I want to announce my next workshop “Autumn in France” to be next October 2nd. It will be in Bordeaux, Dordogne, and Toulouse. If you go to the top of my blog and click on the link, you can read the description. Join me for a great visual experience, seeing places that few people won’t ever be able to.
One of my favorite categories to write in is ‘My Favorite Quotes’. These are not quotes strictly by well-known photographers. These are quotes I have picked up over the years by artists of any kind.
From photographers, poets, authors, singers, actors, musicians, and yes, even a chemist, at one time or another they have said something that I can immediately relate to and have applied to my teaching people how to see.
Dr. John, one of my favorite musical artists once said in a song, “Right Place, Wrong Time”. I often talk about this in both my online classes with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct.
What it means and should mean to photographers is that there are so many times that you’re at a location to shoot during the ‘Golden Hour’ where you would get the nice warm light, and for whatever reason…you don’t.
Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, here’s a link that describes it: http://joebaraban.com/blog/food-for-digital-thought-shooting-in-the-golden-hour/
You’re there at sunrise and it’s the first time you’ve been there. What you discover is that there are very tall buildings, or hills that are between you and the sun. By the time the sun comes up over these obstacles, the sun has been up for a long time and that warm luscious light creating long shadows has gone and in it’s place is harsh light with short shadows.
Or, you’re there at sunset and those same buildings or hills has blocked the sun and you have nothing worthwhile to shoot. Since you’re there anyway you go ahead and try to go home with something decent, but you know as well as I do that it just ain’t gonna happen.
So my fellow photographers, what’s the answer? Well, there actually is one, but you have to have some time on your hand.
If you know you’re going to be at a location for two days, and have the time to look for potential photo ops. Use the internet to find out when sunrise and sunset are. You can find out not only the time, but where it will come up and go down. Take those readings and put them in your phone.
Go to several places that you either know about or have seen when putting the location in a search engine.
Stand where you see a place you would like to shoot and use a compass (you can add to your apps) to determine if you’re going to get early or late light.
All this is going to take more work, but the payoff will be well worth it. The best time for me is when the sun is about 15 to 20 degrees from the horizon either going up or going down…the Golden Hour.
Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on instagram.
You can also sign up for my six-month mentoring program. If you’re interested send me an email to joe@joebaraban.com
Here it is in one of my favorite tunes!
JoeB
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