The secret to photographing rain is that you can’t for the most part. Raindrops are tiny, fast and transparent. In the movies they add milk to water to create rain effects. Unless you have a 10,000 gallon tanker to make that happen your best bet is to try one of the two options on a rainy day.

Option 1: Show the Effects of Rain

Rather than trying to capture raindrops in mid-air show pictures of raindrops hitting a puddle, window or rolling down a leaf. You can also focus on people in the rain, their reactions, body language, etc…

Option 2: Illuminate the Rain

Rain may be colorless and formless, but it is reflective. Using artificial light to illuminate the rain or taking advantage of those rare sunny/rainy days are your next best options. Rain moves fast so you will want to put your camera in Shutter Priority (S or Tv) mode or Manual (M) mode and set it as high as you can. Some cameras maximum shutter speed with flash is 1/125 or 1/250 – both of which are a little slow for the job. Headlights or another bright constant source of light that would allow speeds of 1/500 or higher would be ideal.

*Obviously, electronics and water DO NOT MIX well together so make sure what you are using is safe.

Hopefully these tips will help you find something to shoot on the next rainy day! If you’d like to learn more ways to use artificial lighting to your advantage sign up for our Principals of Lighting class!

Written by Trevor Warren

News

New Class Dates Announced

Fundamentals of Photography  Just Added!
Tuesdays in November, Downtown

HDR Workshop  Just Added!
Tuesday, December 1st, 6-9pm, Downtown

Adobe Lightroom Workflow Seminar  Just Added!
Saturday, December 5th

Give the Gift of Photography Knowledge & Experience
Purchase an IPC Gift Certificate for a friend!

Weekly Group Assignment: Capturing the Colors of Fall

This is a magical time of the year however many photographers find themselves disappointed with their fall foliage photos because they lack the color they saw with their eyes.

To make your photos look closer to the way your eyes saw the scene here are a couple of tips:

1) Use a Polarizing Filter
Your fall color photos lack saturated color because of the light being reflected off of the leaves. Your eyes see through this, but your camera does not. Using a polarizing filter reduces the reflections and allows the colors to come through.

2) Adjust Your White Balance Setting
Using a warmer white balance saturates the earth tones so the red, orange, brown and yellow colors look more natural.

Assignment:

On your next fall color photo trip, use a polarizing filter and notice how the colors become brighter as you rotate the filter. Experiment with your white balance settings by shooting the same photo using both the Cloudy and Shady settings. Notice the subtle color changes between the two settings.

Have fun!

Written by Ron Kness
This is this week’s Group Assignment on Flickr!

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News

Student Social Shoot

Thanks to all past students who participated in the Student-Shoot Competition at the State Fair last night! Remember to turn in your entries by 8pm tonight. Thanks to past student, Stephanie Stewart for all her help in organizing!

New Classes Added

• Adobe Lightroom Seminar (9/26)
• Brown County Excursion (10/10)
• HDR Workshop (Date Coming Soon!)

Featured Class

Brown County Excursion

Join us in a Fall Color photo shoot in Brown County. We are planning a one day trip to the state park and and Nashville, IN to photograph fall colors, macro shots, panoramas, nature abstracts, daytime water blurs and more.

Saturday, October 10th, 2009
(Raindate: October 17th, 2009)

Click Here for More Details

Tip of the Week: Explorers of Light

The great painters of Greece knew what extraordinary light meant to their paintings. What elements make light so extraordinary?

• Color
• Quality
• Direction

These elements are intertwined and all are necessary to have great light.

Color – Light color is expressed in degrees Kelvin. At sunrise, the light color evolves to a golden yellow with a color temperature around 3,500 degrees Kelvin. The same effect happens at sunset.

Quality – The light from sunrise to about 1 ½ hours after and again from 1 ½ hours before to sunset are by far, the best quality of light. This low-angled directional light accents texture. The hard, harsh mid-day light is the worst light for photographers.

Direction – The direction of light comes in three different types: side-lighting, front-lighting and back-lighting with each having its own application. Side-lighting, such as the light at sunrise and again at sunset, is the best for bringing out the texture in a subject.

Front-lighting tends to minimize texture, reduces form and flattens out a scene. If used in early morning, this light is good when shooting landscape shots.

Backlighting is great for making silhouettes from graphic shapes and close-up shots of translucent subjects.

The effect you want on your photograph determines which type of lighting to use. As explorers of light, we constantly look for the three intertwined elements in our quest for the perfect light.

Assignment:

1. Shoot an image (or several) incorporating all three elements
2. Find a landscape subject facing either north or south.
3. Be on the scene around 1 hour before sunset.
4. Record your images with your subject side-lit by the soft golden light.

By Ron Kness
This is this weeks Group Assignment on Flickr!

These tips and more can be learned in any Indy Photo Coach class or lesson.

Visit the website for more information!