nepal

Close-up of orange long leaves – USA – Hawaii

The shadows of prayer flags are shown against the side of Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal

Black and white image of a curving sand dune in both the light and shadow – Algodones Dunes, California

If you read yesterday’s post, this is more of the same.

What you’re looking to do with shadows is to make sure they are well defined. If your camera is on Auto Mode and there is a lot of shadow, it will try to lighten those shadows so they aren’t so black. Remember Making Tone Black, Black? That’s why shadows don’t come out as true to life as they should.

What you want to do is meter for the light areas so they are exposed properly. Conversely, you can meter for the shadow and then adjust your exposure bias/compensation to darken the shadows. Either way will work, but metering for the light (especially if you have a gray card) works best.

Here’s the experiment you can run:

1) Set your camera on Manual mode. ISO 100. If you don’t want to use Manual mode, you will need use the Auto Exposure Lock feature of your camera.

1.5) Depending on your subject, pick an aperture that is appropriate for the amount of depth of field you are looking for.

2) Using spot metering, meter off the brighter areas of the scene. In the example above, I would meter off the pavement as it is tonally close to 18% gray, which is what my camera is looking for. If the subject you are metering off of is bright, you’ll want to change shutter speed until the meter reading from your camera reads about +2/3 to +1 1/3 too bight. If you are metering off the shadow area, make sure it is – 2/3 to -1 1/3 too dark.

3) Recompose and shoot!

DONE!

The trick with using Manual mode in this case is to understand what you are metering off of and what your camera is looking for. If you pointed your camera directly at the shadow area and set the shutter speed so it was lined up with zero, then the shadows will be too light.

There really isn’t a top secret trick to shadows other than knowing where you’re metering and why. Metering for the light area (areas that are being hit by light) will work better, but you need to compensate for their color. All of this is solved by using an 18% gray card and placing it in the light to be metered. Then you can just zero your reading with the shutter speed and you’re set!

Tomorrow we will cap off the mini-series by covering light through smoke. Can you figure out who to make that one work?

Questions? Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.

Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, and its companion 40 Photography Experiments, are series written by professional photographer Peter West Carey. The series are designed to unravel the mysteries of photography, helping you can take better pictures. Subscribe here to receive all the updates and bonus material. Your comments are always welcome.

If you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan!

February 17, 2021