The short answer…it is out of my reach.
Mid day sun is “flat”…
You see I have always loved shooting nature and landscape photography and such but once I started really looking at it seriously, I started to realize that it can only be shot at certain times of the day or it doesn’t have that magical look to it.
Deep blue hour adds to this image where the building is white and red neon primarily.
Where the sun is at in the sky makes a ton of difference to how the image looks and for the most part, the higher the sun angle the less interesting the image. Just watch most landscape photography youtube videos and you will see them getting up several hours before dawn so they can get the sky colors like they want with the mood of the terrain like they want as well. Most of the time it is dawn or dusk only for the photos they want. This is for good reason too, the images just won’t be interesting otherwise.
You see, the shallow sun angle makes all sorts of things different and not just the direction the light is coming from. It changes the color of the light, the size of the shadows, how dark the shadows are, the sun controls lots of environmental elements like fog rising off of the grass or water, and if there is frost or not in the image. These are just a few of the things the sun directly controls, but you get the idea.
The main thing for me though is that I am not able to get out at these times of the day so I end up shooting either mid-day or early evening. Both of these are terrible for landscape photography and the images out there prove it. You just can’t get good images of wonderful vistas at those times, it only takes a moment to search the web to see this is true.
I do occasionally get out at the right times and will snag a cool photo or two of some cool landscape stuff, but for the most part … not…
What I do get are photos like the one below. I can get out at night some, and mid day as it seems to work out, but not at golden hour or blue hour either for the most part, but sometimes I will get that chance, so instead I have embraced night photography as well as high contrast mid day photography, which works well for street photography if more people were in the area.
I will also do some local documentary style photos of stuff like buildings in the town that are changing or if there is some kind of activity. Most of the time though, I end up just walking around.
This also turns out to be a good practice as it gives you perspective and you will start to notice images that you didnt see before. It makes me more observant of the environment or so it seems.
Well, I successfully wandered down a rabbit hole anyway… lol. You get the idea though, I am pretty sure I am not alone in why I cant do landscape photography and I am also sure there are more reasons than these. what do you shoot because of your circumstances instead? Leave a comment below and until next time. Get your camera out!!!