I would like to share something with you all, it will give you some insight into how I achieve my personal images and for any budding photographers it may give you some tips ;) A few months after I joined RPC as an avid amateur photographer I attended my first WAPF Conference and it was held in Rockingham. I listened to some awesome professional photographers speak and although I cant remember everything that was said, a few key points stuck in my mind. The first is pre-visualisation - meaning that as a photographer you need to think about what the end result is that you are wanting to achieve of an image before you take it. The second is light - where light is THE most important factor in taking a photo. This point has been reiterated many times over by many of our visiting judges. The third is patience - it may take you days, months or even years to achieve the image that you have pre-visualised, so that means that you need to keep going back until the conditions are right! At the moment I am on holidays in Albany with my family. Its a double edged sword, as there is so many places to go and such beautiful scenery to photograph, I could spend my whole time out and about taking photos BUT it is also a family holiday! Anyway, to my example. I have a bucket list of places I want to photograph whilst we are here, and one of them is Elephant Rocks in William Bay National Park just outside of Denmark. We had gorgeous clear skies here on Sat and Sun, so as a family we drove around exploring and at the same time I was sussing out the spots: which were good for sunrise? which were good for sunset? what time of day should I be at a particular spot for the best light? what am I pre-visualising, what do I want my end images to look like? I now have too many spots I want to visit and not enough days....so we will be back! Sorry, I digress.... At Elephant Rocks on Sunday, I took some photos. I knew that I wasnt going to do anything with them, as the conditions did not lend themselves to my pre-visualisation and the light was ALL wrong! The top photo shows you the result, heavy shadows, clear blue skies - pretty bland and boring. It became apparent that this spot needed to be photographed just before sunrise or just after sunset to get no shadows.....or on an overcast day. The latter suited my pre-visualisation better. Fast forward to today, overcast, wet, windy and cold and knowing that the light would be right for minimal shadows shortly before midday. So we all trekked up to the top of the rock again, freezing to death and the result is the bottom photo. You can see that due the difference in conditions I was able to use a much lower aperture and slower shutter speed, allowing me to get the softer image I was wanting to achieve. The shadows are nowhere to be seen and there is much more interest in the photo due to the weather conditions - PERFECT!!! Just what I was after. Of course my pre-visualised image was a lot spiffier than what I get straight out of the camera, so my final image is the third (edited) photo. I wanted to share this to show the importance of knowing what you want to achieve and understanding light at the location you are at - and more importantly DONT GIVE UP! Go back, again and again and again until you achieve the result that you are looking for. Patience is not a strong point of mine, so to get what I was after in two visits is great :) I hope that sharing this may have helped :)
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:00:00 +0000
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