Shadow Play

I love anything that has to do with shadows and silhouettes! Here I chose a vantage point that allowed me to shoot straight agains the sun. This gives better control of the shadows. Better than shooting from the side.

At the Gallery

Soline

Four

Two

Many

Blue Sky

Winter brings amazing sunsets. Clear skies also bring cold days, like the -10 C below outside as I write this :-)

This is an other shot from the rampant of Akershus Fortress in Oslo.

The composition rule called "Rule of thirds" is about drawing two vertical lines and two horisontal lines across the image, making 9 equal rectangles. According to this rule you would typically have the dark foreground here covering 1/3 of the height of the image. The people would be placed in the left intersection, and the tree in the right intersection.

In some images this rule is broken on purpose, and show only a small foreground like the black area in the image above. If there is enough detail in the sky it makes up for the "mistake".

Here of course you could argue that along with the dark area of the sky it actually covers a third of the height anyway. :-)

Silhouettes in the Sunset

This time of year the sun rises at approximately nine in the morning and sets at three. We only have six hours of daylight now. This also implies that the sun sets in a completely different place than in the summer.

From Oslo Town Hall you can view the sunset on a clear day like today.

In the first image the camera is on ground level. The sea is not visible. The second image is taken from a higher level and you can see the ferry arriving from Nesodden across the Oslo Fjord.

In addition I have tweaked the white balance.

Akershus fortress - the rampant

I selected a"Sunny" white balance to get the crisp clear blue. Also remember to set the focus point on the silhouettes and underexpose by 1-2 stops, to ensure that you get sharp silhouettes and avoid a burnt-out sky.

For the second-to-last shot I have converted to b/wh and then tinted the image.

The last one is only converted to s/wh. Simon was my model here and since the picture is taken from a lower level I asked him to come a bit closer so that I actually could see his legs.