I decided to add on a couple more hints on fall photography and how to ratchet things up a bit more.
- When shooting images of fall trees, look for patterns in the color. Patterns give your image more structure and our brains like patterns. You will be surprised how many times there will be horizontal line or layers of color. I have included a couple of examples here – first two images.
- Look for back lit leaves and trees when the sun is out. The glow from back light can be quite spectacular and make a tree standout from the background. See next image.
A couple more advanced techniques useful in fall photography:
- Use of double exposures to add more “glow”. This can be done in camera, using for instance Nikon’s overlay function, or in Photoshop post processing by stacking layers. To create the glow you see in the blog image I used an in camera overlay where the first image was in sharp focus and the 2nd one out of focus and overexposed 1-stop. I then blended them to taste using the in camera gain controls.
- Use camera pans or swipes to blend colors and create great fall abstracts. Here you slow down your shutter speed to 1/5-1/8 second and move your camera while taking the picture (it is fun to break rules!). Try it several times until you get an image you like. It is generally best (but not a rule) to move your camera along the primary lines in the image – typically up and down for trees. The last blog image is an example of this. For more on this see http://staceyglloyd.blogspot.com/2009/07/pans-and-swipes.html.
Have fun with fall shooting.
