It seems the pinnacle of good outdoor photography is finding the right light!

Midday, bright sunlight can lend itself to harsh tones, unwanted shadows, and a heap of disappointing photos. But dont despair. Mother nature has ever so graciously given us a couple of perfect hours...

The first hour or so after sunrise, and the last hour of light before sunset. This is when the sun is low in the sky, producing soft, golden, diffused hues. There is little contrast and the shadows are soft and dreamy. It is also known as the magic hours. And for good reason! The lighting is simply out of this world magical!

Whether you are shooting portraits, landscape, or macrothere is no going wrong during this time. Simple subjects take on a special glow. Heck, even spiders look lovely in the golden hours. Its a fabulous time to get out the camera and create something beautiful!

FIVE TIPS FOR SHOOTING IN THE GOLDEN HOURS

Determine Timing. Check your local weather report or try the Golden Hour Calculator to identify the exact sunrise/sunset time in your area. Doing a little homework ahead of time will pay off tenfold. Use a Tripod. For optimal results in lower light settings use a tripod to avoid camera shake. Set the ISO low and use a long exposure. You may even want to use a self timer or remote clicker to ensure crisp photos. Remember to get a good depth of field for landscapes you will need to use a smaller aperture of f/8 or above. Change White Balance. Move the setting to something other than automatic. Try a couple different ones. The results may surprise you. Practice this at different times of the day prior to your scheduled shoot in The Golden Hours. Keep Shooting. Over the course of an hour the light will drastically change, and quickly. There are only a few moments of the magic light and you dont want to miss it. Make sure to bring a flashlight and stay the duration. This would be a great time to try HDR (High Dynamic Range) Imaging, taking multiple shots at different exposures and combining them digitally to capture a greater range between the lightest and darkest areas in an image. Get Creative. Dont be afraid to try different angles or perspectives. Light, reflections, and hues vary simply by altering your position. If you shoot directly into the sun it will produce sun flare and possibly a more blown out shot, which is perfectly acceptable and individual. For portrait shots you may want to block the sun by shifting your frame. You will still get the effects of the backlighting without the distracting glare of the sun. The beauty is its all subjective! And the best advice I could give? You dont even have to have a fancy DSLR or expensive equipment to capture beautiful photos during The Golden Hours. This is mother natures gift to us. So, grab whatever camera you have and snap some photos!

Learn the Basics, Rule of Thirds

In the world of photography, composition is defined as the conscious placement or arrangement of visual elements in a photograph. Simply put, composition means purposefully framing your photograph in such a way as to create interest and appeal; drawing the viewer in. Here are a few tips for improving composition and creating compelling photographs.

When it comes to composition, many photographers follow the basic Rule of Thirds a principle in which an image is divided into thirds, vertically and horizontally, resulting in nine equal parts. The basic principle behind the Rule of Thirds is that elements of interest are positioned at intersecting points of the imaginary grid, creating balance and visual appeal. Take this bowl of eggs, for example. Composition-wise, its quite boring. But if we were to apply the Rule of Thirds by positioning points of interest along intersecting points of our grid, wed immediately achieve a more balanced and visually appealing image. However, while the Rule of Thirds is a great place to start, its not an absolute, end-all-be-all rule. In the world of photography, personal creativity reigns supreme.

With that said,

Trust Your Instincts and Ditch the Rule of Thirds

Thats right, I said ditch the Rule of Thirds. There are some instances in which the Rule of Thirds doesnt always work. Some subjects require a more symmetric composition, as seen in the image to the left. Oddly enough, framing this shot symmetrically goes against everything weve been taught. But it works. Photography is very much a creative process. Some rules work and some dont. Trust your instincts.

Practice Purposeful Composition

Before snapping your next photo, think about the following: What is the main subject? What do I want viewers to look at? Where should my subject be in relation to the frame? How does the light affect my subject?

Keep it Simple, Stupid

Eliminate distracting backgrounds by limiting the amount of visual elements in your frame. Take care to avoid losing your subject in the clutter of its surroundings. Use a longer focal length to get in close or a use wide aperture to blur your background.

Draw Your Viewer in with Lines

Lines are powerful elements in terms of composition. The viewers eye will naturally follow any line in your image. Horizontal lines create the least compelling effect.The viewers eye is drawn across the length of the image on the bottom left, but it lacks interest. Quite simply, its boring and ordinary. Diagonal lines are the most compelling. They create movement and draw the viewers eye deeper into the photograph. The end result is an interesting and dynamic image that pulls the viewer in.

Perspective/ Perception
Most of you will have been taking photos of blossom at one point or another, either close ups of individual branches and flowers or some wider angle photos of entire trees. I imagine a number of you, especially in more rural settings, were faced with a choice as to whether you want to capture the entire landscape, just a close up of a particular element or anything in between. As youre composing your shot, there are a few other things that you should think about.

What is the focus of your photograph?

In the case of the two photographs below (and the photograph at the very top of this post) of the same tree with dark pink blossom, I didnt want the viewer to see the messy urban surroundings, the end of the alley behind my city apartment building. I wanted to have focus on nature, the beauty of the blossoms in Spring and the way the light was hitting them that particular evening. By photographing the blossom on this tree close up I can create an illusion of the subject, the focus is entirely on the blossom and the light as I intended.

What do you see?

I made the conscious choice to go in close (standing on tippy toes, leaning on the fence, half climbing on a trash can!) and photograph the blossom without any of the other distracting elements. By seeing the close up photographs alone would you think that the tree above was behind a fence, surrounded by trash cans in a city alley? Or that the blossom below was from a tree growing out of the sidewalk, next to a busy street with an intersecting train bridge and a small city parking lot?

What do you want the viewer to see?

Sometimes you might want to have some of your surroundings in the photograph, depending on what you want the viewer to perceive. Would you like the viewer to see the individual beauty of each petal? The vastness of multiple trees blossoming in Spring? The isolation of a single tree in bloom? How do you want them to feel when they look at your photograph? I really liked this tree and its clean white blossom, however Im not a huge fan of those cars parked by the side of the road, something that is unavoidable on the streets of Chicago but not what I wanted at the time. I wandered around the tree to try and find a better angle to photograph it from, an angle that portrayed what I wanted the viewer to see. All of the angles of this particular tree gave a similar view, until I turned a corner and found another, the exact same type of tree in the front yard of a large apartment building. I much prefer the second more urban shot of the tree with the white blossom. Sure, the tree itself is less obvious there in the background but the entire scene captures something that I really wanted to be able to show the viewer, the beauty that can be found in an urban setting.

Capturing Movement
I thought that a lot of us would have been taking photos involving movement for this prompt, be it raindrops falling, kids splashing in puddles, once-small creeks flowing with the fullness of spring rain, or like in these photos, the breaking of small waves against the shore. Water is always so full of life and movement, even the seemingly still surface of a pond is often teeming with wildlife just out of eyeshot. Frogs, fish, waterbirds and various insects making ripples that break the calm surface of the water. Ive also got some human movement in these photographs too, I made my friend run up and down the shore while I photographed her and also photographed her wading in and out of the lake (dont worry, she doesnt hate me too much for it!)

Freezing Movement
The shutter speed that you choose is a key component to capturing motion in your photograph. A slow shutter speed will blur a moving object, and a high shutter speed will result in a sharper focus on your moving subject. When you use a high shutter speed to freeze motion, you should still try to capture your subjects in such a way that conveys to the viewer that they are actually moving. A person mid-run, or the waves just at the moment they break to crash against the shore, freezing the whole scene captures the motion as it happens with minimal loss of detail. In determining the shutter speed you will need to freeze motion, every situation is unique and comes with its own set of challenges. A good rule of thumb though, to avoid motion blur and to freeze your subject, is to not go under a shutter speed of 1/125 sec. Try it out and see if it works, depending on the speed your subject is moving, your distance from the subject and the lighting conditions you may have to take the shutter speed higher. To expose properly you may have to then adjust your aperture or ISO.

Using Motion Blur

Sometimes you can lower your shutter speed in order to use motion blur as an artistic element in your photographs. In the above photo, my shutter speed was fast enough to freeze my subject walking slowly towards me, but not quite fast enough to freeze the small wave breaking behind her. Theres only a little amount of blur on the wave, but more than enough to give a real feeling of movement to the water in the image. You can do this to a greater extent with faster moving objects, for example a person standing still on a train platform while a train is blurred, moving quickly behind them or a longer exposure on a fast moving river to blur the movement of the water. Try switching your camera to Shutter Priority Mode and using it at different shutter speeds to see the effect that it has on movement in your photographs. You might want to use a tripod or place your camera on a solid surface for very long exposures.

White Balance Tips

conditions, digital cameras often have great difficulty with auto white balance; creating orange, blue and sometimes green color casts. Avoid color casts and improve your photography under a wide range of lighting conditions by getting a better understanding of white balance. The best way to do this is through experimenting with the white balance settings on your camera.

balance to auto and then daylight. Notice the effect that both white balance settings have on the same scene. Though subtle, they both create a different mood. One is warm while the other is cool. Heres another look at the effects that various white balance settings have on the same scene. Often times, the white balance setting you choose will come down to personal preference. Are you looking to achieve a true-to-life, clean effect? Or are you going for a warmer feel? What are you shooting?

Start off by shooting the same subject in auto white balance mode first, followed by another setting. When set to auto Simply put, white balance is the process of removing unrealistic color casts so that the objects which appear white in white balance, your camera makes the best guess it can on which objects in your photo are truly white. In the example person appear white in your photo as well. While our eyes do a great job of discerning the color white in various lighting below, I shot the same scene by setting my in-camera white

White balance is especially important when shooting people. Notice the wide range of effects that various white balance settings have on skin tones. Too lazy or forgetful to change your white balance settings? Keeping your white balance set to auto is an option, particularly if you shoot in RAW and are able to adjust your white balance settings post-processing. But using auto white balance is discouraged when shooting a series of photos over an extended period of time and under varying lighting conditions as the camera will simply not be able to produce consistent results.

Another option is programming white balance on a sceneby-scene basis in-camera by selecting the custom white balance mode. In the example below, I photographed my daughter with a white card and set my camera to custom white balance. In doing this, Ive trained my camera to discern the color white under the current lighting condition. (Had the lighting changed, Id need to reset my custom white balance all over again.) The result is a true to life image. Avoid color casts, improve your photography under a wide range of lighting conditions and cut down on post-processing time by getting a better understanding of white balance and implementing what youve learned into your everyday shooting.