Photography Technique - Capturing Late Summer Landscapes

By Author: Adam Coupe
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Photography Technique - Capturing Late Summer Landscapes

The days might be shortening, but you need to pick and choose your light carefully during the late summer.
Summer light can be incredibly harsh. By 6am - roughly two hours after sunrise - the colour temperature of the light has risen to 5500K and any warmth has gone. By about 9am the sun will have reached it's zenith, where it remains until at least 4pm. During this period the light is at its harshest and most intense. Shadows are short and black, and the landscape looks flat and featureless, skies are often lazy and contrast so high that it can be almost impossible to record a scene without either bleached-out highlights or blocked-up shadows.
But it's not all doom and gloom because such conditions can also work in your favour - you just need to find the right kind of subject matter. Colours tend to look good in harsh light, so look for landscape scenes that contain lots of colour, such as fields of poppies or ripening crops. Keep your compositions simple too and you maybe go for a more abstract approach - a single tree in the middle of a field, ...
... for instance.

Summer brings with it some great skies - deep blue with big, cotton wool clouds. So why not make a feature of them by tilting your camera up and including more sky than landscape, or finding a location where there's some calm water and using the vivid reflections to add interest?
Alternatively, look for subjects in partial shade. Sunlight penetrating the leafy canopy of woodland can create great images, providing contrast isn't too high. You can also look up and photograph backlit leaves against the sky - use a telezoom lens to home in on individual leaves, or use a wide angle to distort perspective so that all the tree trunks around you lean dramatically in your image.
Hot, humid weather often causes electrical storms, making summer a good time to shoot storm light. So, if you see the sky darkening, head for a suitable location where you can capture the drama of summer sunlight and a dark, leaden sky - just don't stray too far from cover in case the heavens open!

Shadows are an important part of landscape photographs. Early and late in the day, when the sun's low in the sky, long shadows slice across a scene, adding depth. Use them as lines to lead the eye into the scene, focus on the patterns created - by shadows across a tree-lined lane, say. Glancing light also helps to reveal texture and highlight modelling by casting shadows - subtle ripples on a beach look stunning when they're highlighted by raking light. But even when the sun's overhead you can get the same effect - take a close look at old buildings and see how the light glancing down emphasises the texture of stone.
You need to watch that your own shadow doesn't get in the way when the sun's low and to your back, but standing in the shadow of a tree or lamp post usually solves that one - though you could always include your own shadow as a kind of self portrait.

Where you place the sun is an important consideration for any landscape photographer, particularly when it's bright and sunny. It's usually best to avoid shooting towards the sun on bright, summer days. Cameras find it difficult to record such high-contrast scenes, tending to produce images with dark, underexposed foregrounds and overexposed, washed-out skies. This is ideal if you want to create, overexposed, washed-out skies. This is ideal if you want to create silhouette effects, but if you want summer landscapes with brilliant, blue skies and vibrant, balanced foregrounds, you're better off positioning the sun out of the frame to your side or behind you.

Do's and Don'ts: Harsh Lighting
Do use strong, overhead sunlight to create vibrant abstract images and to reveal texture.
Don't shoot portraits outdoors in direct summer sun - find open shade where the light is more diffuse.
Do keep your lenses and filters spotlessly clean so that the risk of flare is minimised - especially when shooting into the light.
Don't shoot landscapes in harsh summer light - they will appear flat and lifeless.
Do go to locations that include water and capture reflections in it.
Don't see harsh light as bad light - it's just different light and, when partnered with the right subject, can produce stunning results.
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 for the full architectural photography and commercial photography portfolio : http://www.adamcoupe.com
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