Moody Blues

During my day with my photographer friends I promised to take them to one of my favorite sunset locations and teach them some of the techniques I use to help with composition. The sunset was bland for the most part, but I taught them about patience, and preparing for the good light. While it never kicked off in ways the sunsets around here sometimes do, A moody sunset over these mountains can still look amazing. Something that you really only understand after the edit. While the trip was mostly for my friends, this is the composition I came home with.

Simple things go a long way when it comes to your photography. Walk around the scene, look and see what is happening, what’s obvious, what is drawing your eye in. Once you know what, it’s time to begin composing. It can be moments, or it can be ten minutes. That’s why it’s so important to arrive early for your compositions in landscape photography. Arrive early, plan out your shot, and stick to your guns. If you just can’t find the composition, move on, you showed up early so you have the flexibility, use it.

Finally, once everything is together and you’re shooting your landscape, watch the light, you can make minor adjustments as needed, but you should keep focus on what drew your eyes, once you get the shot in the bag, stick around a bit longer, see if anything is going to change, maybe get blue hour shots, or long exposures. Don’t panic, if you panic in the moment you may loose your shot anyway.

At the end of it it all, once you have the files on your machine and begin the editing, the fact you kept your target in mind will make your final edits all the better in the end.

Until Next Time!

Aperture: f8
ISO: 640
SS: 1/125th
Focal: 50mm

Fujinon 50-140mm