Photography Technique - Capturing Autumn Light

By Author: Adam Coupe
Total Articles: 18
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Capturing Autumn Light

Use the great light at this time of year to shoot more than just scenics, including eyecatching architecture, early morning spiders webs, vivid rainbows and perfect silhouettes.
As well as the chasing the changing light to make the most of dramatic landscapes there are plenty of other subjects that benefit from being photographed during the shift from late summer to early autumn. It's also a pleasure to be out and about with your camera at this time of year - the relatively mild temperatures meaning that touching cold cameras and tripods isn't as painful as it'll be in a few months time!

Shots of buildings which feature the sky work well. The blank blue skies of summer are giving way to more interesting cloud formations, which add interest to reflections in windows. Use a telephoto lens to zoom in on interesting abstract patterns or look for a building with unusual architecture, get in close with a wide-angle and use its distorting effects to accentuate a dramatic view. Be ruthless in cropping out any elements that don't add to the overall impact.
Head out in storms ...
... and frame a building bathed in golden light at the end of the day against a background of brooding clouds - windows blaze and architecture comes alive. Stay out when everyone has gone home to capture the afterglow as well.

Early Morning Spider Webs
Early morning dew drops bring webs alive with light and colour. To take the best pictures, find a web which you can shoot against a distant, clean background with a 100mm lens or longer. Position the camera so the web is parallel with the sensor and use an aperture of f/16 or smaller. This will lead to slower shutter speeds - you'll need to choose a still morning and time your shots in between breezes.

Vivid Rainbows
It'll rain this month - lots probably! When the weather conditions combine rain and strong storm light, look out for rainbows to shoot. Position yourself with the sunlight coming over your shoulder. The strongest rainbow effects occur when the sun's at a low angle towards the start or end of the day and when you can frame the rainbow against a bank of dark clouds. A polariser can help strengthen the effect further.

Gear Tip
A circular polarising filter is a great accessory for reducing reflections and giving blue skies and clouds an extra contrast kick. They can cause uneven darkening with extra wide angles and clear, blue skies though, so look through the viewfinder as you twist them to adjust the strength of the polarising effect.

Perfect Silhouettes
This is the time of year to head out and shoot silhouettes. Sunsets occur earlier at this time of year and the skies take on more vivid hues than in summer. Look for clean shapes and be aware of subjects blocking each other. Be careful when metering the scene if you include the sun in it (spot meter off a bright area of sky without the sun in the frame, lock the exposure and recompose).

Mellow Sunsets
Sunrises and sunsets in these conditions can provide colourful and dramatic images as light strikes from between the gaps on the undersides of the clouds, turning them bright red or orange. Fast moving clouds recorded with long shutter speed to blur the movement, often look impressive. However, wind can also be a disadvantage. To make sure your shots are sharp where they need to be when shooting with the camera on a tripod, extend the thicker leg sections first as these provide more rigidity than the thinner ones, and don't be tempted to use the centre column as this is the least stable part of the tripod. If you can, position yourself and the tripod in a sheltered location out of the wind.
Adam Coupe is pro commercial photographer specialising in commercial photography and architectural photography for a wide range of organisations that need to project their products, people or brand in a vibrant way see http://www.adamcoupe.com