How to capture "that light", making a photo look like a painting

[FrankS]

Yes, thanks Raid!

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by daveleo

I think there are 2 parts of this question that are getting blurred together.

There is the issue of the ambient light that dominates some of the scenic pictures and then there is the question of the painterly effects.

IMO there is a great image-to-image variation in these effects in the Flikr photostream. And I am pretty confident these painterly effects are done in postprocessing (I'll reference Peter's remarks above). This is aside from the ambient light issue.

... apart from Levels the shots I posted were straight scans of the 135 negatives, the first example the OP posted clearly has been shopped, evidenced by the yellow bleed around the sailing ship in the first example ... bit sloppy imo

[semordnilap]

Raid, the photograph is the egret is beautiful!!!

[raid]

Originally Posted by semordnilap

Raid, the photograph is the egret is beautiful!!!

Thank you
The image looks much better and with more details when viewed as a slide on a light table.

[Aristophanes]

Golden Hour shooting + side lighting.

[Richard G]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Yep, you just need to catch the light at the right time ...

What a wonderful shot.

[Gabriel M.A.]

Hmm...



Lumix GF1 + Lumix G 14-42



Canon 20D + 17-40L f/4 (+ levels/curves tweaking, dodging on the rail)



Canon 5D + Tamron 28-75 f/2.8



Canon 5D + Tamron 28-75 f/2.8



Canon 5D + Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 (+ saturation/curves tweaking)



Canon 50D + 17-40L f/4 (+ graduated filter and slight dodging on the trunk, and not where you'd first think)



Leica M8 + 50mm f/2 Summicron "tabbed"



Leica M8 + 50mm f/1.4 Summilux "pre-asph" E46



Leica M8 + 50mm f/1.4 Summilux "pre-asph" E46 (+ saturation tweaking)



Exposure first, post-processing (sometimes lots of highlight and/or shadow salvaging) later. The law of SISO.

[Gabriel M.A.]

And then there's this. I'm only including this due to two things: 1) I've been told this looks "like a painting" --made me understand some things about Renaissance Dutch painters' styles (this was taken in Belgium, if you're wondering); 2) that the light and right exposure can save you a lot of post-processing pain. The colors and exposure are pretty much close to how I remember them.



Canon 50D + 17-40L f/4

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Richard G

What a wonderful shot.

... Thank you sir

[shadowfox]

Nah, y'all are wrong.
It's all about the frame!





*Sorry for the repeat post. I was just having fun with my wife's 5D.

[daveleo]

Originally Posted by shadowfox

Nah, y'all are wrong.
It's all about the frame!

. . . . . .

You must add your signature to that ! (Lower right, I think.)

[hteasley]

As a purely mechanical exercise, this is about warm and cool in the environment: warm raking yellow light and blue skies or shadows. It's magic hour, before sunset. I look for shots facing away from the light, or shoot normal to the light, to catch the cool side of the sky, and surfaces catching the light, without getting much of the blown-out warm sky around the sun.

I have a couple of shots that leap to mind that work well for me, in this way:





The first one is facing into the light, but catches a lot of cool shadows to compensate.

[Steve M.]

Chiaroscuro is a $100 word for high contrast. It normally is used to refer to working from very dark values to very light ones in a painting, print or drawing.

The light in the first links to the 2 photos you have in your post is fantastic. It's obviously not post, and you can't get it there. It can be edited of course. I don't have the patience for this type of photography (which is why my large format experiment went nowhere), but when you see fine shots like these two, it reminds me of what you can miss.

[stratcat]

User 'Lano' who posts in the '120 RF Folders' sub-forum does that kind of shot very well too...

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/foru...&postcount=554

[daveleo]

this is part of an e-mail I received from Tom Brichta, just now . . . .


. . . . if you would like to pass this on to the group, it is mostly about the light. Photography is about recording light. Knowing where and when to use it helps a lot.

I try to shoot in the golden time. I like to look for low warm light.

The dolphins were shot in the Galapagos Islands, just before sunset, and just after a rainstorm. Same with the wave, that was taken in Carmel Ca., again at sunset, and after a storm. I like to tell people shoot at the edges of light. That's when you get the best light. I do some post processing, but I try to keep it to a minimum. In fact, I toned down the saturation on the schooner in the dolphin picture. We had beautiful light that night, and a sun ray made a direct hit on it, and the finish on the mast just popped!

I also use graduated neutral density filters for a lot of my photos. And, I'll use the graduated neutral density filter in lightroom if needed.

Just remember "Chase the Light"

Take care,

Tom Brichta



Footnote: I do not know Tom, except that I looked at a slew of images on his Flickr stream and commented on them here.

[mugget]

Wow, thanks for everyone taking the time to comment here, great discussion.

Great photos that everyone has posted as well. Thanks for that tip shadowfox, I'll... ahhh... keep that in mind.

Originally Posted by peterm1

Painters play with light and my attitude is that I have to do the same. When I do it I am trying to create a feeling rather than just reproducing an image of a scene absolutely faithfully.

Nice, I like that idea. Sounds like a good motto to me!

Originally Posted by Steve M.

Chiaroscuro is a $100 word for high contrast. It normally is used to refer to working from very dark values to very light ones in a painting, print or drawing.

Thanks for the simple explanation, I get it now.

Daveleo, thanks for sharing that email from Tom. I was sure that I'd read something similar from him in the past, about using minimal editing.

I definitely agree that it's "all about the light". Good tips to look for a low and side-lit scene, I will aim to give that a try. The fact that Tom Brichta uses such a wide variety of cameras is what struck me. But I guess that just goes to show that it really is about the light (not necessarily the camera).

I am not against some editing as well, that's actually another type of challenge for me - to be able to visualise a scene that will work well with some edits. It's a tricky thing to try and visualise and achieve a look that was not directly presented to you to take a photo of.

Just to talk on technique a little bit, I just want to get people's opinion to see if I'm thinking along the right lines with this: So if I wanted to capture a late afternoon "golden light" photo I should adjust the exposure to create a realistic looking photo? But if I intended to edit the photo I should "expose to the right" so that I have the most detail? Or would you recommend to always expose to the right for digital photography?

Cheers for the discussion so far, that's helped alot.

[charjohncarter]

Originally Posted by raid

I used to use slow slide film for accurate color rendition and finer grain, and I did not have access to PS or similar programs. It was a matter of understanding how light would form an image on a specific type of film with a specific type of light. It was a one time chance each time for me since I never bracketed shots. It was very exciting to get back a box of slides and then inspect each slide on a light table with neutral color light and a loupe.

Galen Rowell was one of the good nature photographers whose books and work inspired me to work hard to capture the right light in an image.

I agree, this was taken in between rain showers, with a 35mm camera and on cheap transparency film, no fake filters, no golden hour, no white balance correction, no in camera vivid color setting, etc, and no PS:



And nothing like a silver print to make B&W look good. But we are now inured to digital and it is here to stay so enjoy it.

[tj01]

... and to answer your question, i have no idea .