Photographing in summer and more critiques [+ a new challenge!]

Published: Sat, 06/15/24

Updated: Fri, 06/21/24

Hi!

Well, June is solidly underway - and for me, that means the weather is moving from “nice” to “unpleasantly hot.” For those of you who live in more northern regions of the globe and are currently experiencing more temperate weather, I am very jealous!

Anyway, today, I thought I’d share a few different items:

Some handy resources for photographing in summer (for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere who can brave the outdoor heat)
Some useful articles on photographing indoors (for those of you dealing with extreme heat or, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, cold/rain/snow)
A new dPS bi-weekly challenge
Two more photo critiques

So without further ado, let’s dive right in!

The dPS bi-weekly challenge: Composition

From Sime:

We've published an article recently to help you with your composition "Should You Photograph in Portrait or Landscape Orientation?" and we're extending that to this week's challenge.

This week you need to find two photographs of the same subject, one in portrait and one in landscape, and to help you do that, you should pop through and have a read of this article first.

ONE subject - TWO photos!

Remember to tag your post with #dpsweeklychallenge and #dPSPortraitOrLandscape on our weekly challenge page or on social media!

How to capture beautiful summer photos

I know, I know; it’s not technically summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but we’re just a week away, so I’m going to act like it’s already here!

In some ways, summer is the ideal season for photography - skies tend to be clear, sunsets and sunrises are often spectacular, the light lasts for many hours, and morning and evening temperatures can be very pleasant.

On the other hand, summer photography comes with its own challenges. If you want to make the most of the summer with your camera, here are a few of our best articles to help you out:

13 Tips and Ideas for Amazing Summer Photography
15 Summer Landscape Photography Tips (+ Examples)
Will There Be a Nice Sunset Tonight? How to Predict Sunsets Like a Pro
6 Tips for Avoiding a Foggy Lens (for those of you living in humid climates!)
Midday Photography: How to Take Beautiful Photos Using Harsh Light

Tips and ideas for indoor photography

Of course, many of you are not experiencing great conditions for outdoor photography, in which case you might find these dPS articles helpful:

Critiquing your images

I’ve got two more critiques for you today, and once again, I want to say a big “Thank you!” to everyone who sent in images for critique, and encourage you to keep ‘em coming!

(As always, for anyone who would like to submit images for critique in a future newsletter, just hit Reply to this message and send along a file or two! But make sure you mention that the images are indeed for critique in the email body or subject line, and please make sure the files are JPEGs and at least 1000 pixels on the long end!)

First, we have an intimate nature photo from Moorthy V:

What I like:

First of all, Moorthy, I have a soft spot for traditional landscape subjects photographed in a more intimate way. It’s not that I dislike waterfall photos captured with an ultra-wide perspective - they can be absolutely stunning! - but I also think it’s interesting when photographers go in tighter (either by moving closer to the subject or using a longer focal length), as you’ve done here! The result tends to be a bit less awestriking but perhaps more beautiful in a meditative way.
I like your decision to use a longer shutter speed so as to render the water as streaks, which adds to the tranquil effect.
The way you’ve framed the waterfall with the hanging branches also boosts the intimacy while providing more interest along the top portion of the shot.

Ideas for improvement:

One recommendation is to play with different shutter speeds to achieve different long-exposure effects; if you use a slightly shorter shutter speed, for instance, you can maintain a bit more detail in the water, which is sometimes nice. This depends heavily on personal preference, but it’s just something to keep in mind when photographing moving water (and especially waterfalls).
Speaking of the water, on my monitor, it does look like you’ve lost some tonal detail in the highlights. My recommendation would be to narrow the aperture and/or increase the shutter speed to prevent this loss of detail; even if the image is slightly underexposed overall, it’s far easier to recover shadows than highlights during post-processing, especially if you shoot in RAW.
I’ll also note that it looks like you’ve used a relatively wide aperture and focused on the branches in the foreground. As a result, the waterfall itself is blurry, while the branches are sharp. With this type of image, I generally recommend using a narrow aperture (e.g., f/8) and focusing about a third of the way into the scene to ensure that the entire image remains sharp throughout. Alternatively, if you’d prefer to use a wider aperture, you might try focusing on the waterfall and letting the foreground “frame” elements go slightly soft.
I think you’ve chosen an interesting angle to shoot from; instead of photographing the waterfall from dead-center, as a lot of photographers do, you’ve shot from off to the side. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does make the image seem a bit more informal. Just something else to keep in mind, depending on what you were trying to achieve here!
One more thought: I’d love to have a bit more space on the left to counterbalance the space around the waterfall on the right; at present, the left side of the waterfall is close to the edge of the frame, which has resulted in some compositional tension.

Next, we have an expansive landscape from Robert L:

What I like:

You’ve captured such beautiful colors, Robert - I love the soft blues and greens of the water, and how they harmonize with the warmer yellows and reds in the clouds and distant landscape.
And this is just a lovely scene in general, with those low-lying clouds and distant buildings and farms. The light is wonderful, too!
You’ve also done a nice job maintaining detail through the scene - the clouds, the sky, and the water are all very well exposed.

Ideas for improvement:

I love the color of the water and the distant landscape, but I think that the bright blue sky toward the top of the frame is actually a bit distracting - it feels very empty, and it’s so intense that it draws the eye away from the softer colors below. My recommendation would be to frame this scene slightly differently so that the focus is on the bottom two-thirds of the frame.
Relatedly, you might try getting down lower over the water, if possible, or perhaps including an interesting foreground element (such as a dock, or rocks, or a shoreline); that way, you could create a greater sense of depth and lead the viewer’s eye from the foreground to the background. If you were to use this approach, then it would likely be very easy to exclude the area above the clouds from the frame!
If finding foreground elements or getting down lower isn’t really an option, another approach would be to use a longer lens and go in tighter; for instance, if you could isolate that distant landscape on the right, with the fog completely surrounding it, I think that could be very cool!
One minor note: I’m noticing at least one sensor dust spot in the sky, which should be easy to remove in post-processing :-)

Well, that’s all for today! I hope that was helpful to you, and I hope you have a great week ahead!

Talk to you next Saturday,

Jaymes Dempsey (and the dPS team)

PO Box 1181, Blackburn North, Victoria 3130, AUSTRALIA

Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options