10 photo techniques and genres that are relevant in spring and summer | Articles | Photo, video, optics

It’s very easy to get stuck with­in one genre, espe­cial­ly if you don’t get out of the stu­dio for days. How­ev­er, the secret of suc­cess­ful pho­tog­ra­phers is that they do not stop there, but are always open to some­thing new. The weath­er is get­ting warmer, so why don’t we go out­side and try out dif­fer­ent tech­niques and gen­res?

Pho­to: pixabay.com

Photo through filters

For the spring-sum­mer sea­son, you will need two basic fil­ters that will sim­pli­fy the process of shoot­ing and improve the qual­i­ty of pho­tos.

• Polar­iz­ing fil­ter. It removes reflec­tions from sur­faces such as water, and empha­sizes clouds and sky. The col­ors in the frame become slight­ly brighter. But do not for­get that with a polar­iz­ing fil­ter, at least 3 steps of illu­mi­na­tion are lost. So it is only suit­able for days with bright light.
• Neu­tral fil­ter. It is also called an ND fil­ter (from neu­tral-den­si­ty — neu­tral den­si­ty). It absorbs light and dark­ens the scene. Great for shoot­ing wide open or when you want to achieve a cer­tain move­ment effect.

How to film ponds

Late spring and sum­mer are ide­al times for shoot­ing water bod­ies. After the ice breaks, you can catch great shots of lakes or rivers.

Water surface

A smooth sur­face is bet­ter to shoot with a polar­iz­ing fil­ter: it will empha­size the reflec­tions. Try to choose calm days with­out wind for shoot­ing, so that the water is as sta­t­ic as pos­si­ble. The clos­er you are to its sur­face, the bet­ter the reflec­tions will be: the angle of the inci­dent light is equal to the angle of the reflect­ed light. And don’t for­get that the time right after the rain is the best time for this type of shoot­ing.

The water in the pic­ture looks almost smooth, but in real­i­ty there are always small rip­ples on it. Pho­to: fonwall.ru

Waves

Waves and streams of water are best shot at a slow shut­ter speed. 1/8–1/2 sec­ond will cre­ate the effect of move­ment and pow­er. With these set­tings, you will be able to empha­size the waves them­selves at the same time, they will be vis­i­ble, but their bor­ders will be a lit­tle blur­ry. Of course, you need a tri­pod for such shoot­ing, as it will be too dif­fi­cult to hold the cam­era still in your hands. But, if you close the aper­ture a lit­tle, you can use an ND fil­ter. He com­pen­sates for the expo­sure.

Fog over the water

Pho­tos with fog always look mys­ti­cal. To suc­ceed, you should fol­low a few rules. It is bet­ter to focus man­u­al­ly: aut­o­fo­cus usu­al­ly does not work in fog. But expo­sure com­pen­sa­tion is bet­ter to increase (+1 EV). Also, use a tri­pod and shoot in RAW for­mat so that image defects can be cor­rect­ed dur­ing pro­cess­ing. And be sure to remem­ber to wipe the con­den­sa­tion off the lens.

Photographing nature

April is the per­fect time to shoot out­doors. Every­thing you know about nat­ur­al light pho­tog­ra­phy can be prac­ticed in com­fort­able con­di­tions if you are lucky with the weath­er.

Flow­er­ing plants are ide­al for shoot­ing with a macro lens. Pho­to: photofocus.com

Macro

Spring and sum­mer are great for prac­tic­ing macro pho­tog­ra­phy in nature. You will have a huge choice of objects for pho­tog­ra­phy: dew­drops on leaves, insects, bloom­ing flow­ers. And most impor­tant­ly, hav­ing trained dur­ing the cold sea­son on house­hold items, you can trans­fer the expe­ri­ence gained to liv­ing objects, which will be much more dif­fi­cult to work with.

You can shoot with a stan­dard macro lens, 50mm, and a tri­pod is best, as hold­ing the cam­era is often dif­fi­cult at first. Real “macro glass­es” should shoot frames at a scale of 1: 1. Alter­na­tive­ly, there is a macro lens attach­ment.

starry sky

You can pho­to­graph the stars in win­ter, but in the warmer sea­son you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to choose the right weath­er and go out of town, where you can see the night sky much bet­ter. There­fore, we rec­om­mend that you pack a photographer’s arse­nal with you and go away from “civ­i­liza­tion”.

To cap­ture the night sky, you need a cam­era with a high ISO, a wide-angle lens with an aper­ture of f/2.8 or more. You will also need a tri­pod, a shut­ter remote and a flash­light. To cre­ate the effect of stars mov­ing across the sky, you will have to shoot at a slow shut­ter speed. So be patient.

Landscapes in HDR

HDR mode helps smooth out the dif­fer­ence between the bright­est and dark­est parts of the frame. It also cre­ates a very dra­mat­ic visu­al effect. There­fore, many pho­tog­ra­phers like to shoot in HDR. The prin­ci­ple is this: the cam­era takes sev­er­al shots of the same scene with dif­fer­ent set­tings, and then glues the frames into one. Since shoot­ing in HDR is a rather long process, you need to shoot from a tri­pod and with min­i­mal dif­fer­ence in what is hap­pen­ing in the frame. So when you’re learn­ing how to shoot land­scapes in HDR, it’s best to go out of town when the weath­er is warm and calm. HDR pho­tog­ra­phy is great for shoot­ing moun­tains, lakes, forests, sun­sets, and archi­tec­ture.

Capturing people and events

From por­trai­ture to reportage, you’ll soon be able to explore any genre in a more demand­ing, non-stu­dio envi­ron­ment.

Nat­ur­al light­ing is the hard­est for por­traits, so prac­tice is invalu­able. Pho­to: ericafuchsphotography.com

street portraits

The por­trait genre of pho­tog­ra­phy is good not only for the stu­dio. On the con­trary, in spring and sum­mer there is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to try tech­niques, many of which will be use­ful in the future for those who want to shoot wed­dings and events. Use urban and nat­ur­al land­scapes as a nat­ur­al back­ground, learn how to work with light. For exam­ple, water or glass can become nat­ur­al reflec­tors, while green­ery and grass can become a back­drop. In addi­tion, each col­or gives a reflex — depend­ing on the envi­ron­ment, the skin tone and eye col­or of your mod­el will change. Use the warm sea­son to learn to notice these details and put them into prac­tice.

Events

In win­ter, you won’t find a lot of open-airs and street fes­ti­vals, and if they do take place, it’s quite uncom­fort­able to shoot on the street. At sum­mer events, you can try con­cert pho­tog­ra­phy, event pho­tog­ra­phy, and report­ing. That is, you have a choice between sev­er­al gen­res. This is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn burst pho­tog­ra­phy, espe­cial­ly if you’re shoot­ing per­for­mances.

The main dif­fi­cul­ty will be focus­ing. Some mod­ern cam­eras have a built-in con­tin­u­ous focus mode. If not, aut­o­fo­cus may not keep up with the speed of shoot­ing, and you have to “help” it a lit­tle.

Togeth­er reflec­tion and back­light give a par­tic­u­lar­ly spec­tac­u­lar result. Pho­to: eyeem.com

counterjour

Late spring and sum­mer are great sun­sets: the sun can be used for back­light­ing (back­light­ing) and sil­hou­ette shoot­ing out­side the stu­dio. Posi­tion the mod­el in front of the light source, i.e. the sun, so that the edges of the light and the bright­est area are at the back. It will turn out that the con­tour of the fig­ure will be high­light­ed, and it will remain dark. Such com­po­si­tions look good against the back­drop of beach­es or fields, and the tech­nique itself is ide­al for sum­mer pho­tog­ra­phy.

There are many more tricks to help you hone your pho­tog­ra­phy skills. Don’t miss this oppor­tu­ni­ty and shoot in warm weath­er as much as pos­si­ble. And of course, share in the com­ments what tech­nique you will def­i­nite­ly try in the com­ing sea­son.