Tag Archives: Sky

How to use negative space effectively

• Boats •

• Boats •
Picture by Mike Browne (from the video)

Composition that is not there!

The space that surrounds the subject and fills the gaps between important objects in your picture can be described as negative space. In some ways it defines the objects you see. In another way it is not really there. Instead the background is what you see.

The concept of negative space is important. The shape of your subject is created, at least in part, by the space around it. The space helps to define its character too. How much space surrounds your subject, and the type of space, all pass messages to the viewer about your shot.

Negative Space in Photography

Negative space is a strong artistic element yet it is not always obvious how to use it in your photography. Seeing negative space, and using it, takes a little practice and some ideas on how to place the elements in the shot. In the video Mike Brown shows us, despite the annoying balloon, how to use negative space and how to place your subject. He shows us how to use the balloon too – eventually.

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By Damon Guy (author and Photokonnexion editor)

Damon Guy - Netkonnexion

Damon Guy (Netkonnexion)

Damon is a writer-photog and editor of this site. He has run some major websites, a computing department and a digital image library. He started out as a trained teacher and now runs training for digital photographers.
See also: Editors ‘Bio’.

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How to get the sky right in your holiday pictures

Cornish Vista

Cornish vista
Think about how to get the best out of your sky.
Cornish Vista • By Netkonnexion on 365ProjectExternal link - opens new tab/page

Getting the sky right is important.

With the holiday season approaching we want our holiday photographs reflect the happy memories. All too often the sky is over-white, washed out or blown-out. There are a number of techniques you can use to get the sky right, in camera and in post processing.

What are you really looking for in a good sky? Deep blues for the sky, fluffy white clouds and well defined horizons are the ideal situation. To get them like that in the camera you have to pay attention to the time of day, the type of sky, the weather and have a sense of drama. Here are some ideas to help you…

Polarizing Filter

One of the photographers important tools for sky photography is the polarizing filter. It is a glass or composite material that is set into the inner of two metal rings. The first ring screws directly to the front of your lens. The other rotates inside the screw ring. The filter itself cuts out some of the wavelengths of light. You turn the ring with the filter mounted in it so that it can be set for maximum effect. The filter action reduces the glare and haze associated with reflective surfaces like water and glass. Amazingly it also deepens the blue in the sky. So what we see in the photograph is a sky that is darkened with emphasised blues and the air has a crispness and clarity. These effects are not reproducible in post-processing software. It is invaluable to have this effect in camera and will really liven up the drama of the sky.

Critical view-line

If you gaze out across a wide open sky on a bright sunny day you will notice that the blueness of the sky is not uniform. It is a deeper blue in places and a whiter blue elsewhere. In fact the sky gets to be a deeper blue if you are facing away from the sun. It is at its deepest blue at the opposite end of the sky from the sun. So where you can, shoot with the sun at your back.

Of course having the sun at your back is not always possible. A good rule is not to let the sun be in front of you. If it is at your shoulder (90 degrees to your shot) it will still allow you to get a reasonable blueness in the sky. If you have to shoot with the sun in front of you, even if at a wide angle, the blues will start to whiten. The more you are shooting toward the sun the more the sky will wash out.

The mid-day washout

During the middle of a sunny day the sky will be at its most washed out. As the sun is at its highest at this point you should avoid taking photographs if you can. The more the sun falls toward the horizon the more the atmosphere will act as a natural filter and increase the blues at the opposite end of sky. The middle of the day is also bad for photography because the sun being overhead means that objects on the ground have little shadow around them. This gives the landscape a flat and unappealing look. Washed out skies and flat appearance at ground level makes convincing photography difficult!

Use an ND graduated filter

Neutral density filters are great. They are fun to use and give you back some of the blueness in the sky caused by over brightness. They don’t enhance the blueness like the polarized lenses. They are a way of cutting the light down so its intensity is reduced.

Without an ND filter the sky will tend to be over-bright, or the ground will tend to be too dark on a bright day. The graduated ND is an ideal tool for helping to balance the light levels. A full ND filter will reduce the incoming light right across the lens. However, a graduated ND filter allows the full amount of light to enter the lens from the lower half – which keeps the foreground bright. On the upper half of the filter (pointing at the sky) the neutral grey graduates from the very light across the middle to its darkest at the top of the filter. You place the beginning of the neutral grey on the horizon and then the grey graduates darker up the filter so the most washed out or over-exposed parts of the sky at the top of the picture are the parts with the most reduced light levels.

It is worth remembering that you can use both an ND graduated filter and a polarizing filter. However, also remember that each time you put a glass element in the line of light you will be reducing the light that can get into the camera. So remember to adjust your exposure to compensate for the additional glass.

The use of ND filters helps to bring out the clouds too. Brightness in clouds can be pretty harsh, especially if they are very dense. This tends to make them featureless. The use of ND filters for clouds (an ND 2 or 4 – the lowest filter levels) will help to reduce the brightness and enhance the contrasts in the darker parts of the cloud. This brings out its features and helps the cloud to take on a little depth.

Post processing sky enhancements

In post processing you can do a number of things to enhance your sky. However, after years of working on my skies I know that you can get better results in camera… try that first.

On trick to enhancing a washed-out blue sky is to use a saturate tool. Simply wipe the tool across the blue of the sky to deepen and lift the crispness of it. The saturate tool in most image editing applications tends to turn sky blue to turquoise blue. Don’t use full saturation. Set your saturation tool to between 10% and 20% and wipe it several times rather than one heavy wipe. With most tools/brushes it is better to use low exposure/opacity rather than be heavy handed. Not only is it more controllable but you can also build up to a reasonable blueness without over-doing it.

You should watch out that you do not wipe the saturate tool over the clouds. You will find that the clouds look white, but contain a high blue component. If you saturate them they turn blue to the eye – which looks highly unrealistic.

The trick to increasing the contrast in clouds is not the saturate tool. It is to deepen the grey of the darker parts of clouds using the burn tool. The burn tool darkens a colour by increasing its black component. Again, with the burn tool use a reduced exposure. I like to work with about 15% in clouds. Set the tool to mid-tones so the grey parts of the cloud don’t turn black. The idea is to increase the contrast not to give the clouds harsh deep lines – that would hardly match with the surrounding blue sky.

Blue sky thinking

If you really want to get the best skies then work later or earlier in the day to get lower wash-out levels in the sky. Make sure that where you can shoot away from the sun = especially toward the horizon with the sun at your back. Where brightness levels are high and you have to shoot you can reduce the wash-out with polarization and ND grad. filters. You can also post process the skies after your shoot, but this is not as easy as it sounds.

True blue-sky thinking is done before you take the shot. Deploy all the suggestions above and your skies will be blue. Have a happy holiday.

By Damon Guy (author and Photokonnexion editor)

Damon Guy - Netkonnexion

Damon Guy (Netkonnexion)

Damon is a writer-photog and editor of this site. He has run some major websites, a computing department and a digital image library. He started out as a trained teacher and now runs training for digital photographers.
See also: Editors ‘Bio’.

A simple introduction to polarizing filters

The sky is no limit

One of the great problems of photography is contrast. A very bright sky loses its colour as it tends to over expose – trending toward white. Meanwhile the ground is well exposed. Here we look at one way to bring back that colour.

Polarizing Filters

If you read Skylight and UV filters you will know that the use of filters to cut out ultraviolet light is largely unnecessary with digital cameras. Polarizing filters on the other hand deal with the visible light we see in daylight. These filters have two purposes.

First, they have the effect of darkening the sky. This helps to off-set the over-exposure effect of brightness. It brings back the blue colour. This adds saturation to the sky’s own colour.

The other effect is on reflections. The polarizing filter helps to reduce reflections from some surfaces. This is often used to reduce excessive effects of sunlight on glass, or the intense reflections from water surfaces. The result allows us to see through the glass or into water.

In the video the presenter examines the effects of polarizing filters and how to use them. One of the types he shows is the circular filter, probably the most common type in use today. Watch carefully at how he adjusts it. This is an important technique. If you just mount the filter and don’t adjust it the effect can be too strong. This is a common mistake with less experienced users.

Video – Using polarizing filters

Landscape loves – do you know why you are photographing this scene?

Do you know why you are shooting the landscape you are looking at?

Do you know why you are shooting the landscape you are looking at? If not then you will probably not make it exciting for your viewer either. Shoot for impact.
(Click the image to see large)

A landscape ‘snap’ just does not seem to cut it…

Many landscape photos are really stimulating for the author, but few other people. The problem? It’s too easy to ‘snap’ a shot that will bring back the moment. You really need to think about what will stimulate someone else when they see the picture.

One of my favourite landscape photographers once said,

Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer, and often the supreme disappointment.

Ansel Adams
…and he was right. Most people do not have a reason to take a landscape shot that will satisfy someone else.

Insights to landscapes

Personal perspective is all important, but it can misrepresent the situation. I studied the environment when at university, including geology. I loved landscapes and knew how to read them. I could take them apart and tell you their geo-history, rock types, erosion… well, you get it, I was a geek! I loved taking pictures of landscapes. I found them beautiful and interesting. It was many years before I realised they were interesting to me because of my geeky knowledge. I realised I was taking geeky geology pictures of landscapes. I thought they were beautiful. Everyone else just did not get it. That’s the point. You should be finding elements in the landscape that capture the scene for what is attractive and what it means to everyone, not just you.

Themes

There are a number of themes that successful landscape photography hinges upon.

As with any photo, light is the key. Great light, great attraction. Early morning, sunset, dramatic weather – they all have their place. Flat mid-day, blue sky light, not so good. But even then, combined with other composition elements you can make it work.

The angle of light is important because of the creation of shadows. They define the landscape by creating bright and dark spots which really brings out the contrast in the landscape. The camera is not as versatile as our eye and a good contrast brings out the depth in a landscape picture that we can see naturally but needs to be strong for the camera.

Drama is another theme that helps a landscape picture. Think of the primal drivers of our inner being. Sunsets, uplifting because of the promise of a new day tomorrow. Storms, threatening our existence, fascinate and drive us to shelter. Dawn, captures our hopes and fears of the unknown in the new day. We all respond to these drivers. So, pick them out.

Aesthetics, what we find stimulating and uplifting. Yes, beauty is a factor. You need to find elements in the picture that are truly attractive to everyone, not just your feeling of the moment. Don’t take a shot because of a lovely moment shared with your love. Look for the attraction for everyone in this scene and capitalise on that. Show what is attractive by using composition to focus the viewer on the subject. Take a moment to consider where to take the shot to show it best. Look all around you, consider high and low, left and right. The perspective of the shot is important.

The subject is the thing you want to show most. So make sure you find ways to bring it out. Is it the danger, the beauty, the vista, the awe? Look at the landscape and sense what it is doing for you – then hunt it down with your camera. If you know why it is stimulating you, and it is a primordial driver, then you have isolated the essence of it.
More after this…

Composition

Just taking a snap is a kind of composition – even if a negative one. Remember that you are trying to create an impact others will find attractive. So, look for compositional elements that bring out your theme and then frame the shot for them.

In the shot above I was looking for ways to draw the viewer into the picture. The essence of this shot lies in the drama and the layers of the landscape. These layers make you want to go into the shot to see how the landscape changes as you go in. They give the shot depth and invite you to see what is around the next bend in the valley.

Knowing these were the reasons for my attraction to the scene informed my composition. I wanted foreground emphasis. This lead to the capture of foreground objects giving a sense of being there. In the shot on the other side of the road I could see round the corner. The scene there lost the mystery of implied discovery. The drama in the sky drew me into the distance because of the mystery in the unseen there too. Closer to me the drama in the sky created an implied threat. That was too good to lose. So I had to take several exposures so I could capture the sky without blowing it out and the hills without underexposing them. The contrast between the two was too much for the camera to capture both at once as my eye saw it. This meant I had to think about my post-processing too, including my crop. The shot was taken so I could bring out a panorama to enhance the feel of awesomeness in the landscape. A ‘letterbox’ crop gives right-left depth to complement the depth from the contrast as well as foreground, mid-ground and distance layers in the picture.

I know there are other things that made me stand right there and create this shot. The point is that I knew why I was doing it that way. I knew what it meant to me. I knew what the drivers were that would impart meaning to others. Then I composed and shot for the post processing.

One more thing. It might not surprise you to know that this photo represents a lot of time working the scene at this location. There were about 35 pictures of the general location. More takes on the exact spot of the shot. In all, there was about 50 minutes work, with tripod, to get this one shot. A ‘snap’ it was not!