Photographing Contrast
Taking photographs of high contrast landscape scenes can be a bit problematic. Generally, you have to give up something - wash out the sky, or dramatically underexpose the foreground. These are the choices I recently had to make. It would have helped if I had a graduated Neutral Density (ND) filter…
Here is a sunset shot. I really wanted to capture the amazing colour in the sky, so underexposing the foreground was the only choice. But, I happen to like the silhouette look that results - it makes the image a little more dramatic.
However, this choice doesn’t always work - here is an example where I exposed for the foreground and lost nearly all detail in the sky. I could have taken 2 shots - one correctly exposing each and them superimposing them together, but I don’t always have time for such finicky post production work.
Finally, here is another shot that just barely works. The top half of the image is still a little washed out, but the shadow effect kind of makes the image work. Plus, I absolutely love the colour of those bougainvillea.
Overall, my advice would be to get yourself a graduated ND filter (an ND 4 is a good place to start). Otherwise, resign yourself to sitting in front of your computer, fiddling with Photoshop, instead of being outside hunting down your next great photograph.