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Tips for Great Photos from the Mast Store Photographer |
| The Winter season is a good time to work on black & white photography, but Fall is The Season for color and photography in general. When those cool, crisp temperatures arrive so do the brilliant colors of foliage and deep blue skies. This is the time of year to keep your camera in your car and always with you. |
Fall colors on Table Rock from Hawksbill Mountain. This is an example of using magic light to capture a special photograph. It also illustrates the rule of thirds because the horizon line is not directly in the middle. I was prepared to hike down with a headlamp because it was dark during the descent.
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Plan your weekend trips depending on elevation and location. Go to the mountains earlier in the Fall and visit lower elevations later in the season. Keep an eye out for pumpkin fields and visit a Farmer's Market for a collage of Fall fruits and veggies. At home, when you're raking leaves up in a big pile, have the kids come out to frolic and throw leaves around. Remember the rule of thirds and don't always frame your child in the middle of the picture.
The rule of thirds divides the photo frame into three equal parts both vertically and horizontally making nine equal quadrants. For more visual interest, try to keep the subject away from dead center and have elements that lead your eye into the picture toward the main subject. |
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| Fall conditions give us those long, clear vistas and blue sky without the dread of summer haze. Think out of the box for composition. When shooting big open spaces, put an interesting object in the foreground like a prominent boulder, leaf, tree or person. Don't always go for the wide-angle scenic shot of ridges and valley, but get close and intimate with one dominant element. Find a single tree in a meadow and use a shallow depth-of-field to emphasize the subject and create an out-of-focus background. Compose a shot of a lone tree branch against a blue sky background with the branch leading your eye into the frame, maybe aiming your camera towards the sun for a backlit effect. Or lie on the ground, looking up through the canopy with the sun streaming through the backlit leaves. Find a pond with floating leaves on the surface; earlier in the morning is best as the water is more likely to be still. If you're lucky you may capture some rising mist too. |
Get more motivated to go out on a cloudy, foggy or overcast day. This is actually more ideal than a bright beautiful day as it gives you fewer leaf lookers on the road and the absolute best color saturation. Overcast days are good for going deep into forested areas because the light lessens the harshness of the shadows and the color saturation is at its prime. As with most all photography, the ideal time of the day to shoot is during the magic hour of early morning and late afternoon/early evening when your shadow is longer than you are.
Regarding some tools to round out the tricks of the trade, try using a polarizing filter. A polarizer will cut out glare on shiny surfaces like water or a close-up on a leaf, provide better color saturation, increase contrast and make the sky a deeper blue. If you don't have a polarizer, but do have Photoshop and a digital camera, then slightly underexpose your images and increase contrast and bump up |
This photo was also taken from Hawksbill Mountain. Again, note that they horizon line is not in the center of the photo and the sense of motion from left to right. You can also see that the foreground is at its peak color, while the ridges toward the back of the photo are still in process. It also illustrates the rule of eighths. When using this rule the sky should make up one eighth of the photo with the foreground making up the other seven eighths. |
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| saturation in your editing software. Also, if you have some blue sunglasses, experiment with shooting through the sunglass lens and using that as a light filter. For more abstract images, use a slow shutter speed and quickly pan your camera either side to side or in a circular motion in front of an area splashing with color. Another filter to try as a stand-alone would be a warming filter, bringing the entire image to a more saturated level, especially the reds, oranges and yellows. |
| One advantage of shooting with a digital camera is that you're freer to experiment with your photography and not feel concerned about paying for processing your film. You simply delete the images that you don't care for. You can also adjust your camera controls on a whim after looking at your image and making adjustments. If you use a film camera, get your film from a photo store as it will be better quality and have been kept in better conditions. Slide film is the best for quality and for emphasis on color saturation, go with Fuji Velvia or Kodak's Ektachrome E100VS. If you prefer using print film, then make sure to use 100 or 200 speed film. |
| The main thing with Fall photography is to travel to a variety of places at the right time, motivate yourself to get up early and stay out late, bring a tripod and don't forget the headlamp for the return trip to the car. And remember, there are a lot fewer bugs in Autumn, so plan a camping trip and let the whole family experiment with photography. You'll do it again the next year too and when Winter sets in, you can look back and enjoy a fine collection of prints from the ultimate photography season! |
| About the photographer: |
| A native of East Tennessee, Lynn Willis discovered the joy of photography as a child during the 1970s with his dad's old Brownie camera. Today, his portfolio includes images of adventure sports and mountain landscapes from the Appalachians to the Himalayas. Currently, he is focusing on portraying outdoor sports and lifestyle images specific to the Blue Ridge Mountains. He believes the diversity of the seasons in the High Country makes for well-rounded photo opportunities. |
| He won first prize in the adventure category of the Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition in 2006 and placed in the same competition the next two years as well. His photographs have been published in various outdoor catalogs and magazines including Rock & Ice, Climbing, Urban Climber, Paraglider International and Blue Ridge Outdoors. Lynn is currently creating a website to portray his photography and he works as a photographer and graphic designer for Mast General Store. |
| Photographs provided by Lynn Willis. |
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