In this post I’d like to talk about photographer’s artistic interpretation of the observed scene.

When I decide to take a photograph of a location, it is usually because I feel some sort of impulse. This impulse comes as a result of the surroundings communicating a certain mood, or association to me. You can say that I am photographing more of a mental image of the scene that I have in my mind at that moment than the actual scene. And consequentially, later when I see the photograph on my computer, it is quite different from my mind’s picture.

I call bringing the two images together “Artistic Interpretation”, and use post processing to achieve that. I constantly feel the need to improve my post processing skills to be able better present my photographic intentions.

In the following two examples, you can see the photographs before and after my artistic interpretation (left photo is before and right photo is after).

It was  evening time, about 40 minutes after the sunset. The darkness came quickly and the sky was cloudy, it  was going to rain any minute. I felt the “pressure” of the coming rain in the air taking this photograph. When I saw the resulting photograph, I felt that this feeling of a close rain and late evening was gone and I had to bring it back. I increased contrast and reduced saturation. I feel that I succeeded in bringing that mood back, but I’ll leave it for you to decide.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

On another occasion I was again walking along the beach. It was a shortly after the sunset, and because it was cloudy, I could barely see the faint remnants of sunlight. The clouds were really beautiful and I couldn’t resist taking a photo. In post processing I increased contrast and added a bit of saturation to the yellow. I also added slight vignetting to concentrate the viewer’s attention on the horizon.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

What do you feel looking at these images? Can you bring your own examples of your artistic interpretation?

As always any comments, suggestions, ideas and anything else you’d like to say are welcome.

Till the next time, take care!

Greg.

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One of the compositional tools that photographers use to draw the eye of the viewer into the photograph is lines, which lead the viewer through the photograph. And by lines I don’t mean pencil drawn lines or anything like that. These “lines” can be represented by various contours of elements in the image.

Here is an example of leading lines in the image:

Click on the photo to enlarge.

As you can see there are several such lines in this photo. One of them is the line of the wooden fence. The “line” can be broken and not straight, as is the case here, but nevertheless it still does the job. Another line is formed by tops of the bush, and finally the third imaginary line appears when your eye connects between the three tree tops.

All three lines converge at the lower left part of the photograph leading the eye from right to left. However there is one more line, which “breaks” this pattern. It is the stripe of bright sky protruding through the clouds. While other lines are relatively easy to control because they are stationary , this line could be caught only during a short period.

Lines can be a very strong compositional element when used wisely and in place, for example you can use such lines leading the viewer’s eye to the main subject of your photograph.

What are your examples of leading lines? You can share your photos in the comment section to this post.

Till the next time, take care!

Cheers,

Greg.

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About a week ago I found a wonderful photo website of a great photographer Tony Kuyper. In addition to sharing beautiful photographs on his website, Tony also writes Photoshop tutorials on photography post processing. And what a great tutorials they are! You need to know your way around Photoshop in order to fully benefit from them though.
For me these tutorials revealed a whole new world, and I have been playing with my photos, implementing stuff I learned from Tony’s tutorials this whole week.

Well known photographer David duChemin is currently traveling in New Zealand. Inspired by the photos he is sharing on his blog I felt the urge to go over my own photos that I took while traveling in New Zealand a few years ago.

Using the knowledge from Tony Kuyper’s tutorials I was able to significantly improve some of my New Zealand’s photos. Here, judge for yourselves.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

In the photo above, the sand on the foreground and the greenery at the background were too dark. I was able to seamlessly lighten them and also to slightly increase the green’s saturation without affecting other parts of the image.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

In this image I was able to selectively increase the color saturation only where I needed to, without affecting the saturation of other parts of the image, and, what is the most important here – I could do that seamlessly. And by seamlessly I mean that you can’t see any “borders” between the parts with different saturation levels.

I hope I intrigued some of you with Tony’s tutorials. I loved them and therefore recommend them to you unless you are ideologically against post processing.

You are welcome to share your thoughts and processed photos, and

Remember, you only have to enter your name to leave a comment!

Greg

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Sounds easy right? You just go out there at sunset time and shoot away. Well it is easy if you only want snapshots, but if you want beautiful photos you really should plan ahead. Don’t get me wrong – accidents do happen, and occasionally you might snap a nice sunset photo just from accidentally being in the right place at the right time, but most of the time it just doesn’t work that way.

Planning is essential when shooting at sunset, and it doesn’t matter whether you shoot landscapes or models at sunset or anything else – you have to plan. Main reason for that is the fact that sunset is not eternal, and the quality of light changes every minute during the sunset.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Ideally you should visit the location during the daytime, or another sunset time when you are not planning to shoot, and look around, think of ideas of what you are going to shoot there. Imagine the sun being at various heights in the sky,  the colors changing, find angles and places from which you’d like to create photos. Think of the compositions that you’d like to create.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

At the day of the shoot arrive at the location at least 2 hours before the sunset time and prepare your gear. If you are going to shoot people and you need lighting equipment to be in place – do it BEFORE the actual shooting time. Be ready. Because when the sunset will start happening you won’t have much time to think, you’ll have to shoot quickly so you won’t lose precious light.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Remember that if the exact sunset time is, let’s say, 20:00, it is the time that the sun disappears below the horizon, so if you arrive at location at 20:00, you won’t see the sun. Actual sunset time good for shooting starts approximately 40 minutes before the sunset. This time period depends on many factors such as your geographic location, time of the year, and the weather. You can also shoot after the sun disappears, and quite often the lighting many minutes (usually about 20 to 40 minutes) after the sunset is very beautiful.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Remember to take weather into account when planning your shoot. Too many clouds for example can totally block the sunset light, making the sunset uninteresting, but then a complete absence of clouds is also not always welcome. Remember that weather is something that you can’t control, be patient with it, and don’t despair. With enough patience and determination you’ll get your shot. I promise!

What are your tips for shooting at sunset? Any examples of sunset photography?

Remember, you only have to enter your name to leave a comment!

Greg.

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