Photographing Low Key Fine Art Photography

I was recently commisioned to photograph some low key fine art images of a sculptured art installation at a local park in Greater Manchester. Each of the set of eight wooden sculptures, dotted around a nature trail, posed it’s own unique challenge due to the location. Some of the sculptures set out in the open, others hidden deep in the woodland or recessed into hedgerow.

The brief was fairly simple and had been discussed in the planning stages with all this in mind. The low key photography look had been suggested by me as a way to fully show the design and texture of the sculptures, without the distracting background of the Greater Manchester park in which the sculptures are installed. This would enable a quicker shoot, with much less equipment needed and help my client meet her budget for the project.

My gear for the shoot was rather on the basic side and consisted of:

• Canon EOS 760d - APSC Camera from circa 2016

• Canon 18-55mm lens - the non-IS kit lens shipped with Canons starter cameras, which I’ve had for well over a decade

• One speedlight (off-camera flash) with wireless trigger

• Godox AK-R1 kit - a small kit of easily transportable light modifiers View on Amazon

• A magnetic round head flash adapter view on Amazon

• Manfrotto travel tripod Updated version on Amazon

The style of photography required the reduction of the ambient light for each composition to zero. That required the following settings dialled into camera manually.

• Aperture: f/16

• Shutter: 1/160

• ISO: 200

Now there’s a chance you may question why, if the aim was the complete reduction of light, would I set my ISO to 200 instead of 100 (the lowest for this camera model)? The answer to that lies in the planning. I know that one of these sculptures sits out in the open with direct light on it, I also know that another one of the sculptures sits in a very tight space where I would have to be fairly close to my subject.

With these two things in mind, I knew that f/16 dialled in for the aperture would achieve the required depth of field, even for the tight shot, whilst retaining the focal length of 55mm throughout. And setting myself at ISO 200 would allow me to reduce the exposure by half (down to ISO 100) when I reached the open field sculpture. All without the need to change any settings which may affect the look of the sculpture in the final image. Consistency amongst all eight images was key.

With my settings dialled into camera, all that was left was to manually expose the speed light. After a couple of test shots, I settled on 1/8 power. I also added my magnetic round head converter and green tint gel to the flash front (from the Godox AK-R1 kit), giving a slightly vintage look to the sculpture and reducing some of the orange and magenta colours in the wood. Lastly I set my white balance manually to 6000k (flash - the Canon 760d does not have a custom white balance mode) in camera and the picture profile to fine detail. Again aiding the consistency and reducing post production work.

And with that I was ready to shoot.

Each sculpture required something slightly different in terms of the light. Some were better lit from one side, some from over the top. As mentioned above, some of the sculptures were recessed into bushes and hedgerow. With these sculptures the challenge was with light spill. This is where my Godox AK-R1 kit came in handy. Having already attached the magnetic holder and green gel to the front of the speedlight unit, I was able to utilise the honeycomb modifier and snoot from the AK-R1 kit for the shots that required it, whilst keeping the green vintage tint in place. This really is a handy little kit for this type of work as the modifiers are stackable and magnetic, so are really simple to modify to achieve different looks.

I paid in full for all my photography gear listed here and the links contained are purely from a personal recommendation standpoint, but if you do want to check out this little box of tricks, then click here to find the Godox AK-R1 kit on Amazon and just to note, unless you have a Godox round head speedlight then you will need this reasonably priced magnetic round head converter to go alongside it Magnetic Round Head Converter

All in, the project including pre-shoot conversations and location scout, post-production and delivery, took a little less than half a day. Happy client, getting some fantastic images and coming in under budget, and happy photographer, delivering a well received commission with very little time and energy consumed. In fact it took me longer to produce the short video I created to document this project than it did to actually deliver the project! You can find that video here: Low Key Fine Art Commission with budget gear

any questions? drop a comment below

Photographing a Peak District Cloud Inversion

A beautiful cloud inversion over Castleton and the Hope Valley in the Peak District National Park

This week I finally managed to photograph a Cloud Inversion. A Landscape Photography aim of mine for quite some time, and I thought I'd share some tips so you could have the best chance of forecasting one for yourself

The night prior was a really clear night - moon was clear in the sky and was brisk but not freezing.

Checking the weather app (I used the 'Clear Outside' app) I looked for a few things on there:

1. The Dew Point and Temperature - both need to be the same, or the temperature needs to be lower than the dew point.

2. The wind - a fairly still morning is needed. If it's windy, any mist/clouds will dissipate too quickly to form an inversion.

3. Humidity - this is all to do with moisture in the air, needed to form those clouds, so humidity above 90% is what to look out for.

4. Otherwise clear skies

Strapping on the 70-200mm lens, I could get a unique viewpoint into the clouds

On the morning itself, as I was driving along through the Peak District, I found myself heading in and out of fog banks whenever the road dropped into a dip by fields. A sure sign of the dew point and temperature intermingling. I could also see some mist forming over Black Brook river, pools, lakes and rivers, are sure first indicators as there is lots of moisture in those areas.

Something I've been told to look out for in the past is any smoke that may be rising from factories or chimneys. The smoke will rise normally a certain amount and then seem to stop as if hitting a piece of glass in mid air - a sure sign of a temperature 'inversion'. In the video I recorded on the morning I was up on Mam Tor photographing the cloud inversion in Hope Valley below, I could see the Hope Valley Slate Mine chimneys pumping out smoke and was sure I could see this effect happening there…..anyway another good indicator to look out for.

So if you spot a few of those signs one morning this autumn, there's a good chance of mist and fog......and if you can get yourself above a valley with a camera in time, then you might just get the chance to get above a cloud inversion and photograph this spectacular event for yourself.

You can check out my view over a Peak District cloud inversion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfjzsuMPdEg

Dave