Four Weeks to Become a Better Photographer: Lesson Two

Assistant Editor and novice shooter Kathleen Davis challenges herself to take her photography to the next level with an online course at BetterPhoto.com. Let’s see what amateurs and pros alike can learn along with her.

Click here for Lesson One in the series
Click here for our post on how the class works

Techniques of Natural Light Photography taught by Jim Zuckerman

    Lesson Two: Moody Light–Fog, Mist, Rain and Deep Overcast

In our second lesson, Zuckerman discussed how fog, dust, low clouds, deep overcast, rain, and mist can all change the mood of photos. He also discussed techniques for creating mood with artificial light, and how color can affect mood in images. One method for affecting mood without additional equipment or software is to switch the camera’s white balance to tungsten or “indoors” when shooting outside, which gives photos a bluish hue. Zuckerman also covered the affects of warm golden light from sources such as candles.

Our assignment: submit photos showing subjects in either natural or artificial moody light.

After the jump, my photos with Zuckerman’s critiques.

(Above Photo: Brooklyn Bridge & Bird shot on deep overcast day with tungsten white balance)

I really liked Zuckerman’s examples of fog, mist and dust in photos, but didn’t encounter any this past week. Since most of the days were clear, I relied (perhaps too heavily) on shooting in tungsten outdoors.

*Click on photos to enlarge*
         

My shot of the Manhattan Bridge     Zuckerman’s fix of the color of the sky      
(tungsten WB, overcast day)                                                

I took this shot of the Manhattan Bridge on an overcast day with my white balance set to tungsten. In order to keep some the detail in the underside of the bridge, I had to bump up the exposure, which made the sky brighter than it really was. Zuckerman noticed, here’s what he said:

“The severe angle you used on the Manhattan Bridge is very dramatic. The lines are great, and the moodiness of this is also a contributor to the success of the image. The only thing I'd suggest is that you don't use cyan for the sky. The sky is not, in fact, cyan. It's between blue and cyan, and when you make it cyan it looks -- well, sort of sickly. Cyan is a rare color in nature. Only in tropical water have I seen it, so it looks very unnatural pretty much everywhere else.”

He attached a version of my photo with the sky tweaked, and I like it much better.

I didn’t spend the whole week shooting blue photos though, on the same cloudy day I took this shot of a torn up brick road in Brooklyn. I liked the quality of the light, and I thought that converting it to black-and-white (I used Adobe Photoshop Lightroom) suited the subject and mood. Zuckerman agreed, but offered me valuable advice fixing my depth of field. He said:

“I like your low angle and the exaggerated perspective that you got from placing a wide-angle lens close to the ground. The overcast day was perfect for this type of picture, and I agree with you that it looks good in black-and-white. It would also look good toned. The foreground stones are a little soft, and if you could have used a smaller f/stop to get more depth of field, I would have opted for that.”

Washington Square Park at Twilight

By the end of the week every day was clear and perfect, so I was back to using tungsten white balance outside. For this shot I wanted to try my hand at a long exposure at night, so I put the camera on a ledge and left the shutter open for 30 seconds. I love the colors and the magic of the long exposure making most of the people disappear from the busy park. But again Zuckerman found caught a detail I had overlooked. He said:

“ The bird and the arch are both moody, however both have the same issue: You cropped off part of them. It’s not a good idea to cut off the tips of things, like feet, tails, ears, fingers, and so on. If you crop something, that’s fine, but do it decidedly. If you crop the tip of something, it looks like a mistake and it hurts the graphic design of the image. I like very much the twilight illumination in Washington Square as well as the tile design in the foreground, but we need to see the entire arch.”

It looked like a mistake, because it was. Something to keep in mind for next week.

Next Week’s Lesson: The Beauty of Backlighting.
—Kathleen Davis
Assistant Editor

Comments

[R T Geasland]

I just don't see why a photography magazine would make someone with so little photography knowledge assistant editor.It just shows how far Pop Photo has shifted from photography to computers.

[Hilary]

I just don't see why R.T. feels the need to make the same comment over and over again.

[Chumpion number nine]

Becuase he has a point?

[Chumpion number nine]

Becuase he has a point?

[Alex L]

Maybe because she's an ASSISTANT editor. A full editor would be deciding on and assigning content, requiring someone knowledgeable in the field. As an assistant, she would have other responsibilities that does not rely heavily on her photography skills, such those relating to writing, publishing, and production. After all, this is a magazine, they need skill sets in those areas as well.

She can probably approach photography from the point of view of someone still learning at a "lower" level, which is one of the target audiences of the magazine. She can have influence over that kind of content, but that is just my speculation.

I don't see anything obvious here that would disqualify her from being an assistant editor.