ADVENTURE PHOTOGRAPHY

with Cathy & Gordon ILLG

PHOTO TIPS

Just a short tip this month, but we feel it’s an important one for getting the most out of your fall scenic photography. Most people hope for blue sky and sun when they’re photographing fall color, and these conditions are indeed best if you plan on including the sky in very many of your photos. The problem with these conditions is the amount of contrast. Because of the alternating sunlight and shade on the leaves, the resulting image often lacks the punch of the scene you saw with your eyes. You can sometimes solve this problem with a polarizing filter, but these filters work best when the sun is at right angles to the direction you’re shooting. If you’re shooting with the sun at your back, a polarizing filter just doesn’t work as well. An enhancing filter can also help, but these photos often look "overfiltered" to us, and for purely subjective reasons, we don’t care for that look.    

Cathy and I try to get the most from fall color by shooting into the sun whenever possible. You can test this yourself. Just find a lone tree or a small stand of trees with good color, and walk around it. Notice how the brilliance of the leaves increases as you begin to look into the sun. Use this in your photos. Now you’re obviously going to get a major flare unless steps are taken to block the sun. Since you’re in a forest though, that’s usually not a big problem. Just use another tree as a big sunshade. If you can’t find a patch of shade in the right spot, maybe a partner can hold his hand or a reflector in front of the sun. Or perhaps you can turn enough so that even though the leaves are still partially backlit, the sunshade on your lens is enough protection from the sun. Shooting into the sun is particularly effective if you’re able to highlight the backlit leaves against a dark background.

Depending on where you live, you should at least have some remnants of autumn to play with. Have fun!