This photo has been shot in Cyprus during the same trip where the Koloury title photo was born. Like the photos in former articles this has been a lucky shot.
We travelled through the west coast of Cyprus and our original goal was to have a deeper look into the tombs which are spread all over this part of Cyprus. Because I expected many people around those tourist hotspots I did not bring my tripod with me; a bad mistake which I should know later on. But as this personal lesson is too important to being put at the end of the article, I’ll give it space right here:
Always be prepared – or in other words: carry a heavy backpack with a lot of equipment and photo stuff if you want to achieve best results in every possible situation. You will curse the weight of the backpack, multiple times… but the results will be worth it.
So as we travelled through the tomb area, the clouds became darker, the wind became stronger and – luckily – people left the area. And by „luckily“ I mean: they had good reasons for it, the storm was heavy, but I was so focussed on seeing everything this area had to offer, I just needed to move on… and right before we found ourselves in the middle of the storm, this photo was shot. The incredible thing is the almost non-editing: it has a kind of „painted“ look and very strong colours which I loved right away. It has some weaknesses though, but we’ll cover that later. The very dramatic look of the sky in combination with the moving grass, the yellow blossoms and the flat perspective create a unique shot which is still one of my favourites. Through this article, we will have a look on why this photo has this dramatic effect and how you can achieve this; also we’ll cover the equipment question mentioned above and do a quick check on possible improvements of the shot.
Where does that look come from?
As you may have learned from my former article, some shots are random. So is this one. Well, it’s not totally accidental, don’t get me wrong. But the result was way better than I imagined and planned. I had learned some photography rules and made a lot of different experiences through the years before this shot, so I chose three of four critical settings manually: ISO 100 for little picture noise, 17 mm focal length for maximum dramatic effect (combined with a flat perspective) and an aperture of f11 for a good depth of field and quite usual in landscape photography (which of course I did not now back then). I did not make a choice on shutter speed, but needed to choose this manually later. You’ll get the idea why. See that little rock?
The rock was much bigger than this small visible part and was my saviour – remember, I didn’t bring my tripod because I though this would’ve been impossible to use with all the crowds. Bad mistake, but it led me to this solution/improvisation: I put the camera on that rock, but I could not find any position where the camera was steady; in the same time I knew that a lower shutter speed would be necessary to create the „moving grass look“, to capture the storm feeling. I reduced the shutter speed step by step and tried to hold the camera still with the help of the rock. With 1/125 sec. I found the perfect balance between sharpness of the blossoms and movement of the grass. This is what happened at „A“. The second reason for the „stormy feelings“ in this photo is the perspective: I didn’t want to shoot the grass field from above, I had the idea that the trees („B“) should slightly be visible on the top of the grass, but the main focus would be on the green field with yellow blossoms – a perfect contrast. If you would like to achieve this look in your photo, I recommend to choose a low ISO value combined with a spectacular perspective. The low ISO will lead you to choosing the shutter-speed and checking the quick photo result on the camera screen in order to re-shoot the photo until it hits your imagination. With higher ISO the shot might look great on the small screen, but will definitely disappoint on the large screen or even printed. Don’t get me wrong: high ISO is absolutely useful. But when you are finding yourself in a situation like I was, unable to define the look of the photo until it’s shot, then you will have to retry. Low ISO will help you with this at low risk of ruining the picture by noise.
Equipment… wait… I need this heavy stuff?!
There will always be a point where I will deliver bad news, we just reached that point: welcome to heavy-backpack-town. It is fun to tell the story of spectacular solutions for image stabilisation, self-made filters or even making a shot in life-risk-situations. But reality tells every photographer to bring suitable equipment. And especially as long as you are not sure how to deal with different photographical situations, you should be prepared to cover them all. Many photographers will tell you that you and your vision matter, not camera quality or other high-tech-equipment. They are right! No doubt! But I tell you something: it’s a lot easier to learn how to achieve great photos if you have multiple helpful things in your backpack. If I needed to reshoot this photo, I would use a tripod, a polarising filter and a remote to take the photo (no risk for camera movement here!). I am not speaking of expensive lenses, just of some little helpers.
What would be different today?
If you and me went on a photo trip, I would reshoot with some adjustments or professionalise the editing process afterwards. I would only make few changes. But what definitely distracts the eye from the beautiful grass and blossom composition is the bright white spots in the sky. You could easily reduce highlights in Lightroom or similar photo editing software without having to manipulate the photo in total. But back then I did not know anything about photo editing. You might wonder why I did not change anything yet and make the photo a (in my eyes) perfect one? There’s no easy answer, but let me tell you that I am struggling between keeping the original memory and learning, but in the same time I would love to have a perfect Cyprus storm shot printed for my wall at home.
Stay collaborative!
-Koloury-