Project Day 4

The project for Day 4 is to "Check the weather forecast and head out to a location close to home to shoot sunrise and sunset."

Here are my photos:

Taken clockwise, the time for the photos are 1) 19:25 2) 19:27 (sunset) 3) 19:29 and 4) 19:31.

So, what can we learn from this? Well, in theory there should be a noticeable change in the quality of light (it gets darker for example) and colour of the sky. While this did happen, it is not as noticeable in the photos as in real life. I think that this tutorial, given the circumstances of the shoot, shows more the effects of heavy cloud cover on sunsets than on the effects of sunsets on the landscape as a whole. Basically, there isn't much of a difference sunset or not, when the clouds are covering up the sky!

You might be asking yourself why I chose to take these photos on such a lousy day given that I was supposed to be photographing sunsets. Well, the reasoning is simple. After three days of waiting for a decent sunrise or sunset, I got fed up and took what I was given (a cloudy day). You see, Derry is experiencing some very bad weather photography-wise. Wet and cloudy or overcast. This is expected to continue for the next three days at least. So rather than put this tutorial off forever, I thought I would get moving even if the results were not as intended. I think that this is a very important lesson to learn when it comes to landscape photography: you are not always going to get the best conditions to work under just because you want them!

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Day 4: Understand Natural Light

I'm back to the tutorials today. I've been waiting rather impatiently for the weather to start to cooperate for the final days of the tutorial. It hasn't, and I've lost patience, so I will see what can be done regardless of the weather.

Day 4 of the Better Landscapes in Just 7 Days tutorial in the current issue of Practical Photography focuses on how natural light can affect your shots.

"Learning to read the weather and knowing when the best light will be are two of the keys to improving your landscapes.... The weather may be beyond your control, and often even beyond the abilities of the forecasters to predict, but there are still plenty of ways that you can increase the chances of getting the best conditions.

Generally the light during the middle of the day is the most difficult in which to get the stunning landscape photographs. The harsh light from the sun directly overhead makes the landscape appear flat and formless, and the light also appears bluer than earlier and later in the day, giving cold-looking results. Both of these effects can make your landscapes appear dull and lifeless. The answer to this is to shoot earlier and later in the day when the sun is lower in the sky, and slo gives a warmer, more flattering light..."

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