Ian Bramham's Photoblog
Dark Sunset
Posted by Ian Bramham (Manchester, United Kingdom) on 9 March 2011 in Landscape & Rural and Portfolio.
A photo that I took at the weekend near where I live in Poynton, Cheshire - the sun was setting as I walked back through the quiet of the woods on the way home. This was the final moment before it dipped out of sight below the tree tops.
This effect was all achieved in-camera (there's no Photoshop trickery involved).
It's easy to do if you use a macro lens - here I used a "Nikon 105mm f2.8vr micro" but any macro lens will do.
By focusing on an object close to the camera, like the twig in this photo, the setting sun in the distance becomes blurred and much larger in the frame. In this one I really liked the perfect orange circle that it formed and so I moved around while looking through the viewfinder until I got the twig to bisect the circle which I thought made an interesting composition.
The only significant thing I did in post-processing was to crop it to a square format (I composed it in the camera viewfinder with a square crop in mind). The square format is one of my favourites as I love the feeling of balance and harmony that it can bring.
Note - heavily influenced by my friend Joanna Ohmori's photography from Japan. You can check out her photos here:
Joanna Ohmori
Like what you see here and are interested in photographic composition?.....the blog section of my website now has a complete set of 5 articles covering my personal approach to the subject: Ian Bramham Photography - Blog
For purchasing high quality archival prints of any of these photos you can send me an email by clicking here or by going to my website Ian Bramham - Fine Art Photography where prices are listed in the gallery sections under each individual photo.
@Valérie Simonnet: Thanks Valérie!
@sunstone_maria: Thanks Maria!
@tim: Thanks Tim!....the technique is used a lot in portrait photography. Here is a gorgeous example from Alfie Goodrich who is one of my favourite photographers on Flickr. He's a full-time professional photographer living in Japan: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alfiegoodrich/3217942456/in/set-72157613320638663/
@Simone: Thanks Simone!
@Anna.C: Thanks Anna!
@Sof: Thanks Sof!
@Gérard Beullac: Thanks Gérard!
@Olivier Paillet: Thanks Olivier!
@guillaume: thanks Guillaume!
@Scene by Sharon Photography: Thanks for that Sharon!
@Helder Ferreira: Thanks Helder!
@Anita: Thanks Anita!
@Tinx: Thanks Tinx!
@Denny Jump Photo: Thanks Denny.....I noticed that 'shadow' effect too when I was post processing the photo. I think the answer to the mystery is that I took the shot in the middle of a wood thick with trees from the foreground right through to the horizon and I guess the 'shadow' is the blurred outline of another twig or branch that was between me and the sun.
@DIMITRIOS: thanks Dinitrios!
@Nina: Thanks Nina!.....not all my photos are simple as this one but I'll always have a go explaining technique if asked and there's detailed explanations on my website to various things like using neutral density filters etc to achieve the long exposures I that often use.
@Ian Smith: Hi Ian....I recently went to an exhibition exploring the influence of Japanese art on Van Gogh's paintings and I've been thinking about it quite a bit. Also Joanna Ohmori's photos (link above) have been hugely influential.
@BBM: Thanks BBM!
@Hoshisato: Thanks Hoshisato!
@fabrizio: Thanks fabrizio!
@Ted: Hi Ted....how have you been keeping?
For portrait photos you probably won't want to focus as close upto a face as I did here with the twig however you can get a very similar effect (but the bokeh discs are smaller) by using a shallow f stop lens - one of the f1.4 prime lenses would be ideal. On that Alfie Goodrich portrait he used a Nikon 85mm f1.4D lens.
@Klaudia J: Thanks Klaudia!
@Babzy: Thanks Babzy!
@karla: Thanks Karla.....Joanna's photos are beautiful aren't they!
@DarkElf: Thanks!....it's good to try different things every now and then and this was my first time photographing with a macro lens in quite a while.
@Stefan: Thanks Stefan!
@hugo poon: Thanks Hugo!
@Christopher: Thanks Christopher!
@Pavan Kaul: HI Pavan, I'm starting to get back to normal now thanks. Also I got my D700 back from the repairers yesterday and took my first new photos in what seems to have been a long time.
Nikon D700
1/100 second
F/3.2
ISO 200
105 mm (35mm equiv.)
