Nature is winking
Autumn colours can be overwhelming, especially on a bright sunny day. Here I felt mother nature was winking at me....
Autumn colours can be overwhelming, especially on a bright sunny day. Here I felt mother nature was winking at me....
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May, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photograph was taken in rural Pennsylvania, close to the city of Philadelphia.Time
It was taken at 3.30pm.Lighting
I love the challenge of really capturing what I see with the naked eye. It means that I have to do the thinking for the camera, especially when photographing straight into the sun like I did here. I had to compensate for the brightness of the sun. It meant disregarding what the in-camera light meter was telling me. I exposed for the darkest parts of the colourful leaves. By choosing an aperture of F/22 I ensured that the sun would change into a star. I remember it being a windy day and I had to wait until the branches were just in the right position.Equipment
I worked with my trusted companions: Canon 5D MKII and my 16-35mm II, F/2.8 lens. It produces uncanny sharpness that is usually associated with a prime lens. I love how the full-frame gives me more wide-angle. It was taken out-of-hand.Inspiration
I am always "hunting" for seasonal features. Having lived in the (sub)tropics for a part of my life, I have deep appreciation and awe for Mother Nature's many faces. It sometimes feels like an explosion. People who has lived with seasons their whole life might not perceive it as I do. Although I am always very tenderly touched by blossoms and buds in spring, I think that the warm golden shades of autumn resonate even stronger in my soul. This here was an unusual setting in that this one yellow-orange tree was the only one with strong colouring at the edge of an otherwise barren field.Editing
I did my normal routine of sharpening the raw image. In the jpg version of the file I pushed yellow and red a little bit so that the picture really looked like the image I saw when taking the picture.In my camera bag
My wide-angle Canon lens (16-35mm, F/2.8), my flash with off-camera parafernalia (Canon 580 ES II with Pocket Wizard accessories) and some graduated ND filters. Depending on where I am going I might also take my 70-200mm F/2.8 with me but since that is such a heavy load, it is not part of my usual gear. Lots of microfiber lens cleaning cloths! When I know that I will be able to do time-lapse or long exposure, I typically take my Manfrotto tripod with me as well, with a cable remote.Feedback
Autumn colours do really well with manual exposure. When the light is bright like this, with a lot of contrast, you cannot trust your camera's readings. It will always try to moderate both the lightest and darkest areas, giving you a somewhat flat, bland result. Although I did not use flash here, I do remember that I did carry it around for many of the shots. Autumn colours love flash light, not necessarily directly pointed at the subject. You can use any light surface to bounce the flash beam so that it will look like natural light in your shot (even your own t-shirt or coat!). Experiment, that is my advice. Never walk away from a colourful spectacle like this with just one shot. The size of our memory cards and the number of cards we bring are the only limitation we have so make the most of that luxury and try lots of different things. Don't think about what you can do in post-processing. Make it your goal to get it right in-camera. Try different F-stops for maximum detail in the background or maximum blurring. Try different shutter speeds so that the sun will look different. Don't just go for automatic bracketing - be bold and see what over- and underexposure will do to the shot. And keep your eyes open so that you don't miss when Mother Nature winks at you like she did at me this particular day!
