snow and flat light

Suomi

Suomi

Reet Nice Feller
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Name
Mark
Edit My Images
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Hit a bit of a rut. Somehow most of my photos are a little flat. At the moment, beacuse of work, I am shooting between 4pm to 5pm.

Now I do increase the clarity (100%) in lightroom, and riase the sharpness a couple of percent. I do play around with increasing the satutation. But some how they still seem to lack any 'stand-out' ability. Have tried HDR'ing them to give them some lift.

Now the thing is on top of this I am off to do some shoots in snow soon. And would rather not come back with a load of more flat shoots.

I am going to try taking specific white balance shoots to see if this helps.

Any help on flat light, and, specifically how to avoid it in snow would be most welcome.

Samples
6701614869_14e0386ee2_b.jpg
[/url] DSC_1695 by mark.bainbridge, on Flickr[/IMG]

6701616411_3cff79b696_b.jpg
[/url] DSC_1681 by mark.bainbridge, on Flickr[/IMG]

HDR
6701627401_ec8a9bf176_b.jpg
[/url] shard by mark.bainbridge, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
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Sometimes the sky and lighting is just very poor and looking at your pics, it looks like it has been a very dull day. When the sky is uneventful, you would be best try as much sky out of your shots as possible. Although lightroom and other software can help, there is nothing to beat shooting in good light.
 
A bit more than what Peter said, light really is the singular most important element in photography.

If you're shooting landscapes in dull grey light, you'll get dull grey landscapes. Try to forget the belief that there should be something magical that processing can do for your pictures.

98% of the photograph happens between concept (the idea in your mind) and exposure, the last 2% is the polishing in processing. With a really strong idea - maybe 10% in PP - with a concept that requires PP - stacked images etc, then up to 40% PP. (sorry for the digression).

Fortunately for you, the best time of day for landscapes is the first hour of daylight and the last. You just have to find the clear days (dull grey days aren't right). Alternatively - take advantage of the even lighting by shooting some portraits. Or wait for a little more darkness to really get the best out of those floodlit buildings. There's no such thing as bad light - just the wrong light.
 
You can always make selections of individual parts of your image and use levels and curves in Photoshop to adjust - When shooting in light like this, you are not going to get the look you are after - Maybe try HDR by using a tripod and take a number of shots at different Exposure Values.

Here's a very quick edit just playing

Not great but gives an idea of what I mean.

xxzpkyqp.jpg


When shooting in snow, it acts like a reflector bouncing back light into shadow areas. You therefore need to look for the shadow areas.... Is it landscapes you want to shoot?

Shooting at the golden hours of sunrise/sunset will help greatly.
 
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Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciated. I had got to a place where I was starting to second guess myself :cuckoo:

Love what you have done with the photo Jim :thumbs: Yep, it is landscapes that I will be trying in Tampere shortly. Aim to get some photos off the tower in the forest.
 
It's just selecting an area and editing that then a different are etc etc. Use of layers and layer masks is more advanced too.

If you have Photoshop, get a book.
 
If nature doesn't supply the light you need then sometimes software can help. Here's an example from a dull, grey day last year with just a few tweaks in Lightroom; no layers/masks or anything complex....

20120117_232023_000.jpg


There's a little WB adjustment and some sharpening, but mostly the adjustment is to expand the dynamic range and contrast by deepening blacks/shadows and brightening highlights. It certainly brings life to an otherwise dreary scene. The histogram can be a very useful guide when making such adjustments.
 
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