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8 minute read
PROJECTS IN VISUAL STYLE
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TECHNIQUE PROJECTS IN VISUAL ST YLE
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E A R LY M O R N I N G M O M EN TS
If you fancy seeing your surroundings in a brand new light, why not explore our latest time-sensitive assignment? Tim Daly gives you an early morning alarm call.
hotography, of course, is all about light: its atmospheric qualities and its ability to model and describe shape, form and texture. Yet, while
Pmany of us take advantage of favourable light, few of us explore the possibilities afforded by the soft light of early morning. For this assignment, we’re going to consider themes and techniques for shooting an alternative view of our surroundings, be it close to home or while away on vacation. Depending on your location and the time of the year, you’ll need to work out in advance when to set your morning alarm call. The official sunrise time is approximately 20 minutes before conditions are ready for shooting, as the sun at this moment is not yet fully above the horizon. For this project, we’re going to focus on the following two-hour time slot and respond to those short-lived moments created by the ascending sun.
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SECTION 1: RESOURCES AND SET TINGS TO CONSIDER
For our assignment we’re going to explore potential locations, topics and project ideas that you can adapt to your own situation. Remember, it’s not essential to carry lots of equipment with you, but at the beginning of your shoot, be prepared to use a tripod or a higher ISO than you’d expect, such as 800 or 1600.
1 FIRST IN TOWN
Do you have a job that starts early in the morning? Or do you work a shift pattern that makes you one of the first commuters at the train station? As the city wakes up, many workers have already been awake for hours ready for the morning rush hour. First light in the city can be spectacularly atmospheric, as Eugène Atget, the French photographer of surreal, empty street scenes discovered. If you’re travelling in each morning, see if you can shoot the busy bustle of the commute. In this example, I’ve used a worm’s eye view to shoot commuters crossing a river bridge during the half-light of a rainy, soulless morning.
2 SEA FOG
If you’re lucky enough to visit the seaside over the next month or so, keep an eye out for the wonderful sea fogs that shroud our coastal locations in unexpected mist. Caused by a combination of warm air, cold sea and an inward breeze, these ephemeral fogs are a familiar sight to many holidaymakers on staycation this year. Sea fogs hug a localised area of the coast from early morning onwards, but are usually gone by the hottest part of the day and sometimes a lot sooner. What’s terrific about sea fog is that it creates an entirely new scenario from a familiar location, covering and shading strong shapes and presenting beautiful gradients and tonal recession for you to explore with your lens. This image, shot in St. Ives, Cornwall, was captured during a 7am early morning paddle.
INSPIR ATIONAL QUOTE
‘Atget must have known that if he didn’t hurry, if he didn’t hit the streets before dawn, Old Paris and its ancient neighbourhood intimacies would be gone.’ – John Rosenthal
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3 DESERTED RETAIL PARK
For urban photographers, Sunday is a perfect time to shoot early morning, as you’ll not be troubled by traffic or other distractions until 9am. A good location to explore is your local retail park, quietly reflective in shutdown mode. Taking advantage of low-angle light raking in from the side and setting my shooting position to show the dynamic lettering at the corner of the building, I’ve captured a garden centre as it sits in the early morning sun. Using a mixture of Lightroom B&W filters, I’ve darkened the blue sky and tried to emphasise the kind of baking morning heat that you know is only going to get hotter.
4 ON YOUR WINDOWSILL
Wherever you live, you may have a particular window or doorway that receives wonderful, directional light during the early part of the day. Coming into your home at a low angle, early morning light will illuminate transparent or diaphanous materials and reveal textures you didn’t know existed. If you fancy working on an indoor project, consider placing different objects in the path of a known light event over a week and see what kind of images you can generate. Choose and style your props to take maximum advantage of the setting. In this example, I’ve used three sailing ship lamps to pick up the rays of early morning sunshine.
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5 SILHOUETTE PORTR AITS
A different way to approach dawn is to develop a project right inside your home. While the flat light of early morning shrouds everything outside, consider making silhouette portraits of your family against the light. This technique, sometimes referred to as contre-jour, can provide a fascinating and creative constraint. In essence, you’re contrasting light against shade, inside and out, while trying to capture a descriptive and characterful profile of your subject, as this example shows. 5 4
SECTION 2: COASTAL DAWN
If you’re planning a trip to the seaside, get there a bit earlier and take advantage of unusual and short-lived first light effects.
1 TONE REVERSAL
Within the first hour of usable daylight, you might spot an unusual light effect where the sky appears darker than the land. This weird tone reversal can make for some intriguing photographs, like this example shot at a deserted and empty seaside paddling pool. Light at this time of day can be super flat and low in contrast, lacking the emphasis of directional sun rays. However, it does provide you with a different palette of grey tones to explore. When editing your images, avoid increasing contrast (or setting pure black and white points) to preserve the muted, low dynamic range of the original scene.
2 ATMOSPHERIC GREYS
Of course, flat early morning light together with an overcast day can create the kind of visual setting for an evocative downbeat documentary project. Don’t despair at the prospect of poor weather, instead use it to your advantage by seeking out early morning visitors and solitary beach activity in an uncrowded setting. To further enhance a low-contrast palette of early morning light, consider using one of Lightroom’s new B&W conversion presets, found in the Basic panel. For this image, I’ve converted my original colour Jpeg using the B&W 10 profile, which knocks out whites, blacks and expands the greys to achieve a subtle low-contrast effect.
3 SILENCE OF EMPT Y PUBLIC PL ACES
An inspiring project idea is to document locations that are usually rammed full of visitors and day trippers, emphasising emptiness with a wider lens rather than homing in on close-cropped details. Caught in the first few minutes of sunrise and without any directional light whatsoever, this image has a weird, almost moonlit tonal range. Great too if you can also include artificial lights and any other signs of impending daybreak.
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SECTION 3: SECOND PHASE DIRECTIONAL SUNLIGHT
Light changes very quickly once the sun has fully risen above the horizon, so treat this as a further creative opportunity.
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1 LONG SHADOWS
Whether you live in a city or a rural area, the first half hour of full sunlight will create the longest shadows and show up the texture of pretty much anything that lies in its path, including oneself, as this example shows. If your early morning shoot coincides with a cloudfree day, you’ll experience the stunning light effects of low-level rays licking the top surface of your location. Find an east-facing space where light enters unimpeded and you’ll experience a wonderful light show. Work quickly, assuming you’ve got 20 minutes before the light changes position again.
2 BLEACHING EFFECT OF STRONG SUNLIGHT
Strong early morning sunlight will also provide a full-on barrier if you shoot directly into it, but you can use it creatively too. Like shooting without a lens hood or with a lens flare filter, but without the drawbacks – this example has been edited with a high-key, low-contrast style. Depending on your editing app, create this effect by increasing Shadows and decreasing Highlights until you end up with mostly bright greys. In Lightroom, I’ve also added a very slight split tone to add a hint of colour into the mix. Both overexposure and high key presets in Silver Efex will create a similar end result.
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3 ENHANCEMENT EDITING
Light at this time of day could present you with extreme contrasts, but you can call in some editing help by using a specialist plug-in such as Silver Efex. In this example, a burning highlight hole and deep shadows were a problem to edit using Lightroom, but Silver Efex’s Full Contrast and Structure Preset (number 024) enabled me to pull out details and textures that were otherwise tricky to isolate with a Lightroom mask. When editing lighting extremes, plug-ins and presets are a great way to preview potential treatments available from your file – there will always be something you can work with, together with some outcomes you never imagined were possible.
4 FINAL OUTCOME
For my project, I’ve spent a week shooting the light effects of the 5.30am sunrise, enhanced by editing barely visible light rays as they radiate across the morning landscape.
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