Amateur Photographer – 16 August 2019

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Make it black & white
Without colour the emphasis is on line, shape,
texture, light and shadow. Switch your camera
to monochrome in the menu to visualise the
tones of the scene in black & white. As you’re
shooting in raw, you can convert the fi le later.

Try High Dynamic Range

There are occasions when the light is so strong

that it’s necessary to combine exposures, such

as with this image of a slot canyon. Exposing

for the sky, midtones and shadows enabled

me to combine all three images in post.

Silhouettes and shadows

I love photographing straight into the

sun as it creates strong, graphic images.

A bit of care needs to be taken though, for

several reasons. First, it’s best when the

sun is low in the sky. I normally try to

hide the sun behind something so it’s

just creeping out to create a sunburst.

A wideangle focal length will work the

best for this. The size of the sunburst is

determined by your aperture size – f/

will elongate the points more than, say,

f/11. It’s a personal choice dependant on

the eff ect you desire. When the sun is low

in the sky, it creates strong silhouettes, but

make sure your subject has a distinctive,

recognisable shape and it doesn’t merge

with other elements otherwise it becomes

a big, black blob. The shadows cast from

your subject can often be used as a

compositional tool to lead the viewer into

the scene, and a wideangle lens will

accomplish this for the best eff ect.

I often use this technique in forests

Sunburst through

autumn beech trees,

Thetford Forest,

Norfolk, UK

Nikon D800, 14-24mm,

1/15sec at f/11, ISO 100