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golden hours

How To Add Contrast To Landscape Photos

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Sunrise in the Mojave / Photo by Steve Berardi
Sunrise in the Mojave / Photo by Steve Berardi
Adding contrast to a landscape photo is one way to make it a more compelling image. When we think of the word “contrast” we usually think about contrasting colors or brightness. But, there’s also another type of contrast that you can capture in your images: subjective contrast.

Here’s a quick look at the different types of contrast and how you can capture them in your images:

Color Contrast

The most common way of adding more contrast to your images is photographing a scene with strong contrasting colors. With landscape photography, this is usually pretty easy to do around the “golden hours” — where you’ll likely have some of your scene in the shade while the rest of the scene is extra saturated with that warm light of sunrise or sunset. [Read more…] about How To Add Contrast To Landscape Photos

Three elements of a great landscape

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Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi

Landscapes are one of the most difficult subjects in nature photography. It’s always hard deciding what to include and what to leave out. And, it’s not easy translating a vast three dimensional space into a two dimensional photo.

Well, the next time you’re having trouble composing a landscape photograph, consider these three elements: [Read more…] about Three elements of a great landscape

Why You Should Always Shoot Lots of Photos

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Creosote Bush / Photos by Steve Berardi
Creosote Bush / Photos by Steve Berardi
There seems to be a common habit among photographers to take just one shot of something and then immediately move on.

Although you can definitely get good shots this way, I think it’s also beneficial to slow down a little bit and take lots of photos of your subject. Here are a few reasons why: [Read more…] about Why You Should Always Shoot Lots of Photos

Never Give Up On a Sunset

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After watching and photographing a lot of sunsets, it’s tempting to start thinking that you can look at the sky and predict how good a sunset will be a few hours before it happens.

You might see a bunch of thick and dark gray clouds up there, and think, “well, the sunset is gonna suck tonight, so I might as well just go home early.”

Or, you might even be in the middle of photographing a sunset and you think the colors just peaked, so you start packing up your stuff and walk towards your car or campsite.

But, then out of nowhere, the sky decides to explode with color again. Of course, you’re half way back to your car by now, so you quickly setup your camera, but before you can press the shutter button, the colors fade away again. And, this time they’re gone for good.

Sound familiar? [Read more…] about Never Give Up On a Sunset

Why timing is everything for landscape photography

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Photo by Jurvetson (used under the CC-Attr-2.0 license)
Photo by Jurvetson (used under the CC-Attr-2.0 license)
During the day, lighting conditions are usually pretty consistent. Sure, the Sun may hide behind a cloud for a minute or two, or a storm may roll in, but on most days, you’ll have pretty consistent light throughout the day (at least from the perspective of a landscape photographer).

But, that all changes during the golden hours–those precious moments of warm sunlight that occur around sunrise and sunset.

During these times, the quality of light constantly changes as the Sun rises or sets and the light scatters more through the atmosphere. Add some clouds in there, and you’ll see some really drastic changes–in minutes or seconds.

To illustrate just how drastic the light can change during a sunrise, here’s a photo I took at the Alabama Hills (Eastern Sierra, California), about 15 minutes before sunrise: [Read more…] about Why timing is everything for landscape photography