Neutral density filters help to control brightness differences.

Balancing the brightness of sky and land is a regular problem at any time of day, but first thing in the morning, when the weak sun has still to cast its rays across the landscape, showing the detail in the foreground requires drastic action. On this morning I wanted to capture the atmosphere before the sun had really got up and started to shine. With a fine cover of cloud in the east the sun was up but only as a giant red ball with no real power, but its influence was enough to add a golden glow to the heads of grass in this late summer field.

I had been pointing the camera skyward to place the stone circle at the bottom of a frame of ‘big sky’. From the many times I have visited this place I knew there is only one angle from which to shoot this stone circle that allows it to be shown as a ring rather than a fragmented collection of rocks. It’s unfortunate that the only shooting position is in a dip in the land, which means it’s impossible not to be looking up at the subject. But with a wideangle lens aimed upwards to place the stones at the bottom of the frame the picture just looked like many others I had shot before. I was shooting ‘big sky’ because that is what I had in my head before I arrived, but I had to look a little harder at the scene when I realised the ‘big sky’ composition wasn’t going to work.

Looking afresh made me realise that I was missing an important and interesting element of the scene – the grass heads. The naturally low angle also meant I could include the grasses without tilting the camera down – so distortion would be kept at bay as the camera would be absolutely level.
While including the foreground solved one problem it introduced another. In the unlit morning, the grasses were much darker than the sky, and even the stones in their elevated position. The answer in this situation is to use a neutral density graduated filter to reduce the intensity of the light from the sky while allowing the light through from the lower parts of the scene. I used a 0.6 ND grad, and picked one with a ‘hard’ transition from clear to dark as the horizon is pretty straight in this shot.

It’s important in scenes like this, where you want to capture the natural colours of the morning light and sky that you set an appropriate white balance on your camera. I always use the normal ‘daylight’ setting, as this produces colours closest to what our eyes see, and will show those pinks, peaches and reds in all their glory. If you use auto white balance (AWB) the camera will do it’s best to neutralise those colours.

Canon EOS 1Ds lll with EF16-35mm f/2.8L II USM lens and Lee 0.6 ND graduated filter. ISO 100, 1/3sec @ f/16.

Find Beltany Stone circle on the map, and read information about it

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Neutral density filters help to control brightness differences.

Using layers in your compositon • low angles to show the foreground • selective focusing for emphasis

It’s hard to create a sense of depth in a photograph, as we are trying to convey our impressions of a three dimensional scene using a flat piece of paper. To get the message over to the viewer we have to choose carefully what we show, as well as how we show it.

We are told that a 50mm lens gives the same angle of view as our eyes, when it’s mounted on a 35mm camera or full frame sensor (it’s about 35mm for APS-C sensors). Really, though, this only represents what we can concentrate on, rather than what we can actually see. There is a big difference between what we take in when we look directly at something, such as when we are talking to another person a few feet away, and what we experience when we are taking in a view or enjoying a pleasant scene. We build a profile in our heads of the atmosphere of a place not by looking in one direction or by concentrating on any single element, but by looking around ourselves, at our surroundings and the sky, and combining all the elements to create a whole and complete impression. We analyse the details, notice what is at our feet and what is in the distance, what is to the side of us, and how the place is made up.

The layers
On this morning I was enjoying the high grasses and plants as I pushed my way through their rain-wet leaves to get to the shore. Before I got to the water’s edge I stopped and took in the scene. What I was struck by was the combination of the flowers up to my waist, the stillness of the water and its gently turning boat, and the pale colours in the pre-sunrise sky. The horizon was almost out of sight in the mist, but before it was a splendid foreground, a high-contrast attention-seeking middle ground, and the shapes of the other side of the loch against the pale blue sky.

Lens choice
To get a sense of realism rather than sheer impact I used the 35mm end of a 16-35mm zoom lens, and, fitted to a tripod, dropped the camera to below the level of the flower tops. Rather than stopping down and focusing a third of the way into the scene for maximum depth of field, I focused on the flowers just a few feet in front of me. I wanted them to get the attention, as even when soft the sky, the boat, the loch and the distance could look after themselves. Viewers are going to look into the distance anyway, but by pulling the focus to the foreground it ensures they pay attention there too.

Brightness balancing
Obviously, with such a range of brightness values I wasn’t going to get the correct exposure for the flowers while still showing the colours of the sky, so I used a 0.9 (3EV) neutral density graduated filter to hold back the illumination levels of the sky and its reflection. This balanced the exposure enough so I could show all the elements within the camera’s dynamic range.

With white balance set for daylight I was able to capture the cool tones of the morning without the camera attempting to turn the scene into a Caribbean dreamscape.

I think that what I have created is a picture that has a real sense of depth that allows the viewer to place him or herself there at the scene, on that morning and see and enjoy the things I experienced too. And if you get yourself up at 4am to look at it the experience will become even more real again!

Canon EOS 1Ds III, with EF16-35mm f/2.8L USM lens set to 35mm, 1.6sec and f/16 at ISO 100. I used a HiTech filter system 0.9 ND graduated filter to reduce the brightness of the sky. TeamWork sells them

Shot at The Boathole on Loch Foyle, St Johnston, Co Donegal, Ireland. Click to see a map.

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What we see and what the camera sees is not always the same thing. Our eyes adjust indoors to the yellow warmth of domestic light bulbs, so we hardly notice they’re light is not daylight, but film can only record what is there. Thus if you shoot with film indoors at night you get very yellow pictures.

Digital cameras have a way of compensating for the colour of different light sources, so you can take the yellow out of the tungsten bulbs in your dinning room, and the green out of the fluorescent strips under the kitchen cabinets. The light on an overcast day can have some warmth applied to compensate for its blue-ness, and there is even a custom setting that can be used to deal with the oddest coloured light you could come across.

White balance control is a brilliant thing, especially the custom setting, and is, I’d say, one of the best features digital photography has given us. Being able to record colours accurately under different light sources is a dream for professionals and amateurs alike.

There are times, though, when the colour of the light provides atmosphere, and we should not forget how important this is to us. We turn the lights down low, or light candles, to create a romantic atmosphere at home because we like the warmth of this kind of light. The blue haze of a cold day lets us know it’s cold before we’ve even gone outside, so removing the cast with white balance settings can actually produce a false idea of what the day was like.

In the shot shown here I wanted to keep all the colours of the street in the picture, as they are half of the attraction. In any case, no single setting could have compensated for such a wide range of light sources. I set the camera to the daylight setting – the one I use almost all the time – and let the colours live.

In the second example you can see what the shot would have looked like had I used the tungsten setting. The composition is still there, and there are hints of the warmth of the light, but the blues and greens have cooled the atmosphere too much, and I can’t feel the heat of the Dubai night any more.

Colours play a massive part in our life – we all have strong reactions to colours and we associate meanings to all of them. Would you drive a pink car, wear a bright blue shirt to a funeral or feel cosy in a fluorescent green room? Appreciate how much of a part colour plays in our responses and our emotions, and use it in your photography. Don’t automatically kill colour casts from artificial light, or that which is created by certain weather conditions unless colour accuracy is important to what you are trying to do. When atmosphere is important use those colours, so those who look at your pictures have double the chance of understanding what it was like to be there.

Nikon D80, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 set at about 70mm.
ISO 3200 1/20sec @ f/4.5

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Interesting?
A load of rubbish?
I won’t know whether this post is any good unless you leave a comment. Is there anything else you would like to know? Should I be adding anything, or leaving out?

Daylight white balance

Tungsten white balance

We are used to seeing flowers in daylight, and that is how we most often shoot them too. In fact, we really don’t expect to see flowers at night, as most disappear inside themselves once the sun goes down. I spotted this lavender in flowerbeds around a hotel car park late one night, lit by lamps dotted around that were kept on all night. Lit from below and on a level, the lavender stems looked most unusual. I suppose, looking back, I have seen lamp-lit plants many times before, but this was the first time they really caught my eye, and the first time I really looked.

I was on my way back from dinner, so I didn’t have a tripod with me, so I turned the ISO up to 1600, braced my elbows against my knees, and hoped for the best. Shooting with the aperture opened to f/5.6 I managed a shutter speed of 1/25sec most of the time – so with a focal length of 135mm on a full frame sensor I produced plenty of camera-shake. By trying each shot a three or four times I got at least one sharp frame for every composition. There’s always a wall or something to add extra support, and with a bit of luck the angles all work out well – in fact, restricting yourself to the views allowed by wall-mounting can lead to compositions you may not have thought to try otherwise.

For this particular shot I rested my arms on the top of a low wall and held the camera tightly to my face for extra support. Focusing manually in the low light I gently depressed the shutter release as softly as I could, while breathing very slowly. I was using an IS (Canon’s Image Stabilisation) lens, which helped too. Surprisingly, given the conditions, I did manage quite a few sharp images.

Keeping the white balance on daylight has allowed the colours of the sodium lights to reflect in the colours of the plants. The greens of the stems are really quite vibrant, while the purples of the lavender heads are slightly warmer than they might have been. The lavender was leaning over anyway, as it does, but I shot with the camera on an angle to emphasise the fact and to create a more dynamic composition.

Canon EOS 1Ds III with EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens. ISO 1600, f/5.6 @ 1/25sec. Shot in raw and processed in Adobe Lightroom 

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If the effect is exaggerated, or at least very obvious, it lends a sense of height and drama to the picture, and we can appreciate a a split second just how tall that building is. However, if the effect is only moderate the building might look as though it is tilting backwards and in danger of falling over.

As with many photographic visual effects moderate applications simply look like mistakes, so we should avoid them at the shooting stage, or learn to correct them afterwards.

The way to avoid the problem is to hold the camera completely level when taking the picture, as it is the looking up angle of the camera that creates the effect. Unfortunately, keeping the camera level usually means that the top of the subject will be cut off. You can move backwards to alter your perspective, but in the majority of cases this is not an option as space is usually limited in architectural locations. In any case you’d have to move a long way for even a moderately tall structure

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See a map of where this picture was taken

This isn’t an ideal solution, but it is quick, easy and it does not require any additional specialist equipment.

This picture was made by cropping to 5×4 proportions to give the feel it was taken using a large format camera. As you can see the crop is a little too close and it all looks a bit uncomfortable. I used the full width of the original image to get the final picture size to 2912×2330 pixels, which would still deliver a 10x8in print at 300ppi.

For this picture I cropped square. Again using the full width I was able to produce a final image that measures 2912×2912 pixels, and which prints to 10x10in at 300ppi. The extra space at the bottom makes a more comfortable composition, and a more successful final image.

Shot with a Canon EOS 1Ds, with EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS - exposure 1/5sec at f/22. ISO 400

The original file for these images measures 2912×4368 pixels and comes from an 11 million pixel camera. As the file is large to begin with there are plenty of cropping options to be had. Try different cropping proportions, such a 6×7, 6×8, to get different effects and to make the most of the file size you had to start with. Cropping to a landscape orientation will always leave you with the smallest final image, so using upright crops

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When I spotted this chap making a call from a bank of phones in Orlando I was able to identify straight away that it was the way the green colour of his t-shirt contrasted with the red of the phone booths that caught my eye. The line of the metal-fronted phone boxes also made a striking connection with me – not to mention his haircut, sun glasses and square-set features.

My subject was so engrossed in his conversation that he wasn’t noticing me at all, so unusually in this kind of situation I was free for twenty seconds or so to shoot away trying a few different compositions and crops.

At first I was simply too far away, and the greater distance between me and the subject compressed the perspective in a way that couldn’t show the front of the phones very well . I was also at too acute an angle. I wondered forward and then moved round to get an angle more in front of him. Having found the right position in the horizontal plane, I then realised the next problem was that I was looking down on him slightly – which was making the diagonals of the phone booths converge to taper in at the bottom.

Bending my knees slightly was enough to lower my position so that I could get all the verticals parallel. Getting things parallel is really important, as it simply makes a shot look as though you took care over taking it – and it lends a professional feel. Converging verticals and wonky horizontals just look sloppy. Keeping this in mind will make a massive difference to your pictures – and not just those showing tall buildings!

For the final shot I moved in to frame things a little tighter and then waited for the subject to put on the right expression and lift his head a little. I was lucky that he brought his head up so his eyeline view was almost completely horizontal too – and then I knew I had the shot I wanted.

Shot with a Canon EOS 1Ds, with EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS – exposure 1/320sec at f/8. ISO 100

If you find you have shot a picture that has slightly converging verticals or a wonky horizon you can correct the problems reasonably easily in a software application such as Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or GIMP (free download).

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For this shot I wanted to capture the movement of the leaves and the canes on a windy day. It doesn’t take much wind to make them move, but as they are quite rigid, and they block the wind as well as dance in it, some parts of the plant move more than others. It seemed silly to shot on a tripod when capturing movement like this, so I shot hand-held and made the most of the freedom to try lots of different angles.

As it was a bright day, I needed a small aperture to get a shutter speed long enough to show the movement. In the end I settled on f/16 and shutter speeds of around 1/15sec. The shutter opening was enough to show the movement in some areas and a degree of sharpness in others, which then allows the picture to explain more clearly what was going on. The leaves, which were fluttering very quickly, have become very blurred, but the gently swaying canes are quite well defined.

I shot in colour, but knowing that I would convert to black and white afterwards. I wanted to use a green filter to lighten the leaves and to create contrast with the darker canes, but a physical glass filter would have created too much flare – I was shooting into the light.

I converted the picture to black and white via channel mixer – using just the green channel – and then toned it with this china blue colour. To do this I converted the RGB file to greyscale, and then made it a duotone. I’m not too bothered what colour I choose in Duotone mode, as I always adjust the colour and saturation once the file is converted back to RGB.

Once it was done I went into Levels and moved the highlight output levels to 252 from 255. That just takes the edge off the white background and reduces the contrast a touch

It’s pointless to add sharpening to such a soft image – so I didn’t.

Shot with a Canon EOS 1Ds III, with EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS – exposure 1/10sec at f/29. ISO 100

If you want to use this same grey/blue for a duotone click the selected colour in the ‘Ink 2′ box and then type bdc6cb into the hex colour box that sits at the bottom of the ‘Color Picker’ window. The hex color box is the one with a # (hash symbol) next to it.

To see more of my pictures
visit my photo galleries site
at www.damiendemolder.com