48fbed17822837.562bf9cd31b02
Underexposed to isolate the sunset in the background.
Underexposed to isolate the sunset in the background.
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Feb, 2016Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
My apartment I used to live at was situated near a swamp and it had some neat forest walkways between the buildings. I'd walk through them on occasion and think it was a cool place to snap some pictures.Time
This shot was taken at around 6PM sunset. What you're seeing in the background isn't actually a sunset but this really orange-y streetlight that sits at the end of the path. It's the only one on the path and makes it look kind of sketchy, but there isn't enough light to just capture that after the sun has gone down, hence me taking the shot around dusk.Lighting
The sun was setting behind me with the streetlight was illuminating the subject from behind, so I think I had a pretty good balance of front and back lighting in this scenario without having to use a flash. Since I"m a poor college student and I usually sink my cash into music gear, I don't really have many options for extra lighting, so I try to get as much as I can from the sources around me, be that car headlights or sketchy street lamps or even reflections off of windows and cars. As long as you can crop out the light source, it's doesn't really matter where the light came from.Equipment
My whole rig is a Canon 5D Mark II and a Canon 24-105 f 4.0 lens. That's it. I try to get a little experimental with my shutter speeds and aperture to compensate for my limited rig and sometimes I lean against a wall or place my camera on a log or something for added stability.Inspiration
It was one of those days where the sunset is just really nice and I happened to have my camera on me, all in all something that doesn't happen often enough. My mother came by to visit and we were walking around my apartment complex. I've been wanting to photograph that walkway for a while and the sun was at a nice position to do so. I asked her to just walk down the path and let me snap a few pictures and this one came out of some of my experimental shots rather than following all the rules of exposure.Editing
I did a add a bit of contrast to the darker range of things to really black out the right side of the photo since it was just a bunch of bushes, which is much less appealing than having an image with partial visibility. That light in the back was a bit overwhelming in the initial shot, so I toned that back a little and warmed up the overall temperature of the photo to give it a more autumn-y feeling. We don't get seasons in Florida, so I had to improvise a bit. also had to increase the sharpness a bit since I took it at a slow shutter speed and fudged up the shot a bit by moving my hand.In my camera bag
If I had more gear, I totally would, but usually it's just my camera and lens with maybe an extra battery if I'm going to be out for a while. I probably wouldn't be willing to wander around too far if I carried much more on me.Feedback
Don't just immediately delete your failure shots as soon as you snap them. Sometimes you can get really cool effects in post that you never would have thought were possible just by looking at the raw image. I knowingly set my shutter speed really slow for this shot to get a bit more light in from the setting sun. As I was squatting over to take the shot, my hand moved ever so slightly and fudged it up. You can notice this on the grass in the foreground and her left leg. Since the subject was walking towards me, that may have helped cancel out my hand movements just enough for her to come out clear enough to get by with a dreamy feel. I guess what I'm trying to say is don't be afraid to experiment and fail, because it might come out cool in the end.
