Longer days, brighter skies, budding backyards, and outdoor sports — the whole world seems to come back to life with the warmer weather of spring. Embrace the bright colors and newfound exuberance by taking your photo shoots outdoors.
Somewhere amid the blossoming trees and blooming flowers are new angles you’ve never shot before. Capture the diverse foliage and contrasting colors that spring offers by experimenting with new points of view. Use tree branches to frame your yard, or fences to focus in on the landscape stretching out on the horizon.
Capture the Action
Warmer weather means a return to baseball, soccer, lacrosse, and other outdoor sports. Celebrate the new activity through your lens by setting your shutter speed to no slower than 250 (aim for 500) so that your static background is blurred.
Perfect Your Close-Up
In our last article, we mentioned macro photography—where a small aperture is used to capture a wide depth—is a must for shooting the best photos of small subjects (i.e. flower petals, insects, etc.). There's also another, somewhat cheaper hack for close-ups. Invest in a set of extension tubes and you’ll be able to photograph smaller subjects from further away.
Mellow The Breeze
Chances are, the majority of your spring photos will be outside. But with outdoor shooting comes unpredictable weather—and unfortunately there’s little that even a macro lens can do when the flower petal you’re zoomed in on keeps fluttering in the wind. Prop a sheet of white cardboard behind your subject, and not only will you protect it from the wind, you’ll also deflect unwanted light.
Use a Cheat Sheet
You’ve isolated the most vibrant subject, but no angle seems to make it pop quite the way you’d like it to. While it might seem counter-intuitive to introduce an unnatural prop, sometimes all it takes is the introduction of a solid backdrop (try a sky-blue cardboard sheet) to heighten contrast and extract the best colors.
What’s your favorite scene to shoot in the spring? Show us by tagging us in your photos using the social media buttons below.
