Photographing indoor performances Archives - Infrared Conversions, IR Modifications & Photography Tutorials

Winter is one of the best times of the year for outdoor photography; especially landscapes. The cold, crisp air will ensure you do not get as much atmospheric haze and so your images can appear sharper. Icy and snowy conditions can also provide a wonderful subject in photos. Often any landscape scene looks even more impressive with a dusting of snow as the contrast of the white and darker areas really stands out. But photographing in winter comes with its own challenges. So here are 6 tips for photographing in winter.

Make sure you are prepared

The first part of any successful shoot is preparation and this is even more vital in winter. So before you set out to photograph make sure that you are going to be warm enough. Keep in mind that temperatures can drop dramatically early morning and late afternoon and even more at night. You should also make sure that you have a good quality pair of gloves as your hands will be out most of the time. Also, make sure that you take plenty of batteries with you as cold conditions drain batteries faster. Lastly, always make sure that you have some outdoor essentials with you such as a torch or even a first aid kit. It’s easy to slip on ice in winter conditions so it is best to be prepared.

Don’t forget your polarizer

Besides your tripod (if you are planning to be shooting in low-light conditions such as sunrise or sunset), a polarizing filter can be invaluable in winter conditions. Not only will a polarizer help cut unwanted reflections on ice, snow and even water, but it will also help bring out the blues and greens in your image. So your beautiful snowy scene can be complemented with a bright and striking sky. Even though at this time of year there shouldn’t be as much haze in the sky, if you do encounter some, a polarizer can help add some contrast to those areas.

Shoot all-day

Even though the days are shorter, one of the best things about winter is that the sun remains low in the sky for long periods. This translates to more time with the best light for outdoor photography. The low sun will help enhance shadows and give the scene much more contrast. The other great benefit of photographing in winter is the much more manageable sunrise and sunset times. After all, wouldn’t you prefer to be getting up at 8 am rather than 4:30 am? Because of the low sun and easier sunrise and sunset times, you can pretty much shoot all day. Something that would be very exhausting in the summer months.

You may need to overexpose

One of the biggest challenges when photographing in winter months is getting your exposure correct. It might seem strange but if you are faced with snowy conditions you will actually need to overexpose your image to get the correct exposure. The reason for this is that the snow will make the scene seem very bright and trick your camera’s light meter into thinking that it needs to underexpose. This means that your photo will look darker and the white areas such as snow will have a grey tint to them. The way to combat this issue is to overexpose your image by around 1 stop. This will help give your scene a much more natural look and make the snow appear more white.

Set the right white balance

Sometimes you may find that your photo suffers from an unnatural tint. This is especially evident when photographing snow on bright sunny days (also overcast or cloudy days) when often you’ll get a bluish tint across your image. You can either fix this at the time of shooting by adjusting the white balance on your camera or if you shoot in RAW format, in post-production. The great thing about shooting in RAW is that even if you selected one of your camera’s white balance modes at the time of shooting, then you can switch to others in post-production.

Find the right scene

There are a lot of positives when photographing in winter. But one of the negatives is being able to make your photo seem interesting when you have a snowy scene. The problem with heavy snow is that it blankets over all of the interesting textures and colours that are around us. So to make a winter scene really stand out you often have to be a bit more careful with your composition. The key is to find the right scene with some form of point of interest that you can build around. It could be a house, trees, river, rocks or even animals or people. So be on the lookout for these elements that can give your photo a bit more context and help the composition.

Winter is truly a wonderful time to be photographing outdoors. If you can brave the conditions then often you will be rewarded with some stunning photos. Follow the tips above and you will be well on your way to capturing great winter photos.

Photographing any sort of performance indoors can be incredibly challenging. Not only will you usually be confined to the main grandstand and often to your seat, but you also have to navigate the other spectators as well as low light conditions. Here are some tips to help you when photographing indoor performances.

Get the best spot possible

This might seem obvious but often in performances indoors you will need to try and find the best vantage point to take photos from. Clearly, if you have a designated seat you don’t have much choice. But if you do find that you can move around, try to look for the best spot as quickly as possible. This means getting there as early as you can and spending a few minutes walking around to scout out the location. Once the performance gets underway, you will find it difficult to move around and you will probably also find out the best spots have already been taken.

Show respect

Whilst it is important to capture Great photos you also need to be aware that you are not disturbing the performance or the audience. This means turning off your flash and also being aware of where you are standing and where your camera is. If photography is allowed and other people are taking photos most people are excepting enough to understand that people will take photos. But if you spend the entire show blocking someone because you’re standing up to take photos when you should be sitting down, naturally they might get annoyed. It’s also important to pay strict attention to the rules. For example, if in certain parts of the show you are told not to use flash photography then don’t do it as this could be for the safety of the performers.

Get yourself ready

Needless to say that if you want to be taking photos of any sort of performance, you need to be ready. That means having your camera switched on with the lens off. You should also be anticipating what camera settings you are going to need and setting them and adjusting them throughout the performance. Take a few test shots beforehand to get your settings correct. If the performance is happening on a stage then the lights might change dramatically from one scene to the next. Also, make sure you set your camera to high-speed burst mode and spend more time shooting and less time “chimping” (looking at the back of the camera).

Raise your ISO

Usually, your biggest challenge when photographing indoors will be low light. The good news is that for most performances indoors there will be some form of lighting on the performers so you should never need to raise your ISO too high. However, to have a faster shutter speed so that you are able to freeze the action will probably require a higher ISO. As a general rule try not to go any slower than 1/60 sec on your shutter speed. But how fast you actually need to set your shutter speed will depend on what it is that you are photographing. For example, photographing acrobats is going to need a faster shutter speed than someone standing still to sing. But it’s important not to raise your ISO too high otherwise you will begin to get a lot of noise in your image which will have a detrimental effect on its sharpness.

Choose the right focus mode

To make sure that your photos are sharp you need to select the correct focus mode for what you are shooting. For example, if the performer is moving you will probably be better off using continuous autofocus. This will ensure that once you’re focused on your subject as long as you keep the shutter button pressed down halfway, your camera will continuously focus on that subject. This is really useful for when it’s fast-moving action like acrobats or dancers. The alternative is to focus as a single shot. This is useful for when your performer is standing still or not moving too far back or forwards. Unless you have superfast focusing skills I would not try to focus manually as you will often not be quick enough to be able to capture the perfect moment.

Correct your white balance

Once you’ve got home with your images and uploaded them onto an image editing software, the one thing you should definitely look to do is to correct the white balance. The artificial light will often be too intense for the image you have taken. So you may need to adjust the white balance slightly to make the image more appealing. For example, if you find that your image is too orange then just use the sliders to add more blue or coolness to the image. Of course, it’s important to try and keep some of the ambiences of the lighting as that is what adds to the scene. What you should be looking to avoid is your images looking too fake.

You can see that the colour is too red on this image and so the white balance will need to be adjusted.

Photographing performances indoors can be incredibly difficult. Things will be slightly easier if you are an official photographer where you will have access to be able to move around freely. But if you are confined to your seat or even just a small space that you can move around in, it is still possible to be able to capture great photos. Follow the tips above and you’ll find that you will be on your way to capturing great photos of indoor performances.

6 Tips For Winter Photography