Chasing Fall Evening Light

Fall evening light can be both soft and harsh at the same time...

Nov 23, 2024

Hey everyone 👋

Welcome to this week’s ShutterCraft 101 newsletter.

Recently Published on Louisiana Wandering

I have a backlog of content to create, write, and publish for the Louisiana Wandering website.

So I am not running out of ideas anytime soon. I just published, Exploring Arcadia, Louisiana: Small-Town Textures In Color, this week and I hope you check out!.

Let me know what you think. Thank you!

Fall evening light

I'm no botanist by any means. And some of these plants or weeds may be considered “trash”. But, that is not the point of them being my subject(s). The mid-November fall evening light in north Louisiana can be very soft between 3:45 PM and 4:30 PM. Especially, as the sun sets and the sunlight filters through the trees at an acute angle.

Over the last several days, I’ve been observing how the light falls on certain flowers, stalks, stems, and other plants around my yard.

Old injuries renewed - more challenges

I have an old shoulder injury (that required surgery almost 20 years ago) that has been aggravating me lately. Coupled with a lot of time spent taking images in portrait mode, where the camera is in a more traditional, vertical orientation, it has left it very sore.

Therefore, I’m being more intentional these days when shooting in portrait mode by reversing the camera’s direction, holding it with the shutter button facing downward.

While I’ve seen videos of other photographers doing the same, it definitely takes some getting used to. Not to mention, that some of these pictures were taken with shutter speeds of 1/40s or less - something I normally try to avoid.

So the fact they turned out in focus and not (too) blurry, is a win in my book. Fortunately, with still subjects (except for the occasional breeze), I wasn’t adjusting the settings too much.

However, I am going to put in more time and practice because I can see where shooting portraits with someone will be much more challenging since camera settings are adjusted frequently.

Sometimes, consistency is boring

I usually strive for a consistent look across a spread of images. But this time, I forwent any ‘conventional wisdom’ and experimented with several different settings both in-camera and in the post-processing editing.

Recently, I have been sticking to a Canon Rebel T6s and a Sigma EX 17-50mm f/2.8 OS HSM DC lens setup, which is a killer combination! For all of the Louisiana Wandering content and projects, I do want an overall consistent feel and look.

But, I can’t leave my Nikon Z50 out of the mix too long (No one puts Baby in the corner). It is a fabulous little beast of a camera and when paired with an FTZ-adapted Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.8G lens, oh man does it take some crispy pics! I’m planning to use it for more personal work as time goes on. And it is my go-to for portraits.

For the in-camera color profiles, I alternated between a mix of Monochrome, Landscape, and a homegrown Weekend Negative recipe (I wrote about this particular color profile here once I discovered it and started using it if you are interested).

My editing process leaves a lot to be desired as I generally use Lightroom mobile (free) presets (or the Snapseed App occasionally) with some minor additional tweaks and adjustments.

Editing is my weak game and requires a ton of work. Work I still need to put in.

With all that said and out of the way, I hope you enjoy these images and let me know which (if any) are your favorites.

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