Photographic Techniques

Photographic Techniques

by William Lulow

I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about the photographic technique of being in the same spot long enough to witness different kinds of lightings that occur there. It’s one of the advantages of staying put. When you are just touring, you don’t have this same kind of chance, so you have to make your photographs under whatever lighting conditions exist at that time.

We normally go down to Longboat Key, Florida at this time of year, so I have been able to make different looking images of the same spots under different conditions. Here is one:

This one was made a few years ago. Here is another one made this year (2022):

I was taken by the clouds in both instances and the second one was made from a different angle, but the spot is almost the same.

I have said many times that it is really a treat to stay in one place long enough to observe and photograph the same things at different times of day and under different lighting conditions. This is what gives images their real power to convey moods. It’s really all about the lighting.

Both these images were shot in original Black&White. The top one was worked on a bit, but the bottom one didn’t need much work at all. Both were made under conditions favorable for cloud formations. One was shot around noon and the other around four o’clock in the afternoon.

Here is the same scene, from the same place with morning light and no clouds. Look at the difference:

As I was walking around this spot, I found another scene that said “storm” as well as “not beach weather”:

Normally, these lounges, chairs and umbrellas are all set up on the beach for people to use.

Sometimes, when you are at any specific location, ideas can occur and the opportunities for making interesting images just abound. These pictures were made with the camera on a tripod and fitted with a combination of filters. This is the rig I use:

These are Cokin filters, made in France, and my cameras use the “P” series filters which are roughly 4″x4″. The red filter (25A) is for original B&W images. Getting the same kinds of effects above in monochrome mode is really not possible with digital conversions, although they can get close with a bit of modification in Photoshop. The other filters I have shown before. They are gradient, neutral density filters which tend to darken and add more contrast to the sky while leaving the foreground as is. In the above photo you can see that I have used two filters together (as you can see from the illustration). One is an ND#8 filter (four stops) and the other was an ND#6 filter which is roughly two stops. So, when you are using your in-camera light meter, it should automatically take into account the filter factors. The only thing you need to be aware of is making sure that your lens is shaded if you are using any kind of back lighting. These filters serve to enhance your images but they often add some contrast which might need to be reduced with post-production. Shooting with these filters requires an adapter ring for each filter size of the lenses you use, a filter holder and, of course, the filters themselves. I have several different filters which can be used together or separately.

Here’s the same scene on a bright, sunny day, this time shot with my iPhone 13Pro using the FOCOS app so that I could have more control of exposure and focus. No filtration was used and nothing was done in post-production.

Filtration is a great way to emphasize certain tones in images that otherwise would just be flat with little contrast. Using filters is also harder with camera phones, although not impossible. You can tap the “filters” icon, which on my iPhone 13Pro is represented by a small “squares” button, but it only lets you change how the photo will look in terms of “rich contrast”, “vibrant”, “warm”, or “cool.”

Remember, on an iPhone or any other camera phone all the filtration or any other changes, for that matter, have to be accomplished digitally instead of manually. It leaves the photographer no other choice but to alter the image digitally in post-production as well, in order to improve things like contrast or tonal range. I still prefer the manual way.