3 Tips to Help You Take Better Autumn Photos

I’ve recently returned from leading a photography workshop in the Alaska Range, south of my home in Fairbanks, Alaska. The trip was timed with the peak of fall colors. My students and I spent dozens of hours over the week, exploring the vibrant colors, and trying really hard to make the weird orange, red, and yellow landscape look the way we wanted it to in our autumn photos.

It occurred to me that autumn, photographically speaking, is weird. It throws our perception of colors through a loop. The world, normally a mix of blues and greens, suddenly shifts to crazy warm tones of yellow, orange, and red.

4 Tips to Help You Take Better Autumn Photos

To effectively photograph autumn colors, you need to refocus not just your camera, but also your brain. The standard compositional “rules” of landscape photography shift quite a bit during the fall. The background, which for much landscape work is the actual subject of the image (think big mountains) becomes the setting rather than the subject in the autumn. Our attention falls to the foreground, where the colors are exploding.

In this article, I’m going to cover three composition types for autumn: details, broad landscapes, and local landscapes. When mixed together, these three types of images will help you tell a compelling visual story of your autumn experience. #1 – The DetailsPhotographing details lies in the fuzzy gray area between macro and landscape photography. Sometimes it’s one or the other, sometimes it is a little bit of both. In general, however, I see photographing the details as another part of landscape work. These images tell a small, but important part of the story Mentally, details give us a starting point for seeing the way a landscape will come together, and they also play an important role in providing a sense of scale. The small bits of the scene are rarely captured in a big landscape photo, and yet they are a very important part of our experience in the field. The details too should be an important part of the story we are telling our audience. Lens choice Close-up work requires a lens capable of a relatively close focus, or a powerful telephoto. I’ve used big 500mm and 600mm for this kind of shot and I’ve used wide angles that have the ability to focus a few inches away from the lens.

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3 Tips to Help You Take Better Autumn Photos
A Post By: David Shaw

I’ve recently returned from leading a photography workshop in the Alaska Range, south of my home in Fairbanks, Alaska. The trip was timed with the peak of fall colors. My students and I spent dozens of hours over the week, exploring the vibrant colors, and trying really hard to make the weird orange, red, and yellow landscape look the way we wanted it to in our autumn photos.

It occurred to me that autumn, photographically speaking, is weird. It throws our perception of colors through a loop. The world, normally a mix of blues and greens, suddenly shifts to crazy warm tones of yellow, orange, and red.

4 Tips to Help You Take Better Autumn Photos

To effectively photograph autumn colors, you need to refocus not just your camera, but also your brain. The standard compositional “rules” of landscape photography shift quite a bit during the fall. The background, which for much landscape work is the actual subject of the image (think big mountains) becomes the setting rather than the subject in the autumn. Our attention falls to the foreground, where the colors are exploding.

In this article, I’m going to cover three composition types for autumn: details, broad landscapes, and local landscapes. When mixed together, these three types of images will help you tell a compelling visual story of your autumn experience.

#1 – The Details
4 Tips to Help You Take Better Autumn Photos

Photographing details lies in the fuzzy gray area between macro and landscape photography. Sometimes it’s one or the other, sometimes it is a little bit of both. In general, however, I see photographing the details as another part of landscape work. These images tell a small, but important part of the story.

Mentally, details give us a starting point for seeing the way a landscape will come together, and they also play an important role in providing a sense of scale. The small bits of the scene are rarely captured in a big landscape photo, and yet they are a very important part of our experience in the field. The details too should be an important part of the story we are telling our audience.

4 Tips to Help You Take Better Autumn Photos

Lens choice
Close-up work requires a lens capable of a relatively close focus, or a powerful telephoto. I’ve used big 500mm and 600mm for this kind of shot and I’ve used wide angles that have the ability to focus a few inches away from the lens. But most often I use a moderate telephoto with decent macro capabilities. Nothing fancy, just a good lens that lets me get close to the subject.

4 Tips to Help You Take Better Autumn Photos

Whichever you choose, these kinds of images rarely have a great deal of depth. Even photos from a low perspective only show a few inches from front to back. Therefore detail shots are usually about pattern and color. Here are a few things to look at as you compose:

Consider how the lines in the image interact. Do they cross distractingly or guide your eye around the frame in a pleasing way?
Which color dominates? In the autumn, colors like red can be overwhelming and often need to be balanced by cooler greens or blues.
Isolate your subject by cropping out extraneous details, or using a shallow depth of field.
Embrace the autumn colors, but don’t overwhelm your viewer with too much of the same thing. Good images usually show a variety of textures and colors.