HOW TO: Fall Color Abstracts

By now, you have probably noticed that I love to photograph the splendor of the fall season. Often I will gravitate to the traditional scenics, trees and the bounty of the harvest season. Sometimes, a diversion from the obvious seasonal topics is necessary. Probably because I am in the mood for something a little different.

For me, a good diversion is to play around with various photographic techniques, camera settings and lenses. For example, I will adjust the white balance to fluorescent or cloudy when shooting in full sun or at dusk, just to see the effect it may have on color rendition.

Another technique is to zoom in or out on your subject with a zoom lens while tripping the shutter. This makes the object appear to be streaking towards you. This is relatively easy to do…it’s just a timing thing…and your subject can be anything you want.

I used this technique for the image in this post by using my zoom lens, cable release and the camera mounted on a tripod. You can try the same technique. It’s fun.

Set your camera to the lowest ISO that you have available. Using slow shutter speeds is the easiest way to master this technique. Adjust your camera for a proper exposure of 1/30th of a second or slower. By closing down the aperture to F11 or smaller you should end up with a slow enough shutter speed. Focus on your subject with the lens zoomed out. While zooming in on your subject, trip the shutter with the cable release. It may take several tries before you get a result you like, but just keep playing until you get there. Then try another subject and see what kind of effect you can produce.

It doesn’t matter what the subject is because you never know what the effect will be. That’s the beauty of digital photography…you can see the results right away. And if the results aren’t what you were looking for, just delete the ones that didn’t work and try again. Play around with color, shapes and textures. Betcha you won’t be able to stop yourself!

Advertisement