How I Make Photographs |
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Flash
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Some people believe if you're photographing nature you should use only natural light. Whatever. Often an object in the foreground is much darker than the background, so I use a flash to balance the exposure. In the photo on the left, the ocotillo was originally so dark it looked like a silouhette, so I lit it up by placing a remote flash to the left of the plant. Larger objects, like the Devil's Bridge at right, may require multiple flashes (in this case, three). So if the lighting in these images looks a bit unnatural...well...it is! But these photos looked like this when they were taken and I like the somewhat surreal look achieved by adding my own light to the foreground. |
Backlighting
Keeping the sun to your back is not a bad rule for photographing friends at a BBQ with a point-and-shoot. But if you want to get creative, that's the first rule you need to throw out the window. A very high percentage of my images are backlit. This can create a wide range of effects. | ||||
![]() Most photographers strive for as much detail as possible in every photograph they make. Ocasionally I do the opposite. By shooting almost directly into the sun, multiple ridges in distant mountains are reduced to elegantly simple tones, from dark on the bottom to light at the top. In this case, the sun is hovering just above the top of the photo (so that I'm shooting toward it, but slightly under it). |
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![]() Backlighting can cause lens flairs (glare on the lens). Normally I try to avoid lens flairs by using a hood on the lens or by holding a wide-brimmed hat over the lens to block some of the incoming sun. Occasionally, though, lens flairs are unavoidable. In this case, lens flairs occur across the image as red spots, especially in the lower-right. Not all photographs look good with lens flairs, but in some images, like this one, they add an artistic touch that enhances the photo. |
Long Exposures |
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To give flowing water a silky smooth look, simply lengthen the shutter speed. The longer the shutter, the smoother the water. Ocasionally I use a neutral density (gray) filter or polarizing filter to eat up a couple stops of light just so I can use a longer shutter speed. |
Twilight |
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Sunset is usually a great time to make photographs – but often twilight is even better. The extremely soft, almost surreal colors in the photo of Willow Lake at left only happened after the sun dipped below the horizon. Twilight is also a good time to photograph scenes that, at sunset, have harsh shadows. The photo of Lake Powell at right was taken at twilight to almost completely eliminate shadows that just minutes earlier made the entire bottom half of the image extremely dark. Because of low light, most twilight shots require long shutter speeds, so stabilizing the camera with a tripod is extra important. |
Patterns to Infinity |
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I often zoom in closely on a pattern so that it runs off the edges of the photograph. This suggests to viewers that the pattern continues indefinitely, perhaps for a very long time. For example, people often assume the field of poppies in the photo above is huge when it fact it pretty much disappears just beyond the left and right edges of the image. In the other photo, the elegant pattern in the sand gets messed up just beyond the edges of the photo, but by framing a small part of it very tightly I imply that it continues unbroken across a large area. |
Dramatic (but Natural) Reflections |
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Trees at the water's edge can create dramatic reflections, especially in the fall when the foliage is yellow, orange or red. Sometime nearby orange or reddish cliffs create similar reflections. Such reflections rarely cover a large area, but if you zoom in on them very closely you get a "pattern to infinity" effect that suggests the colored water covers a much larger area than it really does. Both of the above photos were taken in the same location. The top photo is simply a very small part of the larger scene. | ||||
HDR Sometimes the range of light across a scene is so great that it cannot be captured in a single exposure. In the scene below, the sky is far brighter than the ground. I could properly expose for one or the other, but not both. One way to deal with this is to create multiple exposures of the same scene, then merge them later in Photoshop. Any number of exposures may be combined, although it's rare that I merge more than two. HDR (High Dynamic Range), as this technique is called, has become very common, especially with landscape photographers who often shoot very big places under naturally uneven light. And contrary to what some people think, HDR is not "cheating". HDR does not artificially add or enhance colors in a photo, it simply preserves colors that are already there. If vibrant colors don't naturally exist in a landscape to begin with, HDR cannot make them magically appear. |
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![]() Exposure #1 The ground is properly exposed, but the sky is overexposed to the point of being almost completely white. |
![]() Exposure #2 The sky is properly exposed, but the ground is underexposed to the point of being almost cmpletely black. |
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![]() The two images above are merged in Photoshop to create a proper exposure across the entire scene. In this way, all of the colors that naturally occur in this landscape, in both the land and sky, are preserved. |
Combining Multiple Techniques |
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Equipment |
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Equipment |
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To order a photo online, take note of its ID Number, then click HERE. Nature and landscape photography of the Southwest including Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, California, Colorado and beyond by Dave Wilson © All nature and landscape photographs on this website are copyrighted by David L. Wilson This website was un-designed by Dave Wilson |