A night-time photo shoot often presents a problem or two, especially when including an element of interest in the background such as architecture. In most cases a tripod or some other method of stabilizing the camera will be necessary due to the slow shutter speeds used with low-light photography. But even with a tripod, our subject needs to remain somewhat statuesque to prevent blurring. If you’ve ever tried portraits at night, you’ll know that getting clean sharp shots is almost impossible when there’s any kind of movement.

We often end up turning on our flash to get around this issue. But this leads us into another problem. Using frontal flash at night will certainly capture your subject, but everything that’s outside of your flash range, everything in the background will disappear into blackness. The resulting shot will be simply your bright subject, in a sea of blackness.

So in low light, how do we include the subject AND the background?

The answer is slow-sync flash.

It’s a pretty simple concept that combines long exposure with flash photography. There are two types of slow-sync flash available to us, and they will each produce their own unique results. The two types are “front curtain” or “rear curtain”. Either method can be used in an environment where everything is still with little difference in the outcome, not forgetting that a tripod would still be necessary in most cases. However, if you’re trying to capture any kind of movement within the scene, it’s important to choose the technique that will provide you with the desired result.

Front-curtain: The flash is fired at the start of the shot – right when the shutter opens. The flash will illuminate the subject and foreground, and the shutter will remain open for the remainder of the shot – long enough to capture everything else in the background.

Rear-curtain: Basically the opposite of the above. The shutter is opened for as long as necessary – long enough to capture the background, and then at the very last minute, the flash will fire to illuminate the subject and foreground.

As an example, try to imagine a scene where there is a little bit of frontal lighting. There’s a building or a large sculpture in the background that has been up-lit, and we want to capture both our subject, who is close-by AND the background architecture. We decide to use the rear-curtain technique and an exposure of around 10 seconds. As we press the shutter button our subject begins to walk through the frame from the left-hand side – and we time it so that the flash fires just as they are about to exit to the right. The resulting shot will show our subject about to exit the frame, but with light trails behind them – perhaps giving the feeling of a speedy exit.

What results do you think the front curtain method would produce? If you were to have the flash fire as the subject enters the scene, then leave the shutter open as they walk through the frame. What effect do you think that would have on the resulting photo?

The reason why sunset has been one of the most interesting subject for photography is because

• Every sunset is unique with the unique set of clouds or things in foreground.
• It gives you infinite variations of colors in one evening itself.

So, here are the things you need to keep in mind while doing sunset photography so that your sunsets become memorable for time to come.

Composition

The most important part of a sunset is the sun. But sun alone can not make your pictures wonderful. You need to take care of the complete view – the composition; like the clouds, when light passes from them you get various shades and as the clouds move and sun goes further down, you get different patterns. Make sure you take a longer shot to capture the whole view. It doesn’t mean you can not zoom into sun and get the frame filled with the big ball of fire. That can be interesting too. Make sure you know how you want to capture your sunset. No place is bad, be it a beach or a mountain or even in the middle of the city. What matters is how you decide on your composition and how you capture it.

Exposure

Thumb rule says, if you are clicking the sun with the whole sky, go down on the exposure. One or two stops down on exposure. It works. It can help in putting all the things in foreground to look dark and you have a perfect back lit picture. Also a slight underexposure will result in more saturated colors. But be creative. There are no hard and fast rules.

Equipment

A digital camera or a DSLR (depending on what you want) with a normal lens will do. Also make sure you carry a tripod, if in case you need to use low shutter speed. I generally don’t go so slow on shutter speed that I need a tripod. But tripod is a good option. A good estimate is anything slower than 1/20sec can use a tripod.

You as a photographer

“Patience is a virtue” makes absolute sense in photography. You need to wait for the right moment and be ready to click. If you are new click every five minutes because you don’t want to miss that special moment that only occurs once a day. At times you might have to hold the camera for several minutes in order to get the perfect picture you are looking for. Sunset is a like a process. It takes a little time for the sun to set completely. But throughout the process you get huge variations and good chances to take a good picture. You get various shades in the sky during sunset. But you need to keep in mind that one shade combination will stay for a few minutes. Once gone, it will not come back. So, as a photographer you need to by ready for the right picture.

Photography has entered a whole new world, with remarkable changes in technology in just a few short years. One thing has not changed, however; the camera – not the computer – is still the most important tool of a good photographer.

When the digital photography revolution began, it excited two groups of people. First there were the traditional photographers, who embraced the cost savings and convenience offered by digital photography. For them, it was a chance to do what they had always done, but to do it in a format more suited to the modern age.

Then there were the computer types, who perhaps didn’t know much about photography and weren’t very good at it. For these people, photography had entered their world in a big way. They may not have known much about art or technology, but they sure knew plenty about software. In this world, they were way ahead of traditional photographers who had grown up with SLR cameras, film and the darkroom.

So, does being good with software make you a good photographer? Of course not.

With software, you can achieve amazing things. You can do everything from tweaking the contrast in an image to moving objects around and making your photo look like it was a painting. But there are also plenty of things – essential things – that you can’t do. You can’t make an out-of-focus subject in focus. You can’t un-blur a moving subject that was blurred because the photographer used the wrong shutter speed.

Technical issues aside, there it also the great sense of honest satisfaction a photographer feels when they are able to capture a perfect image ‘in camera.’

In some industries, like advertising, the only thing that matters is the image; how you do it is irrelevant, as long as you produce the result. But for the ‘average Joe’, photography is about capturing memories, to revisit and share with others.

I am not suggesting software has no place in photography. In fact, even devoted digital fans recognize that most images need a little tweaking of saturation and contrast to bring them up to print quality.

The point is, software is no substitute for camera skills. It is great, perhaps even essential, to know how to work on a photo after the event. But that cannot take the place of learning how to use a camera, how to appreciate light and how to compose a great image.

Beginners beware; there are people out there who will hold you back by telling you that notions of aperture, shutter speed and ISO are outdated relics of film photography. In fact, by learning these photography essentials, you will develop skills that will reduce your reliance on computers to fix your mistakes.

The benefits? Well, first there is the satisfaction of knowing your picture was captured with your own skill and is a true reflection of the moment as it happened.

Need something more practical? Think about this. To produce a good image from a poorly taken photo can take hours sitting in front of a computer. How long does it take to get it right in the first place? About 1/500th sec.

Snow scenes are full of bright white color. Your camera will see this and will try to turn all the pure white into grey, leaving the resulting photo looking like a portrait of dirty snow. So, you have to trick your camera in order to take an accurate image of the snowy scene. Lower your ISO to 50 or 100, and open your lens up one or two f-stops more than the auto setting suggests. For example, on a bright and sunny day in the snow, set your camera to 1/1000 of a second shutter speed, f/8 aperture, and ISO at 50 or 100. Use the same settings for an overcast day, though the resulting photo will not be as bright because there is less available light. When shooting snow scenes at night, increase your shutter speed to about 5 seconds, and close down the lens to ISO 200 or 400. Set up a tripod, and use the self timer so you don’t cause a blur when you push the button to take the photo. Adjust the shutter speed to make the photo lighter or darker (increase it for lighter photos; decrease it for darker photos).