Two Very Different Pictures - One day.

This weekend I had the opportunity to go out and shoot some pictures, and when I got back to edit the pictures I realized a few very important points that I thought I would share with you guys in todays post. 

The two pictures below were taken on the same day and were probably even taken within or close to the same hour of the day. The pictures are edited to compliment the conditions that I had to work with, but as you can see they are very different pictures with very different styles. 

Point #1: 

Conditions during the day, and even during the hour, tend to change dramatically. If you're out shooting a landscape subject remember that even though these subjects may be "still subjects" they aren't actually static. Since clouds and the sun are always moving, the lighting on outdoor subjects tends to be very fluid. This means that while your out shooting, as happened to me in the case of the second picture, you might have to shoot the same thing several times in order to get the desired lighting.

Point #2: 

Remember that the area that you are photographing can produce many different styles and it's the photographer's job to properly convey their interpretation of the scene. The two pictures posted here were taken within a short walking distance from each other and convey very different ideas about the area.  Have an open mind when you start your shoot so that you don't try to convey a subject in a way that doesn't agree with it in the first place.

Point #3: 

When you get home point #2 still applies to the editing process - don't try to make the picture into something that it isn't. After all, the whole point of editing is to make what you have better, not to make what you have into something else. In these two photos I've embraced the mood they each conveyed. The lighting in the second picture permitted more saturation and a better vibrance while the first picture was a darker rain-cloud type of feel with not much blue sky. If I had tried to edit the first picture to convey the same thing the second does I would have found that there was nothing to work with that supports that particular mood - the sky would have turned out to be a weird blue-gray haze and the grass would have appeared yellow instead of the lush green as in the second. When you're editing, always think back on the scene and remember what the mood was and the style that you were wanting to "shoot" for and then make sure that you're not trying to make it something that it wasn't.

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Hopefully these few points will help you to enhance your outdoor photo ability. If you have anything you would like to add or share please don't hesitate to comment!