5 ideas for an original autumn photo shoot | Articles | Photo, video, optics

Pho­to: pixabay.com

Each of us looks at autumn with his own eyes, and every­one has some­thing to tell. This sea­son allows you to try new gen­res and for­mats, learn how to work in dif­fi­cult weath­er con­di­tions and use nature and nat­ur­al light to cre­ate a work of art. We picked up a few ideas on how to pho­to­graph autumn impres­sive­ly.

Still lifes and subject photography

Pho­to still lifes sell well on stocks, and they also make styl­ish wall­pa­pers for your desk­top and phone. Pho­to: goodfon.com

Still life pho­tog­ra­phy con­tin­ues to grow in pop­u­lar­i­ty. It makes great social media posts and stock pho­tos. And autumn is the best time for still life pho­tog­ra­phy: this is the time of the har­vest, Hal­loween and dec­o­ra­tions in yel­low-orange tones. It’s time to prac­tice your skills.

If you’re new to still life pho­tog­ra­phy and don’t know where to get ideas, what to shoot, and how to com­pose, try repeat­ing the mas­ter­pieces of the mas­ters. Any object in the pic­ture can be replaced with an autumn attribute sim­i­lar in col­or or shape — pump­kins, autumn leaves, ears of wheat and oth­er acces­sories will come in handy.

For still lifes, the main rule of sub­ject pho­tog­ra­phy works: good light­ing in the absence of glare and hard shad­ows. There­fore, it is best to arm your­self with a reflec­tor of light. It catch­es nat­ur­al or arti­fi­cial light and dif­fus­es it, mak­ing shad­ows soft­er.

Use nature as a back­drop with the FST RD071, an 80 cm reflec­tor, ide­al for prod­uct pho­tog­ra­phy. It has 7 dif­fer­ent col­ors. A sil­ver reflec­tor will pro­vide a cool­er back­light, while a gold reflec­tor will pro­vide a warmer one. White is suit­able for sun­ny days, while black is good for pho­tog­ra­phy of glare sur­faces. Translu­cent will scat­ter a hard light flux, and chro­ma key (blue and green) can be used as a back­ground for sub­se­quent clip­ping of images.

Village and natural landscapes in HDR

Some HDR shots look almost like illus­tra­tions or 3D mod­els. Pho­to: wpforphotographers.com

HDR or High Dynam­ic Range is a pho­to­graph­ic tech­ni­cal set­ting that smooths out the dif­fer­ence in light­ing between the dark­est and bright­est parts of the frame. At one time, such pic­tures were very pop­u­lar because of the slight­ly mys­ti­cal look and delib­er­ate­ly sat­u­rat­ed col­ors. Now pho­tog­ra­phy has tak­en a steady course towards real­ism, although HDR still remains pop­u­lar with its audi­ence and is used in cre­ative projects.

The prin­ci­ple of HDR is sim­ple: the cam­era takes sev­er­al shots with dif­fer­ent expo­sures and glues all the pho­tos into one, align­ing the light and pre­serv­ing all the details in the high­lights and shad­ows.

Try tak­ing an HDR shot man­u­al­ly. In order for all the shots to be the same, you need to shoot from a tri­pod, because for each of the frames you will have to use a dif­fer­ent shut­ter speed. Such pic­tures, espe­cial­ly tak­en in autumn in nature, will exceed all expec­ta­tions. We espe­cial­ly rec­om­mend going to the sub­urbs or the coun­try­side and pho­tograph­ing rus­tic cab­ins or dra­mat­ic land­scapes with curved free­stand­ing trees.

A tri­pod should be cho­sen, depend­ing on the weight of the cam­era with a lens. Each mod­el has a max­i­mum allow­able weight. The heav­ier your lens, the more durable you will need. So, the Fal­con Eyes Hang­man 160 BH2 tri­pod can with­stand up to 8 kg, and the max­i­mum work­ing height is 150 cm. It is more than enough for HDR pho­tog­ra­phy in nature. Sep­a­rate­ly, it should be not­ed strong and sta­ble legs that keep the cam­era in a lev­el posi­tion on any sur­face.

Photo sessions with furniture and decor

If you shoot near your home or stu­dio, you can use any props. Pho­to: raydavisphotography.com

If you’re plan­ning a fall pho­to shoot, you don’t have to lim­it your­self to cute hats and scat­tered yel­low leaves. Add some ele­gance to your work. Por­trait pho­tog­ra­phy allows you to take risks, so you have more props at your dis­pos­al than in any oth­er genre.

Pull some spec­tac­u­lar chair or sofa out of your home or stu­dio and sit or stand your mod­el on it. Use frames and fab­rics for dec­o­ra­tion, try hang­ing hol­i­day lights on the trees, they will give a styl­ish bokeh to the pho­to. Rent a pair of flamin­gos from the zoo or find an old set in the attic for an ama­teur pro­duc­tion of Alice in Won­der­land. Cre­ate for a pho­to ses­sion not just a nat­ur­al back­ground, but a real work of art, because the pho­tog­ra­ph­er should be a bit of a dec­o­ra­tor.

If you want to com­plete­ly sur­prise both the mod­el and the audi­ence, then you can use spe­cial gen­er­a­tors for out­door shoot­ing: Fal­con eyes offers inex­pen­sive devices that blow fog and soap bub­bles. But you should take care in advance that there is a suit­able place to con­nect the gen­er­a­tor. For exam­ple, it is bet­ter to shoot near a coun­try house.

natural fog

The atmos­phere of the sea­son is per­fect for the morn­ing mist. Pho­to: galmeetsglam.com

Autumn is attrac­tive not only with bright sat­u­rat­ed col­ors, but also on the con­trary, with a mys­te­ri­ous atmos­phere and fogs. It is best to remove fog in autumn: in nature, due to humid­i­ty, steam accu­mu­lates dur­ing the night, so in the morn­ing it is easy to find your­self in a sit­u­a­tion where you can hard­ly see any­thing around.

The basic require­ments for suc­cess­ful fog pho­tog­ra­phy are effec­tive sil­hou­ettes, suf­fi­cient light and, of course, com­po­si­tion. Fog is always notice­able in the morn­ing near water bod­ies, and it is bet­ter to take a pho­to from above (if there is nowhere to climb, you can try to shoot from the air).

To make the fog look thick and milky in the frame, be sure to use fil­ters for the lens. Ray­Lab has a set of three ver­sa­tile fil­ters: an ultra­vi­o­let for sun­ny days, a polar­iz­ing one that reduces glare, and a neu­tral one that reduces the amount of incom­ing light. If you know how to use these fil­ters cor­rect­ly, then you know exact­ly how invalu­able their help will be when shoot­ing fog­gy land­scapes. And if you are not famil­iar with such an acces­so­ry yet, then we have a fil­ter guide with tips on how to use it.

holiday photography

In a low-light pho­to ses­sion, you can try dif­fer­ent tech­niques for build­ing a light pic­ture. Pho­to: justinasmile.com

Hal­loween style pho­to shoots are pop­u­lar all over the world. This hol­i­day brings both ide­al scenery for a pho­to shoot or any oth­er genre, cos­tumes and even cre­ates a cer­tain mood. Why not make the most of the spooky hol­i­day theme? Get a fake web, carve a pump­kin with a scary face, use can­dles (only be care­ful if shoot­ing out­doors), and lanterns. Try tak­ing pic­tures at night in a near­by park. If you try, you can make a very impres­sive pho­to shoot.

Autumn isn’t over yet, so it’s time to use your cre­ativ­i­ty and turn your cra­zi­est cre­ative ideas into real­i­ty. As long as the weath­er and nature allow, you can cre­ate unique autumn pho­tos that will add bright col­ors to your port­fo­lio and remain in the archives as a reminder that noth­ing is impos­si­ble in pho­tog­ra­phy.