Ghatahora Photography: bhupinder gharahora

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Thursday, 20 October 2016

Capture the Autumn Colours

Autumn is one of my favourite seasons for photography as it’s filled with cool nights, misty mornings, golden lighting, dew drops on spider webs, reflections of autumn colours in the water, long shadows and fallen leaves which all create a great atmosphere. But most importantly, the striking colours in the environment.

The main advantage of living around trees, parks and woodland areas, is that you don’t have to travel far to capture the autumn colours. Most of the woodland locations are easily accessed by public footpaths. Local parks provide plenty of opportunities for close-up nature photography.

The colours at the beginning of autumn can be disappointing, it is advisable to wait till they are rich and vibrant, which is usually at the end of October till end of November. However, keep an eye on your surroundings and keep your gear and equipment ready to capture the best lighting.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when taking autumn photographs:

Camera settings:

SLR: To photograph Landscapes, set the camera on Aperture Mode at f11 or f16, the camera will adjust the shutter speed accordingly. For Close-up Nature photography, use an aperture of f4 or f5.6. The use of a tripod is recommended as exposures will be long.

Compact Camera: Set the camera on Landscape Mode. For close-ups use mode. These modes are also available on SLRs.

I took the below photograph using my compact camera. The photograph has been changed to sepia using an editing software. Many compact cameras have an inbuilt facility which allows you to change the tone of your image. (This can be found in the menu settings of your camera). I always take two photographs of the same scene, one in colour and other in b/w or sepia.

Framing:

Trees make dominant focal points and create the finest displays, use ‘rule of third’ to frame the scene.

Catch the light:

The warm light at early morning or evening is perfect to capture some stunning autumn photographs, so get up early to photograph the ‘Golden Light’.

The Golden bench

Bridge on River Thames

Move closer to concentrate on detail:

Instead of just photographing wider landscapes, create a much stronger composition by moving closer to the subject. Focus all the attention on a single subject, such as dew drops on leaves, spider webs, leaves, berries, long shadows, etc.

Rain drop on leave

Dried leave

Grass

Visit the local park or the woodlands:

Take photographs at a local park or the woodlands.

Photograph wildlife:

Photograph horses in a field or wildlife in your garden. Feed the birds - putting food and water out will encourage birds in your garden so you don’t have to travel far to photograph the wildlife.

Use backlighting:

Position the sun behind a tree trunk or branches to capture the vibrant colours of the leaves, long shadows and silhouettes

Photograph the autumn mist:

Man in the mist

To capture mist, it is necessary to get up at dawn before sunrise or wait till it is just about to set. Rivers, lakes and open fields are the most likely locations to have mist. Exposures can be tricky, set the exposure at +1 stop to prevent the mist or fog being recorded as dull murky grey.

Here is a small list of locations where you can take autumn photographs:

Local Parks,

Woodland walks near you.

New Forest - for both autumn colours and wildlife

Kew Gardens – autumn colours

Wakehurst Place – autumn colours

Westonbrit Arboretum (Tetbury, Gloucester, GL8 8QS) – autumn colours

Richmond Park (not far from Kew Gardens) – autumn colours and wildlife (herds of deer)

Bhupinder Ghatahora

Ghatahora Photography
www.ghatahora.co.uk
info@ghatahora.co.uk
@Ghatahora
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Friday, 30 September 2016

Capture the Autumn Colours

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when taking autumn photographs:

Camera settings:

Compact Camera: Set the camera on Landscape Mode. For close-ups use mode. These modes are also available on SLRs.

Framing:

Trees make dominant focal points and create the finest displays, use ‘rule of third’ to frame the scene. (You can read further on the ‘rule of third’ on my blog – link noted below).

Catch the light:

The warm light at early morning or evening is perfect to capture some stunning autumn photographs, so get up early to photograph the ‘Golden Light’.

The Golden bench

Bridge on River Thames

Move closer to concentrate on detail:

Rain drop on leave

Dried leave

Grass

Visit the local park or the woodlands:

Take photographs at a local park or the woodlands.

Photograph wildlife:

Photograph horses in a field or wildlife in your garden. Feed the birds - putting food and water out will encourage birds in your garden so you don’t have to travel far to photograph the wildlife.

Use backlighting:

Position the sun behind a tree trunk or branches to capture the vibrant colours of the leaves, long shadows and silhouettes

Photograph the autumn mist:

Man in the mist

Here is a small list of locations where you can take autumn photographs:

Local Parks,

Woodland walks near you.

New Forest - for both autumn colours and wildlife

Kew Gardens – autumn colours

Wakehurst Place – autumn colours

Westonbrit Arboretum (Tetbury, Gloucester, GL8 8QS) – autumn colours

Richmond Park (not far from Kew Gardens) – autumn colours and wildlife (herds of deer)

Bhupinder Ghatahora

Ghatahora Photography
www.ghatahora.co.uk
info@ghatahora.co.uk
@Ghatahora
Facebook
Pinterest
Flickr

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

Capture the Autumn Colours

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when taking autumn photographs:

Camera settings:

Compact Camera: Set the camera on Landscape Mode. For close-ups use mode. These modes are also available on SLRs.

Framing:

Trees make dominant focal points and create the finest displays, use ‘rule of third’ to frame the scene.

Catch the light:

The warm light at early morning or evening is perfect to capture some stunning autumn photographs, so get up early to photograph the ‘Golden Light’.

The Golden bench

Bridge on River Thames

Move closer to concentrate on detail:

Rain drop on leave

Dried leave

Grass

Visit the local park or the woodlands:

Take photographs at a local park or the woodlands.

Photograph wildlife:

Photograph horses in a field or wildlife in your garden. Feed the birds - putting food and water out will encourage birds in your garden so you don’t have to travel far to photograph the wildlife.

Use backlighting:

Position the sun behind a tree trunk or branches to capture the vibrant colours of the leaves, long shadows and silhouettes

Photograph the autumn mist:

Man in the mist

Here is a small list of locations where you can take autumn photographs:

Local Parks,

Woodland walks near you.

New Forest - for both autumn colours and wildlife

Kew Gardens – autumn colours

Wakehurst Place – autumn colours

Westonbrit Arboretum (Tetbury, Gloucester, GL8 8QS) – autumn colours

Richmond Park (not far from Kew Gardens) – autumn colours and wildlife (herds of deer)

Bhupinder Ghatahora

Ghatahora Photography
www.ghatahora.co.uk
info@ghatahora.co.uk
@Ghatahora
Facebook
Pinterest
Flickr

Friday, 6 May 2016

Tip of the week

The mountain & cloud symbol stands for Landscape mode. Using this mode your camera will select the smallest aperture to maximise depth-of-field. Your image will be sharp both in the foreground and in the background. As the name suggests, use this mode to take landscape photographs.

More tips next week

Bhupinder Ghatahora

Ghatahora Photography
www.ghatahora.co.uk
info@ghatahora.co.uk
@Ghatahora
Facebook
Pinterest
Flickr

Monday, 21 December 2015

Winter Photography

Taking photographs in low light conditions can be very exciting and creative. Here are 2 important things to keep in mind: -

1) The time of the day:

Before sunrise (pre-dawn)
Sunset
After sunset (twilight & total darkness)

2) Camera settings: we will be using Aperture mode on the camera.

Pre-dawn (before Sunrise)

Before sunrise the light reflected from the sky hitting the scene is very soft and diffused, which means the shadows are very weak. Therefore the colour of the sky will be blue on clear days and grey on cloudy days, such lighting conditions can create very atmospheric photographs.

Cameras which do not have the Aperture Priority mode will often allow selecting different scene settings, such as ‘dusk/dawn’, ‘nightlight’ or ‘sunset’ modes (experiment which of these modes works best for your image).

Here is a photograph of Loch Lomond which I took before sunrise. Set the camera on aperture priority mode at f11 or f16 and let the camera choose the shutter speed. The exposure will be long, so use a tripod as this will avoid camera shake.

The below photograph was taken at the same location just as the sun was rising.

Sunsets

To capture the sunset, you need to act quickly as it would normally set in minutes. Use same settings as before, setting the camera on aperture priority mode at f11 or f16.

After Sunset (Twilight and total darkness)

After the sun has set, there is still some light in the sky, giving a warm glow, which slowly fades to pastel colours of pink, blue and purple. This is the twilight and it will give long exposures from 10 seconds on wards. Here are some examples of photographs I took in twilight. As before, set your cameras on aperture mode at f11 or f16 to achieve maximum depth of field.

I photographed these three trees in the mist in the field, this was just after sunset. I used a tripod to keep the camera steady and set it to a long exposure.

Total darkness

During total darkness, there is obviously no natural light available. These are perfect conditions to photograph trailing lights from cars, lit cityscapes, fireworks and light movement. As before, the exposure will be very long and can lead to minutes, it is therefore vital to use a tripod to avoid camera shake. Set the camera at f11 or f16 on aperture mode.