The one photography tip that changed everything

this video is sponsored by skillshare more about them later in the video [Music] if you've never been to my channel before the the main type of Photography that I create is landscape and something that I learned from pursuing landscape photography and honestly I still continue to learn and develop a deeper appreciation for is just how important light truly is and when I say light of course I'm talking about sunlight now I think everyone knows that in order to get good light well you typically have to shoot like around sunrise or around Sunset when the when the sun is lower in the sky and the light is more diffused it's softer and you know these are pretty basic things that I think everyone knows rather what I'm talking about here with light and and what I have learned about light through landscape photography is that I made the mistake early on when I first got started getting into landscape photography I made the mistake of prioritizing subjects and locations and particular Vantage points particular places to put my tripod over what it was that the light uh was doing basically see light as like a nice to have kind of a deal and I used to do the latter when I first started but what I learned to do instead of prioritizing a particular subject or having you know some pre-visualized idea of what it was that I wanted to do when I'm out looking for a photograph to pay attention to what the light is doing pay attention to where the sun is pay attention to the angle of the sunlight pay attention to what the sun is highlighting and then go there go to where the sun is actually Illuminating something and then work within that context and for me at least this has helped me I think create better images because I'm less focused on on um on subjects and more focused on just trying to create good images with whatever whatever nature is you know bringing my way you know that particular day when I'm out in a landscape like this or or a junkyard and in the woods and you know and there's like so many photographs around me that I could be creating so many things that I could be pursuing in order to narrow my options and in order to you know find something to work with I pay attention to where the sun is I look and see where the sun is what the angles of the sunlight is like and then looking for things in that context and that's exactly how I found this particular pickup truck here because it was facing uh the sun and it was at just the right angle and I could see that the light was going through the windshield and you know thought it might be something interesting and turned out to be exactly right this uh this hard beam of light that is just streaming through the windshield here at this like near perfect 45 degree angle it almost looks like someone's set up like a bright uh LED outside the car with a like a a snoot on it or something it beamed it through uh the windshield in order to create this dramatic hard light at this angle inside the car it feels dramatic and it adds a sense of drama to the image not simply because it's a hard light which stands in contrast against the more soft diffused light that you see elsewhere but also because of the shape of the light because the light is coming through at a diagonal and this is true for photography graphic design really anything else visual but anytime you have a diagonal a diagonal line in your shot it injects drama it injects uh tension and I think you know the the hole in the roof is also an important element for the shot because it also tells you that this is not just a car in a parking lot somewhere surprising because you don't expect to see uh you don't expect to see that so in case you're curious to know what this image looked like beforehand because this is the like the process version that you're looking at here uh here is the original raw file for my Canon R5 and then this is the processed version here so obviously um you know pretty big difference between the two I'm also going to share with you an alternate version of the image that is pretty much the exact same composition same subject same focal length um different aperture but uh it's it's also just a completely different image and because it's missing some of those components I was talking about earlier before we do that though I need to take a moment and tell you about the sponsor of this video skillshare if you enjoy YouTube like I do but sometimes wish that videos were longer and a bit more in-depth skillshare offers a wide variety of long-form online classes designed to help you create build and Thrive a skillshare class that resonated with me was Finding fulfillment using pivots to power your creative career from author Emma Gannon I went through a pivot of my own a few years ago after working professionally in design for many years because it felt like the right time to do so the right time to make a change I think gannon's class does a good job of defining what a creative pivot is what to expect how to prepare for one and what the pros and cons of doing so are and if you know making a career change isn't something you're interested in but you are interested in some creative coaching Ganon has other classes on skillshare as well that are worth checking out the first thousand people to use the link in the video description down below will get a free one month trial of skillshare okay so here is the alternate image I was talking about earlier and as you can see it looks um it looks very different but and yet very similar because same subject same composition I was literally standing in the exact same place same focal length same everything um but there are some obviously some key differences between the two and uh some really important reasons why the first image worked better and this one just did not starting with aperture this image on the right here used an aperture of f 2.8 in order to create a shallow depth of field and blur the foreground while this one over here the one on the left was shot at f8 now the reason I shot this at f8 is because what I oftentimes do when I have time I try to get sufficient coverage I try to shoot the image with a number of different settings uh just in case in case I get back later and look at it and think no that's not really working right I like this one better and by shooting at f8 it created you know more texture and detail throughout the frame like you're able to see more of the pine star on this leaf on the seat here and you know more texture and detail up here in the in the roof and you know around the edges and corners of the frame which can be a good thing especially in landscape photography but for a subject like this yeah not really so F 2.8 worked better I think but obviously one of the key differences here um was the light now you're able to see what this image would have looked like without uh any direct light at all and it was funny because this literally happened while I was standing there taking the image on the right Cloud just passed right in front of the Sun and usually that would be you know kind of a good thing right because you know you can see that the light became much softer much more diffused much more even inside and If This Were a landscape image well that would be a good thing like I would actually be thrilled that the the thing that a cloud passed in front of the Sun here it totally didn't work and here it just made the image look flat made the image look rather drab so um yeah I mean I think this is a really effective comparison I think this is a good illustration of that just highlights the importance of light you know not just you know the quality of light but also um you know the role that light is playing in your shot like are you creatively using light are you paying attention to what the light is doing are you following the light and and working with what it's giving you or are you kind of working against it are you you know not leaning into the light but kind of leaning away from it and just kind of hoping that that the light turns out I feel like once I started to make that change and once I started paying more attention to where the sun was and the angle of light and what it was that the light was hitting what it was that it was highlighting and going there and then finding a way to work with that that approach for me at least has helped and that that approach has helped I think me create uh images that I know I'm happier with I have so many images in my Lightroom catalog you know ones that I look at and I'm like wow this would be so much better if you know if the light was good and there's only so much dodging and burning you can do in order to you know kind of you know fake it and make it seem like there was good light but nothing beats just pure natural good light captured organically and uh and I feel like that was definitely the case here so if you're up for uh hanging out with me again I would uh check out this video right here because this is the video where I captured this image and other images as well from that day out in the junkyard lots of cool cars thank you for being here and please take a moment to give this video a thumbs up down below if you enjoyed it that's it for me everyone I'll see you next time

Channel: Todd Dominey

Views: 218,300

Keywords: landscape photography, photography, todd dominey, learn photography, photography tips, photography tutorial, photography tutorials, skillshare, photography tips and tricks, photography education, photography ideas, landscape photography tips

Id: -kNq1Y3KEy4

Length: 9min 8sec (548 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 19 2023