Painterly Pursuits in Photography

I was thinking about how sometimes painters create paintings that could be mistaken for photographs. And that naturally led me to thinking about how photographers sometimes create photographs that could be mistaken for paintings. And from there I began pondering some of the ways a photograph might be made to look painterly, many of which would involve heavy post-processing, likely using Photoshop to craft a painting out of a photo. But I also thought about the various ways a photograph could be made painterly mostly in camera with any post-processing occurring strictly in Lightroom.

And so I sought out a few photographs that I’d created with a more painterly intent, ones I’d not yet processed, and took them through Lightroom to finish them. Most of the post-processing is similar in nature to that I do with any other photograph, adjusting exposure, highlights, shadows, white and black points, white balance, color balance, etc. The majority of what makes these photos painterly was done in camera. I did, however, make adjustments in Lightroom that might be considered overkill for a typical photograph, things like over-saturating colors or pushing texture too much in one direction or the other (affecting contrast in interesting ways).

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Trees in Autumn

The first photo used a simple technique to distort the scene, giving it the impression of paint brushed onto a canvas. How was it done? Some of you may guess by looking at the photo. I found a pond surrounded by bright autumn foliage and pointed the camera at the reflections in the water and experimented with various shutter speeds to see the different looks they gave. Some seemed to give the impression of brushed on paint, and in post processing I accentuated that by adjusting the contrast in various ways (texture, highlights, shadows, white and black point, etc). I also flipped the photo so the sky was at the top, as we’d see in the scene or a painting, but the opposite of what we typically see reflected in a pond.

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Autumnal Abstract

For the second photo I once again took advantage of the reflections of the colorful autumn foliage, but this time I decided to go with a more abstract composition. I focused in on a small patch of color and patterns and zoomed in enough you can’t as easily tell what the subject is. Instead it’s just a painting about color and pattern. And this being the case I had no problem adjusting some of the colors in Lightroom, making some of them brighter and more vibrant.

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Fiery Fall Foliage

Finally, for the third photo I decided to include the actual scene instead of just reflections. But I still wanted a painterly look. Thankfully, the scene, itself, had a painterly look to it with the late afternoon sun lighting up some of the colorful leaves across the pond. I was also creating a number of long exposures, letting any breeze slightly blur the leaves, while also sometimes experimenting with moving the zoom or focus ring during the exposure. If you move the zoom ring during exposure you can create some interesting streaks and blurs as you actually zoom into or out of the scene. By moving the focus ring during exposure you can similarly create some interesting blurs as you capture things in and out of focus at the same time. In this particular case I don’t think I moved either zoom or focus rings, instead just letting the breeze move some of the leaves around for the 1 second exposure. I then made further adjustments in Lightroom that contributed to the slightly blurry feel, and made some creative exposure adjustments beyond the already brightly illuminated foliage.

All of these photos also took advantage of a Singh-Ray Gold-n-Blue polarizing filter to shift and accentuate the colors even more. The trip to this pond was all about experimenting, about trying to use various techniques to alter the look and feel of the images, and in some cases perhaps creating photographs with a more painterly feel. I’ll let you decide whether or not I was successful.

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Turbulence in Motion

On a recent walk through the woods I felt the pull to try something different, to experiment with a style of photography I don’t often practice, something more abstract and dynamic. I decided to use intentional panning of the camera to create motion blurred images of static scenes, something I’ve seen other photographers do but haven’t very often tried myself.

Horizontal panning, where you move the camera in a relatively straight line left and or right, is sometimes used to create beautifully abstract images of shorelines where there’s nothing distinct or recognizable in the photo but instead just a blur of lines and colors. The closet I can easily come to shoreline is along a creek or river, so that’s what I decided to try first. I experimented using longer or shorter shutter speeds, and I tried moving the camera both left and right during an exposure, as well as just moving left or just moving right. It was fascinating seeing all the various effects this created.

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Inside Saturn

In this first image I swung back and forth very quickly, never stopping my motion. I was using a wide angle lens, 16 mm, and I was fairly close to the creek, so when I panned back and forth it created curved instead of straight lines. At first I’d considered trying to straighten them in software, but instead I decided to accentuate the curves by distorting them even more. To do this, instead of choosing my specific lens in Lightroom’s profile section I chose a GoPro lens profile, which created a more fisheye view. I also adjusted some of the colors, making them more saturated. I figured, there’s nothing real or recognizable in this, so no reason to stick strictly to what I saw.

Another fascinating effect you can create is when you’re panning but you slow down enough, or even stop for brief moments during the exposure. This created the image below, where there is still plenty of motion blur, but you can also see some of the scene, the creek below, the far banks and the trees of the forest beyond. Using the same techniques in slightly different ways can give vastly different results.

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Creekside Flashbacks

Focusing downward, on the moving water of the creek and small sections of disturbance, while still panning horizontally, created the following image. I imagine it as a closeup of the storms on Jupiter with the beautiful bands of colored clouds, storms raging within. The browns at the top are from the bank on the other side of the creek. They are very streaked and blurred from the motion. Interestingly, the moving water has a very different look than the bank. Some of the water closest to the lens seems to have very little motion blur to it, while a small section of disturbed water flowing over rocks takes on the form of the white storm clouds.

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Storms on Jupiter

You can also pan vertically, up and down. As with the horizontal panning, you can pan both up and down in a single exposure, or pan just upward or just downward, each creating different effects. How fast you pan and when and where you start panning also make a difference. Below are two examples of panning vertically at a stretch of trees. The first includes some of the sky, whereas the second is of the forested hillside but stops just as it hits the sky.

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Dancing Trees

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Hillside

Finally, on the way out I decided to try the horizontal panning technique with the road. I love this effect. It gives the feel of being in a car looking out a window at the road and scenery flying by. And yet here, I was standing in one place and panning my camera along the road. With most exposures the road was blurry, but in this one I managed to capture the painted lines relatively well focused. It might have been interesting to do this as a car went by, panning with the car.

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The Road in Motion

If these techniques are new to you then give them a try sometime. The key is creating slow enough shutter speeds to let you move the camera during the exposure. To do this you can lower your ISO as low as your camera allows and stop down your aperture until you get slow enough shutter speeds. In the case of these images I used ISO 100, apertures between f/18 and f/22, and shutter speeds of 1/20 to 1.3 seconds. The rest is all about moving your camera. And you don’t need to restrict yourself to horizontal or vertical movement, you could also rotate it or move it in various directions. Experiment!

One final comment on post-processing these. By using such small apertures you will begin to notice sensor dust in your images. That’s an unfortunate side effect of small apertures, the depth of field is so great you start to see actual dust accumulated on your camera sensor. This is easy enough to get rid of in software, but you should know to look for it. You’d think with photographs this abstract it wouldn’t be a concern, and yet it really stood out in some places.

I had a lot of fun creating these images. Sometimes experimenting and using techniques you usually don’t can be an exhilarating experience, giving you new ways to look at the world around you, new ways to visualize the sorts of photographs you’re capable of creating. I hope you’ve enjoyed this, and I hope it inspires you to try your own experiments.

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Sketches Along the Creek

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A photographic sketch along the creek, exploring possibilities

Sometimes I find a new location and think it has some real photographic potential so I’ll look over the scene, consider angles and compositions, and begin making images. Of course I hope one of those images will end up being a winner, but I know that often they’ll just be sketch images helping me get a feel for the location. It can take many trips before I create an image I really like, one I can’t wait to show.

When I create these sketch images I’m trying to craft something great, so I do focus in on what I think might be a final image. But I also try to remember to zoom back out a bit, either with a zoom lens or with my feet, so I can capture some images of the larger scene. This can be immensely useful for planning out potential future shoots when I return to the location. I might have missed an angle in person that I notice in one of the photos. So next time I return I’ll have more of a plan than on the first trip.

These two photos are examples of sketch images from my first visit to this little patch of waterfalls. We noticed the falls from way up top of the hill and saw a small footbridge across the creek just down from the falls. I walked all the way around the scene, hiking upstream just a bit and crossing the creek where it was shallow (not sure why I didn’t just cross at the bridge on the opposite end).

The upper group of falls seemed more interesting to me with the current water levels. And it was an interesting little pool the water emptied into before going over more rocks just below. I found an angle I thought might work and climbed down the small leaf-covered incline and setup the tripod on a grouping of rocks at the edge of the pool. For the first shot I wanted to capture that pool and the upper falls. I needed to zoom out as far as the lens could, to 16mm. And I used a polarizing filter to control reflections and to add some saturation. I found the fallen log on the lower-right corner a bit annoying at first and tried to block it out, but then decided to use it to frame in the pool. I’m reasonably happy with this shot. I feel like there’s more there, but I’ll have to return to look for it.

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Stepping back I captured a wider view of the scene

After I created several versions of the tighter image I climbed back up and stepped back so I could capture the entirety of the sequence of waterfalls. You can see the small incline covered in leaves on the lower right where I slid down to the rock at the edge of the pool. Capturing this wider view let me record a little more of the scene which might help me find other places to stand, especially at times when the water level is higher. It’ll also be interesting to see how much of the debris stays put and how much gets swept away.

Ever since creating these images I’ve felt the pull to return to this location and further explore it. Perhaps the next trip will result in more sketch images. Or perhaps I’ll manage to create something I feel a little more strongly about. Only time will tell, but I can’t wait to find out.

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