Sunny sky photography - in defence of the 'record' shot.

'You can't always get what you want.'

Sir Mick and his Rolling Stones were right. We can't always get what we want. And this is certainly true in photography. As a landscape photographer, I'd love to have amazing golden light every time I went out to photograph. But that ain't ever going to happen. In fact, it rarely ever happens!

Most times, the golden light doesn't eventuate, even if you're at the right place, at the right time. Quite often, however, we're in the right place - but it's definitely not the right time. Mid afternoon in summer, for example. Do we just put our cameras away because the light isn't right?

Well, yes, that can be an option. Especially if it's a location you can return to easily. But what if it's not? What if it's your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Maybe you're traveling and will likely never return? Do you put your camera away because the lighting isn't right? No, of course you don't. You take some photographs anyway. And get what many refer to (somewhat disparagingly) as 'record' shots.

Truman Track, Punakaiki. Lumix S5 with S 20-60mm lens. f8 @ 1/1000th sec, ISO 200

I took the above image of the Truman Track Beach at 1.30pm on a sunny, blue sky day. The time of day when many other tourists and visitors were out-and-about experiencing nature and taking photos. If I were a tourist on that day, just passing through for my one and only time in Punakaiki, would I be happy with this photo of the Truman Track? Of course I would!

For a start, I'm very happy with the composition. I waited for just the right time when the white sea foam had made it halfway up the beach to take the photo. And I nailed it. So composition-wise there's nothing wrong with this image. And yes, I even like the tiny bits of flax sticking up from the right hand corner at the bottom of the photo. I think they help to 'ground' the photo and keep your eye from wandering. A little bit like a 'natural' vignette 😄

I also like the colours in this image. they are vibrant and 'pop'. And yes, that includes the blue sky. What is so wrong with blue skies? I've watched many a photographer online (some who I even respect) talk about how much they hate blue sky days. And many refuse to photograph them.

Does the simple fact that the above photo has a blue sky, and was taken in the middle of the day, immediately reduce it to merely a 'record' shot? No, damn it! I think not....

Truman Track, Punakaiki. Lumix S5 with S 20-60mm lens. f8 @ 1/800th, ISO 200

Here's another - same day, same time, same subject (just down on the beach this time). And I really like this shot. Because of the cloud formation - and the blue sky. Would it be a better photo if I had been there at sunset and captured a pink sky with golden light. Maybe. But then wouldn't that just make it a 'record' shot with nice light? Isn't any photo just that - a record of a particular time and place? Irrespective of the light you captured it in?

Surely what we want in our photos is to capture the feelings we felt when we were there? To somehow recreate the essence of the experience we had, in a single frame (let's not get into video - seriously, let's not). And the above images, taken in the harsh summer afternoon light, do just that for me. They take me straight back to that time and place, and I'm right there again - hearing the pounding of the waves, smelling the ocean and feeling the hot sun beating down on my neck. Mere 'record' shots? Whatever...

Truman Beach Waterfall. Lumix S5 with S 20-60mm. f.8 @ 1/250th, ISO 200

Shooting in the mid-day sun does have its challenges though, given that you are dealing with the harshest light of the day. With the sun large, bright, and almost directly overhead, shadows can be very deep and highlights very blown-out. It's often for this very reason that photographers will tell you to avoid shooting at this time of the day. And it's generally good advice. Although with the digital camera sensors we have nowadays, the extreme ranges of light and shadow (referred to as dynamic range) can often be recovered in post-processing.

Modern cameras like my Panasonic Lumix S5 can capture a staggering dynamic range in a single image - about 11 stops! Compare that to the 5 stop range you used to get with slide film, and you can see why slide film shooters avoided mid-day light like the plague! Whereas with the technology we have available now, there's almost nothing you can't recover in post if you have a well-exposed RAW file to work with. And that's not even taking other processing tricks like digital blending or HDR imaging into account.

With a digital sensor capturing harsh light, it's important to keep as much highlight detail as possible in your original RAW file (and yes, shoot RAW to get the best file to work with). Often this means under-exposing by a stop or more and letting the black shadows go black. You will be amazed at how much detail can be recovered from a densely black shadow, without sacrificing too much in the way of detail or noise. 

Deep, black shadows make sense to us as humans, as our eyes constantly adjust to the bright light and naturally let the shadows go black. So this is what looks  more 'realistic' to us in a final image. If in doubt, just let those shadows go black.

Punakaiki Rock Forms. Lumix S5 with S 20-60mm. f.8 @ 1/200th, ISO 200

Let's finish with a true 'record' shot. A close-up of the strange rock formations found at Punakaiki. Surely this is a true record shot. Or is it? Of all four images in this post, is this the one with the 'best' (softest, contoured, gradual) lighting? Is it purely lighting that elevates a photograph above a simple 'record' shot? Or are photographers simply using the term to de-value shots they've taken that they don't like? I've heard it time and again from the mouths of photographers - 'Yeah, it's ok. Just a record shot.'

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that light doesn't matter. I started out this post by stating that I would love to have golden light every time I shoot. Although upon reflection, I'm not sure that's entirely true. Because I think it's important (and rewarding) to be able to shoot in all kinds of lighting conditions and still come away with images you can be happy with - or even proud of. Blue sky days included.

So please, don't be one of those photographers who only shoots under 'ideal' (whatever that means) lighting conditions. Even in the middle of the day, at the height of summer, there are many amazing photos to be had...

 

Losing my landscape mojo

A few posts ago I talked about my general lack of interest in taking photos over the past couple of years, and how this might be turning around with macro photography. Hoping that this macro passion might re-kindle my excitement in general, I decided to head out last evening to photograph the sunset at my local beach. In years gone by, an outing such as this would have got me very enthused and eager to be out with camera in hand. Every sunrise and sunset was a photo opportunity, and I could get rather grumpy if I missed capturing a beautiful sunset.

Wind-sprayed waves, Cobden beach. OM-D E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm. f/5.6 @ 1/200th, ISO 400

The signs for a colourful sunset looked promising, although the wind was very strong on the exposed beach. Not great for setting up a tripod and trying to keep a camera still - but excellent for capturing some fairly impressive wave spray!

I put the 45-150mm Panasonic on my E-M1 and racked it all the way out to 150mm to get as close to the spray as I could. The setting sun was back-lighting the waves perfectly and supplying enough light that I could hand-hold the camera in the wind and still get sharp images. The image stabilisation in the E-M1 (and Olympus cameras in general) is the best in the world, and is truly impressive. But image stabilisation won't correct subject movement, so a decently fast shutter speed was also required.

Washed up. Olympus E-M1 with Lumix 12-35mm f2.8. f/5.6 @ 1/60th, ISO 200. + Polariser

I had headed down to my local beach for two reasons. One - it was close and I didn't have to travel far. And two - I knew the tide was going out and an old shipwreck that I'm fond of photographing would be revealed on the beach.

The wreck itself has broken into two sections. The image above is of the section that is higher up the beach and away from the water at low tide. I liked the deep red rust colour complementing the blue of the sky and the neutral grey of the beach pebbles, especially when using a polariser on the lens to intensify the blue of the sky. I'm attracted to old rusty machinery in the natural environment as a subject anyway (who isn't), so it was an obvious choice for a quick snap.

Cobden Beach Gold. E-M1 with 45-150mm. f/7.1 @ 1/160th, ISO 400

Then the sunset kicked-off. And boy, did it kick-off! The image above is NOT processed with extra colour vibrancy or saturation increase. That's really what it was like. Just the deepest, richest, golden-orange I've seen in the sky for quite a while. It was beautiful to witness, and yes, exciting to capture. I'm glad I was out, and glad that I got it on an SD card. Been there, done that...

Shipwreck at Sunset, Cobden beach. E-M1 with Lumix 12-35mm. f/5.6 @ 1/60th, ISO 200

What I was really there to photograph - the shipwreck exposed in the water - was a tougher challenge than I had expected it to be. The 'low' tide didn't really go out far enough to get some long-exposure sea interaction happening, and this meant I couldn't really get close enough for the compositions I was after.

I took dozens of images, varying my angle to try and get what I wanted. The above image is the best I could do. It's OK, but really doesn't 'do' it for me.

And really, that's the feeling that I get from all the images I took that evening. When I got home to process them, I looked at them all in Lightroom and thought 'meh'. I practically had to force myself to process any of them. And the sunset was stunning! 

Am I losing my photography mojo? Finally. After all these years?

I turned my computer off in disgust, and went and had a shower. Hands up who does some of their most productive thinking in the shower? (Yes, I see those hands...). I think I've come to the conclusion that I haven't lost my passion for photography (I'm very keen to get underway with some macro fungi images), but that, after 20+ years living in the same place, I've finally lost interest in my local landscape locations.

I've probably photographed down at my local beach, local lake, local waterfall, local rocks, local (you get the idea) literally hundreds of times - and I'm just not that interested anymore. Even in great light.

I think that when I returned from my amazing photography holiday two years ago, where everything was new and exciting, and found myself back among the all-too familiar, I just lost interest. Familiarity really does sometimes breed contempt.

Which sounds terrible. And it partly is terrible. I'm so lucky, as a photographer, to live in such a beautiful, and accessible, part of the world. I should be grateful. And I am. Honest. But I am also (if I'm still being honest) a bit bored with my local landscapes. As landscapes.

Does that mean I'll stop taking local landscape photos? For a while probably - yeah. In fact, I've already practically stopped as it is. Does that mean I'll never take another local landscape image? No - course not. It just may be a while....

Mid-Winter magic light

Winter on the West Coast of the South Island where I live, isn't as cold or extreme as it is in other parts of New Zealand. You have to travel about an hour to the east to see any snow, or about six hours south towards Wanaka, Queenstown and Otago (where it can get very extreme). At home we can get the occasional hoar frost in the coldest months (July/August), but that's about as rough as it gets. And I ain't complaining.

What we do often get on the coast in these winter months, is crisp, clear days and intensely colourful sunsets. There seems to be less cloud around at this time of the year (don't as me why), so the intense colours at sunset are unobstructed - seeming only to add to their intensity.

Rock glow. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. f/8 @ 1/400th, ISO 200

I understand that photographing beautiful colours at sunset is not every photographers cup-of-tea. I get that... kind of. And then again, I kinda don't? Maybe it has something to do with not wanting to be too chocolate-boxey or obvious. Maybe they think that pointing your camera at a landscape lit by glorious colours is too easy? Or maybe they believe that if you've seen one sunset, you've seen them all?

I don't agree (obviously). I've never shied away from chocolate-box subject matter - although I'd like to think that I still bring my own unique 'eye' to the resulting photo? But even if I don't, what's wrong with a photographer wanting to capture jaw-droppingly beautiful light? Isn't that why we are encouraged to shoot during 'golden hour'? 

Rapahoe Rock. OM-D E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm. f/5.6 @ 3.2secs, ISO 200. ND filter

The mid-winter light doesn't get much more golden than last evening (as I write this), at one of my favourite places to shoot - Rapahoe Beach. I had been to the beach with friends during the day a few weeks ago, testing out my newly acquired E-M10 (see the post here). We went to an area of the beach I hadn't really explored before, and so I made a mental note to come back during the evening, at low tide, with good light. I didn't have to wait long. A few weeks later and the conditions lined-up. I left work about half an hour early, and was out at the beach before sunset to see what I could capture.

Mid-winter sunset, Rapahoe. OM-D E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. f/9 @ 1/3rd sec, ISO 200

Sunset coincided almost perfectly with low tide, which was a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because I wanted low-tide to expose the rocks that would otherwise be submerged, thereby creating some foreground interest to the composition. But it was a curse because at extreme low tide the shoreline recedes a great distance out from the beach, so most of the rocks I wanted to use were meters away from the water.

As you can see from the image above, I did manage to find one lone rock, that I could place in the foreground and play with some movement in the water. But I would have preferred to shoot higher up the beach where there were dozens more rocks. So as it turned out, the extreme low-tide wasn't really when I wanted to be there. I will need to go out again on the turning tide, maybe a couple of hours after high tide as it's moving into low tide? That way I should  be able to reach the rocks to photograph them, but there will still be enough water around to make for interesting compositions. That's the plan anyway...

Let there be light. OM-D E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. f/16 @ 1 sec, ISO 200

Having established that the conditions weren't exactly how I wanted them, and having taken a few images that I thought captured the feeling I was going for, my mind once again flipped into ICM (intentional camera movement) mode.

Light levels were dropping rapidly, so I was able to get exposure times upwards of 1 second with apertures of f16. With no clouds in the sky at all, and bands of colour stretching along the horizon, my immediate instinct was to pan quickly across the scene to accentuate them. This worked really well, with the resulting images still having a landscape/seacape feel while capturing that abstract ICM quality.

The Duplicity of Light. OM-D E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. f/8 @ 2.5secs, ISO 200

But the mere nature of experimentation with ICM photography is that you can create the unexpected. The above photo - The Duplicity of Light -  is my favourite shot from the evening. It looks almost like a double exposure, but it's not. At least not in the truest sense of the meaning. What do I mean by that?

Well because, by using the ICM technique, it is in some ways a double exposure image, as I intended it to be. It's just a double exposure taken with a single image! Let me explain....

The exposure time was 2.5 seconds, which is quite a long time when you're hand-holding the camera. I knew I wanted a close-up of the rock with the orange glow on the horizon, but I also wanted the waves on the beach to be included. I simply started the exposure on the rock for the first second, then wriggled the camera down so it was pointing more at the beach and waves for the last second. Even though it was taken in one frame, it was really conceived of as a double exposure. And this is the sort of fun imagery you can play around with and achieve through intentional camera movement.

Twinkle twinkle...  f5/6 @ 1/2sec, ISO 200

However it was achieved, I love it. And it's certainly the kind of photography that I'm getting excited about producing going forward. Yes I can, and will, continue to capture the more 'realistic' (call it chocolate box if you like) landscapes of my region, since they too inspire me to get out and take more photos. But it's the abstract ICM images that are really 'floating my boat' creatively at the moment.

Finally, just a word on the intensity of colours that all these images display. They are all true-to-life and exactly what I was seeing with the naked eye on the evening. Of course I've lightened and darkened (dodged and burned) some areas of some of the images for creative effect - but I haven't increased the saturation in any of them. In fact, with my favourite image, The Duplicity of Light, I actually decreased saturation by about 15% because I thought the original was just too much!

Yes, decreasing highlights and adding clarity and dehaze (all of which I have done) will tend to increase the saturation of colours in the image - but that's where I've left it. And it really was as colourful to my eyes as it appears in the photos. Just thought I'd mention it in case anyone was thinking I had cranked the saturation up to 80%! I haven't. Not that I'm not allowed to mind you. They're my images and I can do want I want with them in post-processing. But that's another blog post for another time...