Lesson Info
5. Understand & Work with Twilight/Blue Hour
Lessons
Class Introduction
05:46 2Understand & Work with Sidelight
09:22 3Understand & Work with Backlight
11:14 4Understand & Work with Diffused Light
12:37 5Understand & Work with Twilight/Blue Hour
08:21 6Understand & Work with Cloudy, Stormy, and Blah Light
15:25 7How to Best Shoot into the Sun
06:38 8Understand & Work with Front Light
05:23Lesson Info
Understand & Work with Twilight/Blue Hour
next one. This is another favorite of mine. And this is the twilight or the blue hour. In fact, that I say backlit was my favorite or died to say I really like it. I might have to say, this is my favorite. Um, I'm on the guy that is always left. I'm usually last from a photo shoot. I'm usually the last one. Like I will shoot every last bit of color that happens out there. Um and it pains me sometimes when about their shooting and sunset happens. And then you see people pack up their gear and they leave because to me, this is this is the magical time. Um, this is when the clouds get colorful. There's a lot of blues. There's a lot of pastels that this is This is probably my favorite time to shoot. So what works beaches. All right, think of this next. Anybody live near beach now you guys live in Seattle. That's right. So you guys don't live beaches, which I live in Tampa, Florida. So there it's like they're all over the place. But beaches are great for this. I generally, if sunset is at ...
15 I generally won't won't roll up until eight o'clock 805 because I'm really not going to start shooting until after 8 15 and really mawr toward a 25 8 So beaches, water, even trees, mountains, you know what's, ah, cities. That's another great one. I've got an example for you on that one, but mountains is a neat one. So have you guys ever heard of Alpine glow? So I have to tell the story because it's gonna make me look down, so I should always tell stories that make me look down. But there is this phenomenon called album Glow. I hope I'm telling the story like but ah, friend of mine had talked about. He's like, Oh, yeah, we're gonna hang around and see if we get some of that nice album glow on the mountain. And I thought he was saying Alpine glow because it's a snow covered mountain. I thought that's just the way that he said Alpine was helping. And, uh and so we said, Yeah, and so I hear this term album glow throughout the years, and I'm like, Oh, that's cool, you know? And so finally, one day I just I heard somebody else say album glow. And so finally I looked up Alpine glow and then I can Google came up with Alban Glow, so it's actually named after a person. The person's last name was Alban Glow, which is weird because it looks like a glow on the mountain. But after the sun goes down, there's reflective light that hits the mountains, and it gives them a glow and especially snowcapped mountains. They get a glow to them, so and this happens after the sun goes down. So the glow you see is not actually direct sunlight on it. But it's after, and I just I never knew that. So So it's actually a person album blow for you A l p E N g l o how you spell it. So just a random, random little tidbit. But that's why I keep shooting after the sun goes down. So some examples here. Beaches. I love shooting beaches after the sun goes and I told you, I I'm barely even taking my camera out when the sun is still up. Um, you know anything with textures? You look at that nice blue magenta sheen that things tend to get Um, yeah, this was Remember we saw Dunes pictures earlier where the sun was up. So this is This is quite a while after the sun's gone down. You know those those sand. The sand almost looks like waves. It's a whole different look. It's got color. If I crossed that in, it would actually look like waves in the ocean. Water Mountains, Great times. This is pre sunrise, so you get a lot of the pastels. It's not a bright, bright orange. It's not bright. Bright blues in this guy. Get a lot of the pastels, and I just I love the colors that we get from it. Photo tip for Shooting Twilight's Twilight is a perfect time to shoot cities, so if you're traveling somewhere and you want to take a cool little city shot from it, twilight is a great time to do that because what you get are the lights and you get some color in the sky. If you wait too long, then all that color and the sky goes away. If you do it too early, you don't see the lights on in the buildings, so I want to see the lights on the buildings. Me, That's that's just what gets me about a city skyline. So I want to see the lights on in the buildings and get a little bit of color in the sky. That's a great time to do. It is yeah, 20 minutes or so before sunrise, or 20 minutes or so after sunrise. Twilight reflected light. This is also need time to light reflects. So you can see here you can kind of see it's reflecting off of the clouds and and you get some of that nice, that nice, warm glow if you look at this shot the son has already set. But you still get a feeling for all the depth and the texture through all the rocks in the mountains behind it. Same thing that that's the sun still up. But there's a lot of reflective light that's going on. It's just about to say there's a lot of reflective like going on there, So how do I capture this? This one is pretty simple. I'll usually just under expose a little bit, right under exposed a little bit for color saturation were not necessarily were, um, out there at the beach or wherever happens to be. I'm not necessarily worried about the water. I'm not worried about too much other things. I want to get color. That's that's the most interesting part about this type of light. Twilight Blue our. That's why you're there's for color. Okay, so if you under expose a little bit that color comes out so kind of going back, it's all about the light is all about the light. In this case, it's almost about the lack of way. Okay, the darker it is, the more colorful things to appear, And to me, that's the key for your twilight photos and then post processing on this one, you're usually gonna have to cause you under exposed a little bit. You're usually gonna have to tweak the shadows because you will want to bring out a little bit of detail. And then this one is This one is fair game on white balance. You know, it's like you can have fun with this. You can really create some nice color. So here's an example. And I think the first thing I'll do is probably bring my exposure and my highlights down. Just trying to tone down that sky a little bit and then we'll open up the shadows. I'm not gonna open him way up because I don't want I'm okay with a little bit of a silhouette just to bring out a little bit more detail. Option are all click on whites, get a little speck back there, optional click on blacks, All right. And then come up here to the white balance. So for me, it was really We were starting to get very blue, and there was some magenta back there. Okay? Maybe even toned down on the exposure a little bit. There's almost a natural vignette that's happening to I can open up those shadows a little bit. Clarity is going to just give you some contrast, especially up here. And you can even tweak the saturation a little bit. I don't even need to add a vignette because it almost has a natural vignette on the photo here. But we can really we can enhance the color in a photo like this. I'll show you that. That was before that was after, All right. And you know, that's how I remember the scene. I remember the color your cameras don't see it that way, but I remember the scene I remember colors that way on, then the other thing is, is you can go, Yeah, it's a different photo if you go warm with it too. All right for after. I kind of like the cool version, but this is this is total fair game on white balance. You have a lot of a lot of creativity on a lot of play with their white balance settings on something like this.
Ratings and Reviews
Trisha Davis
A lot of helpful tips and tricks to get the shot you need, even if you arent in the perfect location at the perfect time. There is beauty everywhere, you dont always have to travel to find it. Overall I enjoy Matt's classes because he stays on topic and speaks clearly.
Joann
Excellent class. I especially appreciated the specifics of what types of subjects work best in each light, as well as the Lightroom tweaks that work best with each. This is a very helpful guide.
Andrew
Short, sweet and to the point. Packed with useful information on which subjects work best in each type of light, how to capture them in camera, and how to post process to get the best end result. Recommended!