I will admit, I am not a morning person and prefer to go to bed as late as possible as I feel that there is so much to do in life but when it comes to photography, I have a completely different outlook.
For me, creating that perfect image is all about timing. With every landscape I want to create a drama, a feeling and an emotional impact. Now my question is, how do you turn a Nice photo into a Beautiful photo? The type of quality you will see in National Geographic magazines plus something unique and different in a saturated market.
Lighting Is Everything!
Lighting is Everything and the latin translation for photography is ‘drawing with light’. It is always good to remember this as it is the very basics for taking a great picture, no matter the equipment. As a photographer, we only have a few materials to work with, light, space and time, especially in landscapes. It is the one area where time is on our side until those key moments.
First Light kisses the Hoodoos and trees of Bryce Canyon National Park on a winters morning in Utah USA
Lighting has many different qualities. It is the key factor into creating aesthetically pleasing imagery but in order for me to understand these questions from my introduction I need to look deeper. For this, I came across David Du Chemin, a photographer and author to the book ‘The Heart Of A Photograph’. In Chapter 6 there were 3 questions he asked himself with his approach, ‘What is the light doing?, What are the lines doing? and When is the moment?’ I found this extremely interesting because they are the key questions which just are done but automatically but really never thought about but I feel that these questions are important to remember as this will save us from a lot of mistakes and it also makes you slow down. I will admit that I add in a fourth question, ‘Where is the light source coming from? as I feel this is just as important and ties nicely in with question 3.
The primary question helps me to determine my settings with the mood and effect with what I want to in order to create an impact. I can not control the light but I can work with it!
Sunrise and sunsets are when the sun is at it’s lowest on the horizon emitting a beautiful soft light which shapes the landscape revealing a 3 dimensional form created by shadows. I will admit that I am a sucker for soft lighting and I will always emphasis this so expect me to repeat this again and again but I feel that it is important to emphasis. To me I prefer the cool softness of a sunrise compared to the soft warm light at sunset plus the lack of people surrounding me in order to allow me to find my perfect spot and correct myself if I do not like an angle. As the sun gets higher into the sky, we start to loose this form as well as the golden colours as the light becomes more neutral.
Mind Set!
It is easy to get excited when you see something with blue skies and sunshine. I call this the tourist photo in which one shows off where they have been and how the weather was nice.
I have recently returned from visiting Bryce Canyon in Utah where I came across a tourist with this very thought. To me, I wanted some clouds to break the blue in the sky and give a bit of depth and contrast to the mountains as I don’t shoot at the height of day so I was looking for alternative images plus I had to get some sort of tourist photos for myself but he denied it and carried on taking photos with his phone. Now remember, not everyone is a photographer and does not think like me so this fits into my tourist photo theory and I love how this conversation about clouds to break up the skies actually confirmed this.
I will admit that we actually carried on hiking together and I was showing him different pockets of light and glows in the rocks which he admitted that he would never have seen if he was hiking alone, so I hope that I helped him with creating something just a little more unique to show his friends and family on how back lighting is not always a bad thing in photography. As I keep reading, there is no such thing as ‘bad lighting’. It is what you want to use it for which determines whether that light is right for you! It’s all in the mind set. You reap the rewards.
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