Lessons

Lesson Info

Compositions In The Field

(faintly speaking) (soothing music) So we're making our way up to Mount Cheam. It's in the clouds right now. It's been in and out, typically in this kind of light, it's really flat and dull. I'm probably not shooting too much. The goal was to get up to the summit to take some photos up there. So right now we're just on a mad dash of scramble up there. In the meantime, just taking it in, but with the camera away. (soothing music) All right, so we were racing up because we have a short window of time till the sunset and you can also see that there's that cloud layer here and then there's a gap. And then on the horizon, is where the sun's obviously gonna set but there's not too many clouds, which is perfect. That's what we're looking for. If there was a bunch of clouds right along the horizon then we're gonna get a really faded sunset. We're not gonna get that full glow. So conditions are looking really good. When we first got here, it was all clouded in. We can see the summit now, the ...

clouds are moving fast, which means it's gonna be pretty windy up there. Thankfully we brought extra gear and layers. So right now I'm just kind of like, looking at what the light's doing, trying to kind of scout compositions in my mind. I know I want some layers and stuff like that which is showing, but a lot of the peaks are in the clouds. So that's something you need to kind of consider. It's not getting that full effect of, you know what you would on a blue bird, clear sky. So right now I'm just taking it in, enjoying it, taking a quick breath before we get up there. And probably gonna do a bit of a wardrobe change, it's gonna be pretty chilly up there. So gonna race up and get into the clouds, and see what we can come up with. (soothing music) (camera shooting) Just kinda shooting a bit. It's kind of dramatic right now, with this light in the cloud against the mountain. So just kind of shooting, some scenes. It's nothing that I'm too stoked on but it's nice to have some stuff to work with. And I think it's still a nice, beautiful scene. So capturing as much as we can. (soothing music) So I found a composition on the way up that I really like. There's a bunch of wildflowers here, and there's a bunch of layers in the distance with some nice clouds. The only issue with this shot is I kind of want to try a blend So I put it on a tripod to play around with that but I also brought this grad filter. So I'm gonna try and use that as well to see if I can have a more exposed foreground while not blowing up the highlights with it. So, t's already working really well. Right now I have my focus on the mountains and then that way I have a nice depth of field at f4. So these are gonna be a bit blurred out, but you still notice what they are, but it's gonna show that distant ranges in all the layers in between. (soothing music) So right now I have an ISO 400, an f-stop at f and I'm at 1250th of a second. And I'm gonna use this to make sure I'm not blowing out my highlights and keeping all those layers, and then using. (high pitch alarm) Don't need that drive on. That was from an earlier shot. (soothing music) And that's looking really nice. So I'll show you what settings I have without this, and then with this. (soothing music) Boom, and you can see that difference and, it. You can move it down and it's gonna affect where it is, so I just want it on the highlights, the clouds. And, there we go. All right, so conditions are just constantly changing. The clouds are getting pushed away, where you can hear my breath moving fast, but it's cold. It's like, mid-July we got (indistinct) on. We're gonna put another jacket on, but so beautiful. Just like filled with joy of just seeing this, hadn't been in the Alpine in way too long. So just like feeling the motion, trying to convey in photograph what I'm experiencing right now and what I'm seeing. So mindset right now is just taking it all in, seeing what's going on in my surroundings, and how I want to capture it. So right now there's a lot of movement. So I'm gonna want to fast shutter speed. It's a bit of a rainbow happening in the cloud. It's kind of cool, so see what it looks like. See if I can pick it up. Polarizers tend to hide rainbows sometimes, if you have it on the wrong way. Something to keep in mind. Look at this cloud. I don't know if you're picking up on camera, but this is insane. (camera shooting) (soothing music) Wow. Well, the weather report is kind of correct, said that we was supposed to clear up. It's just mayhem right now, changing light conditions constantly. So we've gotta roll with the punches. Yeah, as soon as we get up here it's gonna just be wind blasting. I'll try and make sure that you can hear me as best as possible, but we're gonna get up there and just start kind of shooting, and see what we can come up with. So let's get motoring, best time to be up here shooting right now is golden hour, sunset, and blue hour. It's a lot of waiting, and just kind of constantly seeing what conditions speak to you and what you want to convey. So I think right now it's nice light but I want to get that more moody light to show the drama. So it's gonna be a bit later in the evening that we capture that. So let's keep moving and get up there and find some shelter. (faintly speaking) (cheerful music) (music drowns out speaker) One of the reasons why I wanted to come to Mount Cheam while doing this workshop is, some of my favorite photos I've ever taken were up here. We'll show some of these on this clip, but it just goes to show it's a numbers game. It's just constantly getting outside. And the more you get outside, the more you're going out to these locations, the more chances you're gonna get of having those incredible really like sought after photography conditions. So it just goes to show like, look at the difference between here versus some of these images, and you'll get a sense of why, you know you're constantly out always chasing and that's just how it is a landscape photography. You're always chasing. You're always just pushing to get out and shoot as much as you can, because the more you're out there, the more, you know you're getting put yourself in the, the right light to get the opportunities to shoot incredible conditions. Let's go, oh, wow! Oh my God! Holy, okay let's keep this PG rated. Holy crap. Holy heck and heck. Okay, so what I'm seeing right now is scale. I want Joel on this rock and silhouette him against this just to show that scale of this big landscape, he'll be silhouetted against us this cloud. We'll frame him nicely to separate him from the rest of the scene. So let's talk about scale and how you can utilize it for your landscape photography, and really bring out a subject. Because sometimes you need a person in the image to really show how big it is, how fast it is and to really put yourself there. So, Joel, we're gonna get you, look at this scene. Like these ravens are flying, the sun. This is, we didn't think we were gonna get anything when we camped here, it was. I was trying to stay optimistic, but this is exactly what we wanted. So Joel's gonna go down there and I'm gonna start setting up for the shot. You want me to put on something bright for your photograph? Let's do that. Let's maybe, you have a red jacket, so. Yeah. Ideally you want some something to pop. Reds, blues, yellows or anything like that. For this I'm gonna silhouette you, but there might be somewhere I don't. So put on the red jacket just to make you stand out a little bit more, just be safe. Sounds good. (faintly speaking) Cool. So once again, I only have this on here to show you what my screen is recording. I wouldn't normally have this with me, so it's a lot of running gun. Those big wispy clouds went away but they're starting to come back again. So we're gonna have Joel, Joel's gonna run up. Let's go. So we're gonna shoot some scale. Right now I have a 24 to 70 mill lens on, I have my filter adapter for the soft grad. It's a 0.9 just to kind of help with that bright sky. So we'll play around with it. So right now what you're seeing, the sky's a little bit blown out. So I'm gonna push it down a little bit, just to darken it. I want a bit of depth of field. And so what I wanna focus on here is having Joel, his whole body silhouetted against the river. Cause if I have him over here, you can't see him. So I'm utilizing the river to keep him noticeable and in the frame. So let's take a couple shots, play around, shoot a little wide. (camera shooting) So Joel, I'm just gonna have you kind of walk up again, so I can get more of that natural kind of moment. You know? Sometimes it's just you're setting it up, and just to capture that moment. So we're just gonna have him going right back up. From there is good. Oh, the moon. Wow! Okay, okay. So we're gonna capture him kind of going up naturally. Go for it. (camera shooting) Okay, and then walk back the other way. (camera shooting) One more time. One more time, yeah. Okay, no, sorry. Going up, like walking back and forth there. Okay, go. (camera shooting) Okay, so we still kind of highlighted. So I might try and find a bit of a higher ground. Actually, I'm not gonna shoot into the sun. So I was shooting backlit, which is harder, because you're trying to balance the sun's exposure and everything else. So I'm gonna try and go for a bit of a sidelit frame, and don't have to worry about him being a silhouette and having to, you know, have him in the frame like that. So as you can see now, he's a bit more highlighted. I'm gonna push the grad filter down, just to kind of take out some of the brightly exposed sky. And then come over a little bit more. Okay. You wanna just continue to walk a little bit? Yeah. (camera shooting) Sweet. I really like how the water, the Fraser river is kind of leading out that way. He's kind of looking into it. So you're kind of bringing both together. And he's not straight on. So let's see what else we can play around with here. So this, with him, you can see just creates a lot more sense of scale of how big this landscape is. It's massive. You can see all the way to the ocean. You get all the mountains. Mount baker is starting to come out. This is like, I honestly didn't know what we were gonna get and this is better than what I thought. So we're just, how do you feel right now? (wind drowns out speaker) (camera shooting) Right on. So we'll maybe wait till this gets a little bit less harsh, and we can try again with that, but this is a lesson scale of just where to place your subject. You wanna make sure you isolate them from any distracting elements. I'll show it again. Where I had him in the river and the islands. You couldn't really make him out, but here he is isolated. (camera shooting) And that f4 depth of field, it gives us a lot of depth of field, the lost shallow depth the field. So it shows him against the river. So let's get you walking again towards the river. So from left to right. (camera shooting) Right on. And so my, right now I have daylight. I kind of like cloudy. It's a bit warmer. So let's play around with that. Okay, one more time. (camera shooting) So we gotta watch out that we don't overexpose our highlights. So we'll aim for that because, generally you wanna shoot for your highlights. So I know I'll probably talk a lot on this workshop about it. Always expose for your highlights. And then it's easier to bring those. You can't really recover those in lightroom but you can recover the shadows. We're getting some wispy clouds coming back here. So that original shot that we want to get we can probably get now. So Joel, same thing when I tell, when I let you know just walk over again from left to right. (wind drowns out speaker) Yeah. (faintly speaking) So go onto the left side. Okay, so we're just patiently waiting. Getting a bit of a lens flare. I should probably clean this real quick. (indistinct) Not the best thing but I'm just gonna, utilizing what I have. Here we're getting our shot. We got our scale. Joel's gonna walk out. Okay. So I'm shooting this on a drive, of high speed continuous, cause I'm gonna be bursting a ton of shots at once, making sure my focus is on him, exposing for those highlights. I can bring him out later. Okay, start walking. (camera shooting) One more time quick. Back to the other way. (camera shooting) And then I'm gonna play with, around with a little bit of foreground. Okay. No. (camera shooting) These flowers are nice and backlit. So it's just adding a bit more texture. Just having those in that bottom frame. Okay, go. (camera shooting) Okay, one more time. And then we're gonna wrap this. One second. (camera shooting) Okay. (camera shooting) Sweet. All right. So that's just one lesson scale you can play around. We'll probably choose some other stuff with them but, right now I kind of want to focus on just some of the landscape here and just getting, switching my lenses and playing around with it. So yeah. Yeah. I can scramble the far right through if you want. Are just extraordinary. It's insane. The moon looks so cool, dude. Hmm. (laughing) Alright. Let's head up to the summit, and we will play around some different lenses and see what kind of different shots we can get. Let's see how many unique angles and compositions we can get in the short time period. Cause we're about to lose the sun behind that cloud. So let's be quick. All right. Yep. Joel, first time on Cheam, how are you feeling? First time on Cheam. My opinion of the lower mainland of British Columbia. That's forever changed. I'm stoked. This is amazing. This is what's all about for landscape photography for me is just being out here with your friends, or solo, whatever it is. Just that pure, innocent joy and excitement that you get when you're in the mountains, in the forest, wherever you are, just that feeling is, and like I'm so glad we were able to get it for this workshop. It could have been a bust. There's a lot of planning, and time, and effort that goes into these things. So we got lucky. Yeah. So right now I have a telephoto lens on 7200, typically not the most sought after lens for landscape photography. But it's personally one of my favorites. I like minimal scenes, and this is a really good job of shooting minimal scenes in a lot of detail and closeups. So unfortunately there was a band of clouds on the horizon that we kind of lost our sunlight a little early, but that's just the nature of the beast sometimes. So right now I'm just kind of trying to capture some nice soft cloud details. The moon is out playing around with that. Mount baker you can see the, where did it go? The peak is just out a little bit. So just playing around, exploring. This is a really nice light for mood, soft images, things like that. So we're able to kind of capture that feeling but I mean those scale images that we shot earlier, I think those are the most standout images so far. And now it's just kinda some complimentary images from this landscape. Settings I'm using right now. I don't have a polarizer on because it does have a bit of a neutral density to it where it'll block out a lot of light. And right now it's low light. So I don't want to have that on because, I don't want to have to have my ISO too high. Once again, it's not a bad thing to have a high ISO, but you want to avoid it if you can. All right. We're on the summit. Mount Cheam. Always a pleasure to be out in places like this, and to be able to teach and share my insight to photography is just an absolute pleasure and grateful to be here. So let's see what we can come up with. I just, I really like the scene with the mountains kind of shuttling cloud. We're about to be shredded in cloud in a second. It's probably have to wait for that to pass over, because it's just gonna create a a really soft film in between the layers and in our photo. So right now maybe we'll put the camera down for a little bit. Take it in while this is all moving, and really think about what I wanna capture. Just trying to be as intentional as possible. So I'm not just firing away like a madman. I really want to be clear, and think about what I want to shoot. All right. So I'm gonna shoot a panorama. Hopefully these clouds phased, calm down a little bit. So basically what I want to do, is I'm gonna shoot multiple frames, all with a little bit of the last one in it. And then I'm gonna stitch it together in lightroom. So I want to capture this whole scene. Ideally, I'm gonna want the moon centered. The cloud might pose a little bit of an issue. So we'll take a few shots and play around with it. Yes. So we're gonna go one. We got the moon in the top corner there. Moon in the top other corner, left corner, two. Now we're gonna go up a little bit, make sure we get our focus. Boom. Then we're gonna go up again. Boom. So you can see, we have a little bit of each image in it, so that when we put this in lightroom and stitch it it'll know exactly where to pull from. Another thing we could do is a panel of this whole scene. So we can do, one. Two. Wait for that cloud, three. Four. So we have Baker in it and we have the moon and Mount Lady. What you've seen so far is just a little bit of everything. It's life in the field. It's constantly evolving. It's constantly changing. You have to just adapt to it and, and roll with the punches. So right now we're just rolling with the punches, and we'll see what we can get out of this. So I'll finish taking some more photos of the, of this scene, once it clears up. And then I'll show you how in the editing episode, how to stitch it together.