Images explained - Little stories about making decisions
Sunsets
It is always very tempting to capture the beautiful colours of sunsets. But there are very few sunset photos I actually like. Apart from the nice colours the rest of the image is usually pretty boring or just bad. A natural reaction of any camera with some of the auto functions active is to darken the image. The camera thinks there is a lot of light, so it is programmed to reduce the light. Good for the sky, but bad for the rest of the image. Often you can’t see the rest of photo because it is so dark. And that makes it a bad photo.
Here I lined the street light up with the sun. It gives the illusion that the light illuminates the water, but of course that isn’t the case. An added bonus is how the lines of the mountains connect.
A very simple technique to add more interest to the darker part is to shoot from a very low angle. If I had taken a shot when I first saw the man, he and the background would merge and maybe only his hat would stick out. Thanks to the very low vantage point the dark background disappeared and he stands out.
This one was taken with a mobile phone.
Photography is not just a matter of aiming your camera and pressing the button. For collecting memories this is perfectly alright. But if you want to decide what exactly ends up in your photo and how, you have to spend some more time and make decisions.
What is it what you want? Are there any distractions or irrelevant parts you definitely don’t want in your image? Do you want to be creative by changing your aperture or shutter speed? Or even move the camera (or just the lens) while pressing the shutter, to add a certain effect? What is the best moment to press the button?
This is a series of images where I explain what it is what I wanted and how I executed my plans.
These are things I talk about on my photography tours. If this appeal to you, check out the tours or go straight to www.photo-voyager.com to make your booking.
