On a trip to Wildwood and Cape May in New Jersey this past week, I photographed under various lighting conditions, but the photos that were my best work were the ones in this post. The first selection was taken during the infamous "Golden Hour" which is the hour-ish before sunset where colors are typically warmer and more saturated. The second set was all taken a few hours after sunset and are all long exposure photographs taken with a tripod. There is a stark contrast between the two, but both series have a focus on light and color.
With these images I tried to really bring out the saturated oranges and teals, complimentary colors that work well in color grading. They were already rather prevalent in the raw images, so when editing I went light on any color grading and just increased the saturation of the preexisting colors. The bokeh in several of the photos is one of my favorite parts of this series. Bokeh is a light/camera phenomenon that occurs when you use a wide aperture, typically f3.2 or lower. Shooting with a fast shutter speed and a wide open aperture under the right lighting conditions can capture these bokeh or little balls of light, making your photos feel dreamy and out of focus. I used this to my advantage during golden hour, adding to the hazy and dreamlike quality of the windchimes I was photographing as well as a few candid portraits of fellow Marywood photo major and blogger Antonia Summa (@antoniasummaphotography). I loved the softness of these images and the way they feel like summer.
Each of these images in this second set was taken at a longer shutter speed, ranging from 1/6 of a second to 1/3. For subjects in motion this allows the camera to capture the movement of the subject and compile it all into one photograph, and for the subjects with less movement but rather changes in light and color, it allows for a more gentle color gradient and a soft glow of the lights. I've always wanted to do long exposures of carnival or boardwalk rides and finally had an opportunity to do so. I highly recommend trying it out if you have a tripod and a few nearby rides. It's very easy to do if you know the basics of manual photography and even if you don't you can use the following settings as a cheat sheet!
Julie Potter's 'Shooting at Night' Cheat Sheet
- Shutter speed: 1/3 - 1/6 of a second
- Aperture: f8.0 - f10
- ISO: 200
Here's what those settings will look like if you shoot with a Canon camera. (All these images were taken with my Canon Rebel T6 with a 50mm prime lens)
The use of a prime lens allowed for me to shoot at a much wider aperture during the golden hour as prime lenses typically have much wider maximum apertures than zoom lenses. The widest a Canon EF 50mm lens can go is f1.8, which allows for lots of bokeh and a very soft photo and smaller depth of field.
This will be my last blog post with Where Creativity Works! I've loved my time writing for the blog and could not be more thankful. When I started writing I had just gotten my footing as a photo major and this blog has helped me not only document my progress but helped me get better at talking about my work. If you are an aspiring photographer or artist of any kind, take the time to write about your work! Show it off! People want to see it 😊 For anyone who read my entries over the last year and a half, thank you! I'll be passing the baton to the wonderful Antonia Summa and can't wait to see what she'll be writing about here!
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