Hello everyone, Abi here! If you’ve ever looked at my work, you’ll know that a large part of it involves nature. Flowers, bees, butterflies, leaves, spiderwebs, anything I see out and about that inspires me. Mainly close-up, but the occasional wider scene or landscape.
I actually started learning photography so that I could take better photos of my children, however they quickly grew tired of me shoving a camera in their faces! I wanted to practice but they’d usually be long gone by the time I’d figured out what settings I needed and defnitely weren’t going to wait whilst I experimented with different settings and different angles. So I started shooting nature instead and found I really enjoyed it. Especially during the pandemic, I found it very theraputic to focus on something I could control; to stop, notice and appreciate all the intricate details in the beautiful world around us (or right on our doorstep when we couldn’t go anywhere!)
In this lesson I’m going to share with you some ways to make your nature photos more extraordinary.
3 ways to enchance your nature images
Use light
With nature, especially smaller, stationary subjects like flowers, it can be much easier to try the same shot over and over from various different positions, different angles and with different settings, maybe even different the same shot at different times of the day or year. This allows to you find the best light to most show off the textures, colours, shapes etc…
My personal favourite is backlight, which is much easier at this time of year with the sun lower in the sky for a longer period of the day, and much less intense than the full sun of the summer. I love to open up my shutter and let the pretty light flood in. By focussing on details in the foreground you can you then get a beautiful dreamy background and pretty rim light.
I thought it would be an interesting experiment to move myself around and try this shot the other way, with the light hittiing the flower. I’ve never thought to shoot this way before as I always assumed the fence would make a terrible background. I discovered, however, that I actually quite like the simple golden background it’s given (and it works well with the purple) so I need to listen to my own advice and try all the angles!
Everyone’s favourite golden hour falls earlier during autumn so is currently at a much more convenient time to get out and shoot. This type of light enchances your nature images just as it does in other genres, wiith the sun casting a gorgeous golden hue over your subject and it’s surroundings. Or use it for beautiful silhouettes, with a smaller aperture to capture the details in the sky as well as sharp outlines of your foreground, if you are treated to a stunning sunset.
You could also try side light, dappled light, ambient light, harsh light… all the lights, whichever you feel will add interest to your images and enhance the nature that you want to showcase.
Use colour
I’m always drawn to colour. If I walk into a garden, or the woods or anywhere really the first thing I’ll notice is the colours, probably even before the light. To use colour effectively in your images It help to refresh your knowledge of the colour wheel and which combinations work well together.
Mother nature actually helps a lot in this area. Analogous colours (ones next to each on the wheel) are often the easiest to spot amongst things like the yellows, oranges and reds of autumn, or pink and purple flowers together. Complementary colours (ones opposite on the wheel) can be found as reds (or browns) with greens – think acorns, holly leaves and red berries, a partially transformed leaf…, or as oranges with blues in pretty orange trees against a fresh blue sky, a purple flower with a yellow centre.
Other colour schemes, such as split complementary, triadic, and square (refer to the diagram above), are a little trickier because they involve more colours, but keep looking all around, look up and down, look at tiny details and at the scene as a whole, and you might notice something that works.
Using a tool such as Adobe color can help you identify your image’s colour palette and make slight adjustments to the colours in your editing such that they better fit one of the patterns.
Use your kids (or other people or yourself)
If you’ve been reading this thinking; yes, pretty light and co-ordinated colours are all very nice, but I shoot documentary or lifestyle, or even self portraits or pets, then awesome – get outside and incoporate nature into your images. Document your children collecting conkers, recording their findings on a clipboard, exploring sunflower fields, picking apples. Create beautiful self portraits amongst the flowers, dancing on the beach, watching the Northern Lights...
Use nature to add layers or framing. You could make nature the focus point of the story using crops or faceless images, or intentional blur. Put the focus on the colourful leaves your child has collected whilst they are blurred. Maybe you’re making an autumn or Christmas wreath – do a bird’s eye shot focussing on the foliage, including just your hands hard at work. There are endless possibilties.
People have written entire books on nature photography (or even more specialised ones delving just into macro, landscape etc…), so I’ve just pulled out a few things for this lesson, but I hope it’s given you some inspiration to capture some of our beautiful world this month and interpret the nature theme within your own style and genre. I can’t wait to see what beautiful images you create! Have fun and don't forget to share your work with us on Facebook and Instagram.
Abi xx
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