Learn to Love Summer Photography

well hello everybody and welcome back to another film so today is a good day i was given the all clear this morning from the consultant to say that i can resume normal activities after my hernia operation and i can start to carry reasonable loads again so i dashed dorm as quick as i could and got to hold my camera gear put it back in the camera bag and here i am so today's film is actually inspired by other photographers recently over the last few weeks i'm seeing more and more posts um on all sorts of outlets youtube instagram twitter basically everyone that photographs the outdoors seems to be complaining about the conditions at this time of year the vegetation is too dull there's no mist fog very little light it's too harsh the early early dawns the late sun sets you name it every complaint in the book but you know nature is beautiful and should be appreciated at all times of year and that's the way i see it and i think creativity in photography is basically it comes from a state of mind and not the weather conditions or the season and i think if you've got a positive outlook and your mind is clear from all the clutter of daily life and i think you'll find images and today is a good day for me so i thought it would be a good opportunity to come out at this time of year when everybody else is complaining to see what i can find now i've got overcast light so i've headed to a woodland which is always good there's a bit of light rain and hopefully that's not going to get any worse but to be honest who cares let's see what we can find [Music] so having just often puffed up that hill soon lose your fitness when you don't get out much for a few weeks i've just seen an image and i'm going to pan the camera in slowly slowly to see if you can see what i've noticed so there's looking in the viewfinder there there's a couple of potential scenes but one really caught my eye the second one really only occurred to me as i've as i put the camera up just now um the one that i'm going to ignore which is probably the one that you've seen are the york branches very very nice shapes but um i don't think the light is good for that today but what else caught my eye i'm not going to do it because i've done it before but these are the sort of things you need to look out for look against the wall you see the fern standing out against the dark background that's the sort of thing that i really look for keep my eye open too can you see that lovely contrast and that will photograph really beautifully against that dark wall but if you watch my video for the love of ferns you'll see that um i've done that before so i'm trying to find new images for the for the channel um trying not as much as possible to repeat what i've done before but that's the sort of thing really keep an open mind to that sort of image [Music] i really do think that one of the mistakes that we all make myself included um i often remind myself not to is to get the blinkers on and just go at pace on your walk and before you know it you're back at the car you've done a full circuit and what you've found is that the further and further into the walk that you've got and this will resonate with a lot of you because i've experienced it is that you become more and more anxious and stressed because you've not taken an image on your outing so i try to remind myself to stop frequently look back because the scene's always different looking back than it is looking forward and and just try and absorb your surroundings and really take notice be present is a popular one be more mindful of your surroundings and just take notice of the shapes and the light so as i've stopped here i can see the light coming through the beach four leads to my right and some of the leaves are overlapping each other causing light and shadows um to the left you've got some lovely um tones and textures in the um in the beach branches as they come down of the lighter background and of course there's a stream just behind me and there may well have been some copper tones in the sandstorm rock or maybe even some long exposures with the water movement and that's just this one brief stop without really taking the bag off and having five ten minutes here but often that's what it takes to find images and trust me walking with the head down with your blinkers on is a recipe for an outing with no pictures but um the stops are always worthwhile so just taking time out like i've said really paid dividends on this this occasion i was sat just probably 10 15 yards just over there to the back of the camera minding my own business just listening to the last of the bird song and this caught my attention which is tufted her grass photographed it before i'll put a link above to where i last photographed this plant but what caught my attention on this occasion is that the flowering heads have finished and you get the lovely little sea pods delicate seed pods and they're all glistening very very brightly in the in the light that's filtering down through the open canopy above and because the set against a dark background from where i was sitting they really stand out so i picked a similar background um in from where where i am now behind me and it's dark and it really helps the the little tips of the flowers stand out and what's crucially important is that rather than photograph through them in this direction i've arranged myself on this side so i can i can for i can photograph through the cluster and find a segment of the of the group that i really quite like the arrangement of 120 ml macro lens or excuse me 100 mil equivalent on full frame i'm set on f4 manual focus and just looking for an area within the grass within the group using the focus until i find something that i really like i like that there everyone's very very different handholding of course 80th of a second at f4 but what i am going to do as well is i'm just going to dial in a little bit of over exposure because i really think this will work well high key so the shutter speed has naturally gone slower and we're getting some wind now which might give an even better pictorial effect so with this sort of shot it's not an exact science it's just playing around and just picking the best one that you like i've really got a nice group there and i like the high key effect equally as much as the correct exposure because it's so dynamic it's um impossible to show on the back of the camera because the composition i'll show you will almost certainly change by the time i take the shot but um get your cameras stick them right in there and like i said just pick a nice composition and shoot away remembering to vary the exposure underexposing over exposing all gives lovely creative effects that will work so yeah nice first shot in the bag [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] um i think we may have the makings of a nice image here so what drew my eye on this occasion was one the fallen fence line across the river but also the lush green vegetation which is hercap moss on the other side and i photographed this a few times before there's definitely potential here but what's really got me excited about this is that on the fence there's a hole and i think it's probably where there was a bolt used to go through it and just here you've got a little cluster of wood sorrel growing in the hole no ideally spring would be nice because you'd have possibly the flowering heads at the same time but i actually quite like the fact that it's all green around the hole you've got some lovely grain on the timber and some of it's damp some of it's dry so you've got tones as well and then either side you've got mosses creeping into frame i haven't decided yet whether i'm going to include those but you've also got some little birch seeds scattered amongst the wood now there's part of me thinking is that going to be distraction that i'm going to end up cloning out do i blow them off before i start do i sort of get rid of them or do i leave it i think what i'm probably going to do is i'm going to take a shot with and then a shot without i think i'll take them with first and then see how it looks and if i'm happy i'll just leave it um i don't see the point in changing the scene apart from how i found it that's how i prefer to take the shots and with as little changes to it as possible also at the bottom of the hole you've got some one or two dead birch leaves and they've got a lovely golden colour i haven't yet decided whether they're going to stay or not they might look a bit of a distraction but if i remove them i might end up with just a dark hole beneath the leaves and that again might just spoil the shot the difficulty i'm going to have is getting the tripod high enough above the scene to be able to to be able to shoot down it i've got a 120mm macro and of course um in order to get enough of the frame in i'm probably going to be quite high getting the tripod up there is not going to be too difficult but me seeing through the through the viewfinder may be a problem the articulator screen might help but i'll get the camera out now and give it a go so i finally got the camera into position after much wrestling and the crucial thing on this occasion was to get the sensor plane parallel to the timber um at the bottom so that i don't have to worry too much about depth of field so i've still taken the image at f16 because it's a nice sweet spot for this camera and it also does maximize the depth of field so i don't have to worry at all on this occasion there's not a lot of front to back sharpness to worry about i think from the top of the sorrel to the timber is probably only about two centimeters something like that so i've got the case polarizer on because i felt that that helped to enrich the colours in the timber and also enhance the greens which is it's looking really quite nice for this particular shot sometimes i think polarizers can just grow a little bit too over the top but i can always dial that back in post if i want to so let me get you over there and just show you the composition i've actually taken steady actually taken the shot already and i've taken it with the um the birch leaves and also without so as it stands now the image has got no birch leaves in it and i can't put them back so i made sure i got the shot and beforehand was happy with the composition so let me just put that on live view two seconds so you can see that just focus in come on so there is the image on live viewers i've got it now now the the crucial thing for the composition i felt was the diagonal line of the timber i wanted that to run from left to right across the frame and because of that diagonal composition i've placed the little hole with this with the sorrell in off to one side so that you've got a nice rule of thirds and that diagonal line so it's a nice strong composition and it's just aided by the mosses creeping in or the top left and the top right so you've got lots going on and it's a composition that holds really together nicely i've left all the seedlings in because i actually think they add to it on this occasion so i'll put that on now and i'll put that on one with the um with the birch leaves on first followed by the burke sleeves having been removed afterwards [Music] [Music] [Music] so i think i'm going to leave it there two images in the bag at the worst possible time of year with no fog no mist no sunrise or sunset in dull flat overcast light let me know in the comments comments below what you thought of today's images and also if you enjoyed the film please give it a thumbs up as always please don't forget to subscribe and ring the bell for notifications now if you really want to support the channel please consider pressing the join button you've got two options available to you you've got you've got patreon and you've also got youtube members both of those start around about one pound a month and for that you get access to early bird videos and you also get membership into the facebook group now that enables you to post images get critique and feedback from other members including myself and there's also other bits of interesting information as well that gets posted so until next time as always thank you all so much for watching i will see you in the next one bye for now [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Simon Booth

Views: 39,040

Rating: 4.9829912 out of 5

Keywords: Learn to love summer photography, learn photography, how to shoot summer, summer photography ideas, summer photography tips, nature photography in summer, macro photography in summer, plant photography, medium format photography, love photography, mindful nature photography, expressive nature photography, simon booth photography, woodland photography, Woodland macro, woodland photography UK, How to shoot woodland, woodland in summer, Lighting in woodland, Easy photography

Id: nEYeZqcrR1Q

Length: 17min 44sec (1064 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021