Photography: Photgraphing the Sky

Sky....!! A wonderful photographing subject if you observe it closely. Unless we're specifically photographing a sunrise (or sunset), the sky at twilight, or the moon and stars, most people tend to ignore the sky in their photography. This is really a shame, since it's almost always visible in outdoor shots. Paying attention to the sky as a photographic element can elevate your photos from mere snapshots to real works of art.

As for me Skies are one of my favorite subjects due to their sheer variety. They are packed full of interesting colours and textures, and can make for some truly awe-inspiring photos. However it's not always so easy to capture the sky as it seems to our eye. A really dramatic sky may look boring if we do not select proper settings.

Read on to discover some of our favorite techniques for working with the sky. You've to make sure it becomes an intentional artistic element of your photographs, not just a washed-out background.

Time of the Day: It's very important to choose the time of the day correctly. As in the rule of thumb says that don't shoot at the noon, the golden hours are the best timings to shoot the sky. But this is not true always. Photography is a art and not a perfect science, so never make up your mind that do not shoot at noon. The above photo was taken at 12 noon. So see follow the rules, but never be afraid to break them. (of course rules of photography..;) ).

Turn away from the sun: Most of the time, you'll get the best skies where the sun is not. Position yourself so that the sun is between 90 and 180 degrees from your view. You'll reduce glare and get deeper blues behind the clouds, and the clouds themselves will be lit nicely.

Camera settings: Use small aperture to focus the entire frame. AV mode in canon can be used. Use f stop number ranging from f/8 to f//16 depending in the light. Using small apertures will reduce the shutter speed, so a tripod is advisable. The exposure for the skies can be a tricky one. If you expose the sky correctly, the ground might be underexposed or vice versa. A simple trick is obviously expose the sky correctly, or take two photos one with sky exposed and second with the ground expose and them combine them using photomatrix. Refer to the previous post of HDR photography to get the use of HDR technique.

Camera doesn't matter: I believe the gadget you carry around does not matter, you can produce quality photographs irrespective of the gadget. I have created a facebook page to support this if you have a minute check it out, here's the link https://www.facebook.com/proamateurs . The above landscape photograph was taken by a cheap point and shoot sony W110.

Don't be afraid to experiment: Try different settings of the camera. Shutter speed is the most awesome setting to play with, try long exposures to create trails of clouds.

The most dramatic sky will always be before dusk and dawn, the shades of yellow, purple, magenta. Try to get that in your composition.

One important tip, for skies, the white balance is the setting we tend to forget, so be sure you check it before you click. Wrong white balance may produce drastic results.

Use post processing techniques to get different combinations of colors.