The ONE Thing You Are Missing for Painterly Photos

That's so brilliant! This video is sponsored by Case Filters. Yeah, there's one thing in landscape photography, you know, that creates that painterly mood. Now, I've been out for wooden photography recently and everything was perfect. Everything, yeah, just that one thing was missing, to be honest. I will show the video right now. Afterwards, we will meet here again. We will talk about how to implement this missing one thing. And quite interesting, by the way, look what the light was doing during this clip from the beginning till the end. My friends, a very good morning. What a wonderful morning for doing some woodland photography. It is amazing. I have to say, I'm still not recovered from my last week's little photo adventure. But yeah, what should I say? I can't wait to get my camera to set up again. It is amazing. And Photos has predicted some fog for us. But unfortunately, with a negative depress and negative differential pressure, that means it's built through, it's rising. And yeah, that's not good. Yeah, I knew that already yesterday. But anyway, I thought it's anyway a good idea to get out here to practice a little bit, you know, woodland photography. That's such an enjoyable thing just to look. Could you photograph what is there? How is the spring foliage rising and things like that? Oh, man, what a morning. I would say, let's see what's possible here. Oh, yeah, the fog rose already. I mean, back there we still have a little bit of mist and so it would be really fantastic to shoot into that direction or so if you can see that back there. But yeah, I don't have a composition in this direction. Unfortunately, I have a composition in a completely different direction. This is here. And what I found is, I found a story about the three phases of life or something like that. We have four phases, actually. We have a baby tree here. We have a little child tree up here, a mid-aged tree. And this one is already gone, I would say. But it's really nice. The only problem is when you look into the distance, we don't have all the much of atmospheric conditions, just a tiny bit. I mean, we have a lot of humidity in there. And the only way or two things we can do, the one thing is we can work with a little bit of bokeh in the distance. We don't want to overdo it because it looks unnatural then. But anyway, that can work to emphasize that a little bit. And the second thing that works really well is to use a black mist filter. So I've also a black mist filter on here and also a so-called polarizer, just to get the colors a little bit better popping out. So I would say, let's make the click. What a morning of landscape photography. And first of all, have you seen what the light was doing? Yeah, it was quite soft all the time while I was shooting, right? And as soon as the first sunbeams came out, I packed and I went home. And that's actually quite a good idea, I have to say, because harsh light tends to kill the mood. And that is definitely what we want to avoid. I mentioned that because I saw photographers arriving when the sun was already rising and when everything was already over. So always make sure to arrive early enough. However, the light was OK in my photo, but there's anyway one thing that was definitely missing and that was the atmospheric conditions. And that's something that gets often overlooked, I have to say. Yeah, photographers look at where the sun will rise or set or if there will be clouds or so. But it is the atmosphere that creates the mood. And before we talk about if there's a way how to rescue my image of today, let me show you some quick examples where atmospheric conditions made a trick for me. This image here, for instance, only works because of the fog. It was the atmosphere that helped to isolate the birch trees from the background. In this image here, I had almost the same situation as today, actually. Fog with a negative differential pressure, but not that negative as today. So it always got pressed a bit down again, which led to this nice misty effect in the distance. But also when it's just mist, yeah, that isn't pressed down, that can help really massively to add mood to an image. Just look which impact we get in this image here. I mean, it's not much, but the isolating effect and the mood really, really help. The atmospheric conditions are the absolute game changer for woodland photography. And that's also often overlooked, I have to say, not only in woodland, also in wister photos. It's the atmosphere that makes the mood. In this image here, for instance, the water was steaming, which led to this nice foggy and misty mood. And it doesn't necessarily need to be fog or mist, by the way. It's already a big difference when the atmosphere is a little bit softer. In this Tuscany image, for instance, it was the humidity that created that sense of depth, but also that painterly look. It is amazing, isn't it? And here one more. And it doesn't even need to be humidity. Even normal haze can help massively. That state of Tuscany, yes, that is such a beautiful area. In this image here, for instance, you see how the haze in the air got illuminated by the setting sun. That is mood in landscape photography. But there's even more. You can use even snowfall to get this nice atmospheric mood that works in woodland, but also in wister photography. Now, what about the photo I took today? I mean, right now, it's not a portfolio shot. It's almost there, really. There is not much missing. I could completely live with the upper part. It's just, yeah, the area behind that conifer tree at the left-hand side and probably also, yeah, the area right at the right-hand side. We would need just a tiny bit of more softness there. So is there a way to rescue it? Now, the only way to make this image to work is to go there again when the conditions are right. The problem is just, yeah, this is a red beech which loses its foliage short before its new one grows out in spring. Yeah, and as we have spring right now, it's just a question of a few days, unfortunately. We could wait for next year, of course, yeah, but then the lines and patterns given by the red foliage could completely look differently. And even worse, the baby tree and also the child tree at the left side will be grown. So the same composition will maybe not be possible again next year. And yeah, I mean, all we can do is hoping for some fog over the next days. Fingers crossed. But yeah, there's usually not all that much fog in my area. However, the light was good. Direct light would definitely kill the mood. I would, again, prefer that soft light of today. Yeah, to create this melancholic mood, which I love so much in woodland scenes. But it's also possible to shoot in harsh light, of course, as I show you in this video here. And friends, I hope you like this video. If yes, please give me a thumbs up and thank you so much for watching and see you right over there. Bye.