Tips for photographer Doing Fall Portraits

written by: Sean Gannon 
Autumn provides photographers with an abundance of colours and amazing light. When captured right, autumn can create images which are the envy of everyone.

For family photos, autumn can provide you with amazing backdrops, and a variety that can be matched by no other season. For this article, I took my own two children for a walk in the woods to do some fall portraits. Photographing other people’s children is always easier than your own, so I thought it would be a great exercise, and we may also even get some nice pictures of our own children for once. So here are some fall portrait tips to get you started.

Preparation

Preparation is the key to any successful shoot. Of course ensuring your camera equipment is charged, you have clear cards, and your gear is clean seems like a no brainer, but it’s often the fundamentals that we overlook. Clearing cards can be daunting for those starting out, but just double check that you have downloaded everything, then use the Format function (in the camera) that will give you a completely clear card. There are rumors that deleting single images in-camera can lead to corrupting the card, so it’s best to use the Format function.

Make sure you check the weather. Here in the UK, as well as many other parts of the world, it can change quickly at this time of year. Check with a few sources about local weather. It’s such a pain to get everyone together, get in the car and travel for some time, only to be rained out. Although, even rain in autumn can provide some great image opportunities, if you are dressed correctly.

Sunrise and sunset can give us the best light. However, dragging your family out of bed for a photo shoot is always going to be tough. Aim to start your shoot about an hour before sunset.This Golden Hour is favored by many professional portrait photographers, as the light is more flattering and you may even get a great sunset. You can look up sunset times for your local area. It can be surprising how early it gets dark, and you want at least a good hour of shooting before the sun goes down.

Make sure everyone dresses appropriately. It’s getting colder, and it’s one less thing to worry about if everyone is warm during the walk back to the car. While we still think it’s lovely and warm outside, believe me, it gets cold pretty quick when the sun starts to go down. Also have a change of clothing available for everyone. It can be wet and muddy and some of us are prone to falling over!

Make sure you bring snacks and drinks. Especially if you are photographing children. They will get bored and hungry way before you do, so anything to help keep them going while you master that perfect shot the better.

Editor’s note: if you are photographing other people’s kids have the parents bring snacks that the kids like. Never give food to other people’s kids without asking the parents, there may be allergies or special diets.

Clothing advice for portrait photographers:

Clothing choices are always important for portraits, but in fall it can really make a difference to your image. Try and have everyone wear natural tones that will either compliment the colours of the leaves and trees, or blend in. My son wore a dark red sweater, as we knew the area had very vivid reds in the trees. My daughter wore black and white which is a timeless combination that blends in well. My son also wore a grey hood that coordinated with his sister.

Try and avoid clashing patterns or colours amongst your subjects by discussing it in advance, and maybe come up with a colour theme that everyone can include. Also avoid t-shirts or sweatshirts that have dominant logos. If he could, our son would have Star Wars logos on everything. This can of course date an image, and is also very distracting.

Try and have a few changes of clothes available. This will not only provide variety in your images, but in the wet and possibly muddy conditions, you may well need them, especially for any children.

Location

Location is essential for any shoot, but for autumn you want to find the best colours and textures you can. Things can change really quickly. The leaves can change over a couple of days, but it often doesn’t happen until later than you think. For this article, we actually struggled to find autumn colours despite it being early October. You also need to check that the leaves are still there. A heavy wind can take them down overnight, so don’t wait too long after you have scouted your spot to shoot.

We searched online for arboretums, these are great places that have collections of interesting trees. Of course, your local forest would be great too.

Use social media for location tags to see what other people have photographed over the last few days, at or near the same location. Instagram, Twitter and even Trip Advisor are fantastic for this. You may also get to see a great place that you may not have found otherwise.

The technical bits

For my shoot, I was using a Canon 5D Mark 3 and took the 24-70mm f/2.8 Mark 2, and the 70-200mm f/2.8 Mark 2. These of course are professional cameras and lenses, but any modern camera whether a DSLR, point and shoot, or even a smart phone should provide great images. In fact, I find the iPhone 6 has great range of colours and light.

If you are using a DSLR, you can really play with the aperture (f-stops) to get a range of looks without moving location. To get a super blurry background, set your aperture to the lowest number. On my lens, this is f/2.8. Some lenses can go lower and some are limited to higher setting. Even with a kit lens that comes with your camera, you should be able to get to around f/5. If you want the leaves and your family in focus, try increasing the aperture to f/8 or even f/22. Do be careful though because at f/22 your shutter speed will be significantly slower, and you may well need to increase your ISO to compensate.

I photographed the images above in Aperture Priority (AV on a Canon, and A on a Nikon). This is when you decide the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed. Keep an eye that the shutter speed doesn’t geet too slow (1/60 as a minimum). If it does, increase your ISO.

Personally, I always shoot in RAW. For me it just allows me that flexibility afterwards. However, with modern cameras, JPEGs are very versatile, and don’t break up as much as they used to. Some cameras allow you to capture a RAW and JPEG at the same time. This is great so you have the RAW to go to if need be.

White Balance: for these images, I shot in cloudy White Balance. It warmed up the colours, although I did alter these in Camera RAW processing later, it did give me a great starting point. If you are using your manufacturer’s own software, you should be able to change the white balance quite easily.

Getting natural smiles and reactions from children

You know your own children very well. You know the songs they like and what gets them interested. However, they are also very comfortable around you, and may decide to walk off just as you get your camera settings right. Here are a few tips to get a natural reaction.

As in the images in this article. I asked my children to laugh hysterically for no reason at all. This got a huge overreaction which although is a great animated image, is not what we were after. What did happen is that as they calmed down from that, they had natural smiles. They thought it was funny and continued smiling naturally.

If you have more than one child, ask one to tell the other a secret. This will always get them giggling.

With just one child, ask them to tell you or the camera anything that they are interested in. Our son will talk for hours about anything Star Wars or Marvel. With our daughter we can ask her math questions, which gets a range of reactions.

Sing them a song but get it wrong. For some reason, this is the funniest thing ever to kids. Basically, do anything to distract them or get a reaction, but not by saying CHEESE!

Editing your images

For editing, I used Camera RAW processor which is part of Photoshop. However, most cameras come with editing software, or you can use something like Lightroom which is quite affordable. I actually kept the editing quite simple. The main thing I did was to go to the saturation panel and increased my Reds, Greens and Yellows. This really brought some punch to the image.

And finally…

Please print your images in some way. As parents, we are great at taking images, but not doing anything with them. Don’t worry about capturing the most amazing image, just get something that captures your family and print it some way.

Sean Gannon 

 which specialises in corporate headshot photography across the UK. He works with large corporate clients, photographs hundreds of colleagues, and works with professional individuals, to create headshots for use in print, as well as their own websites, and of course social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter. With national coverage, Headshots UK have a network of photographers to capture business portraits wherever their clients are based.

10 Tips for Photographing Great Headshots

A Post By: Sean Gannon
Photographing a headshot can seem like a daunting prospect. To have one person in front of your camera, looking to you for direction and positivity, is an intense environment. People are generally very critical of themselves in photographs, and feel very nervous. However, there are some simple things that you can do to make it a lot easier for everyone.

Here are 10 tips to help you photograph headshots:

1. Have a pre-session consultation

Before your session make sure you know how the images will be used and what style they would like. This can be on the phone or face to face. Talking to them, will help them relax so much more than email. This will allow you to help them prepare for the session. Make sure they know what to expect, and are as relaxed as possible.

Find out about what profession your subject is involved in; a corporate lawyer may well opt for a clean white background look (above), while a more relaxed style of business (yoga instructor) may prefer a more colourful, environmental image (below). Find out in the consultation what they want so you are prepared on the day.

2. Help them to choose the right clothes

Generally speaking, solid, neutral colours, work best for headshots, as you want to avoid anything that distracts away from people’s faces. If it is a formal style you are looking to achieve, make sure that everyone gets the message, and remembers to bring formal work clothes with them. Men often forget their jackets, so for a consistent look, try and have a spare one on hand, even if you need to clip it at the back. If you have time with a person, get them to bring a few items of clothing. Remind them to iron their clothes as well.

Here are some example of good clothing choices:

3. Create separation from the background

Make sure that your subject doesn’t stand too close to the background. If you are using a studio background (or wall in an office) and you stand someone close to it, you may see shadows on the wall, which makes the images look less professional. For environmental headshots outdoors, I still recommend separation from the background. The bokeh creates a nice nondescript background, especially when shot at a wide aperture. Typically I aim for an aperture of f/4 for environmental and natural light sessions, and f/8 for studio style sessions with lights.

Also read:Photography: Understanding the HSL Panel in Lightroom for Beginners

4. Starting the session

Whether you are photographing headshots for a single person, or a whole team, make sure you have a general chat with each person first, to help them relax. This can be just a 10 second, confident handshake, and a “how are you?”. People generally feel very tense about having their photograph taken, and talking about something in their comfort zone (where they live, if they have children or pets, etc) will really help them appear and be more comfortable.

5. Silly Faces!

A great way of helping people to relax in front of the camera, if you don’t have much time with them, is to ask them to pull a funny face for the first frame. Use this as a lighting test for a new person as well. This is great at breaking the ice, and very few refuse to do it. Once they have pulled a daft face, everything else is easy!

6. Lighting and positioning

For business and actors’ headshots, I tend to light quite evenly. There are a few circumstances when the images are low-key, but for the main part, they are evenly lit. A classic beauty lighting setup works well, with one light above, and a second light, or a reflector filling from below.

Also read:Tips for Minimizing Reflections When Photographing Through Windows

I ensure the subject is turned with their body 45 degrees away from the camera, and towards the main light source (if your lighting allows for this). Their face should be straight towards the camera. You may need to guide people to look straight down the lens. It’s surprising how many people look off camera, at the flash, or somewhere random.

7. Sit people down

People may be more comfortable sitting down, and by asking them to rest their hands on the tops of their thighs, it gives them something to do with their hands. It also ensures that the subjects all know where they need to be, and they don’t move around too much.

8. It’s all about the little adjustments

What separates a great headshot from an average one, are generally very small changes. These little adjustments can make all the difference. The slight tilt to the head, leaning forward, a gentle but intriguing smile. Don’t be afraid to ask someone to make very specific changes to their expression and position, until you get the image you’re looking for.

9. Keep talking and be positive

When you’re in the midst of taking photographs, make sure that you keep talking to your subject. Reassure them that they’re doing it right, and you’re getting great images. Even if you’re not satisfied with the images when someone turns their head in a certain direction, or how the light is falling on them, never express that to your subject. Silence will kill the atmosphere, so no matter what is happening, just keep chatting and being positive.

10. Shoot tethered

If you have all the necessary equipment, shooting tethered is a fantastic way the get great headshots. When people see a couple of shots on the screen, they can very quickly get an idea of what needs to be changed. The immediate feedback on the screen will help everyone massively.

I hope you find these tips for better head shots helpful. Do you have any others we missed? Please share them, and your headshot photos in the comments below.

Written by:

Sean Gannon 

which specialises in corporate headshot photography across the UK. He works with large corporate clients, photographs hundreds of colleagues, and works with professional individuals, to create headshots for use in print, as well as their own websites, and of course social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter. With national coverage, Headshots UK have a network of photographers to capture business portraits wherever their clients are based.

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Photography: Understanding the HSL Panel in Lightroom for Beginners

A Post By: Adam Welch

There are many things involved in post-processing an image, that might seem a little bit daunting at first. That doesn’t mean that they are difficult to learn, or hard to understand. The HSL panel in Adobe Lightroom (or similar editing software that uses Adobe Camera Raw), tends to bring about feelings of anxiety, when it comes to making sense of all those sliders. Some photographers choose to pretend it doesn’t even exist, just because it looks a little complicated. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Simply put, those three little letters stand for Hue-Saturation-Luminance. What makes the HSL panel so powerful, is that it allows you to control different colors independently. HSL adjustments will enable you to brighten, or emphasize specific saturations, and control the hue of only certain colors. Like working with black and white? Then you should definitely make use of the HSL panel, and take your black and white conversions to a whole new level. Let’s get started!

We’ve already talked about what the letter HSL stand for, so now let’s break it down, so that you will really understand how each one affects your image.

H – What is hue?

Admittedly, trying to discern the functional difference between the words hue and color, can form a little bit of a gray area (haha color humor). But generally, we think of hue in terms of the shade of a color on a gradient and is dependant on the wavelength of the light reflected. Don’t worry, that’s about as scientific as we will get.

Let’s say that I see a flower out in a field. The flower has beautiful yellow petals. What shade of yellow are the petals? Are they actually yellow, or are they maybe a dark yellow with a little bit of orange? Maybe a brighter, more greenish yellow? This subtle gradient of color is what we might describe as hue, and it varies infinitely across the color wheel. Controlling the hue of the colors in your image is a great way to bring realism to your photo, or even depart from it usingpsychedelic alternatives to the actual colors within the scene.

S – What is saturation?

Saturation is much simpler to comprehend. When we talk about saturation, we are referring to the intensity of a color. Saturation can play a central role in controlling the mood of a photograph. Highly saturated colors generally convey brighter emotions, whereas muted, desaturated color can lend a sense of brooding or sadness. What the HSL panel allows you to do is control the saturation of only the colors you choose, which will really expand your creative range.

L – What is luminance?

This may very well be the most easy part about HSL to understand, and requires the least amount of explaining. Luminance is simply the reflective brightness of colors. It is extremely useful when there are certain colors within the image that you feel should be either darker, or brighter. This comes in handy, especially when working with black and white images (converted from color), but more on that in just a moment.

There are a couple of ways to configure the HSL panel, but I prefer to leave each adjustment section open while I work. True, it takes up a fair amount of space in the develop module, but it also let’s me make quick adjustments as I go without switching back and forth between the dedicated hue, saturation, and luminance panels.

Adjusting specific saturations:

Let’s say you have an image that you want to bring out only certain colors. You can do this by using the saturation slider. An easy way to select the color you want to adjust, is by using the color picker. It eliminates the guesswork of deciding what color is actually which. In this case I want to increase the saturation, brightness, and hue of the leaves, without affecting the blues of the background.

Find the saturation section of the HSL panel, and select the picker tool (see red arrow below to locate it).

Hover over the color you want to saturate or desaturate. Notice that this will subtly highlight the corresponding color values in the saturation section of the HSL panel. Then simply click and hold while you drag up or down.

The change here is barely perceptible for the time being, but after some more adjustments, it will be obvious.

Adjusting specific luminance:

Next, we will make the leaves a little bit brighter, so that they stand out from the blue background even more. They mainly consist of oranges and yellows. Go to the luminance section, and again select the color picker tool. This time it will control the brightness of the selected color.

Click and drag (up to lighten, down to darken).

Adjusting specific hues:

I like saving the hue adjustments for last, because it’s easier (for me at least) to decide the final color tone, after it has reached the desired brightness and saturation. For this picture, I want to make the leaves more orange than yellow in hue. As above, locate the hue adjustment section and the color picker and then…you guessed it, click and drag.

After you finish, make sure to go back and perform any fine tuning using the sliders, in order to get everything just right.

Before adjustments

After – final image

HSL with Black and White:

When it comes to black and white, the HSL panel can work wonders. Of course, seeing as the image is black and white, there won’t be any effect on the hue or saturation of the colors. Rather, Lightroom gives you a completely different set of controls, which is virtually a stand-alone luminance adjustment panel.

Even though you are working with a monochromatic image, the color information is still stored, so the program knows what color was there, before the conversion to black and white. Keep in mind, this does not apply to images shot in non-RAW format (like JPG) using your camera’s black and white setting, or images which you previously converted to grayscale in Photoshop. Doing so removes all the color information from the image file, making the option for working with individual color luminance in Lightroom unavailable.

By being able to selectively adjust the brightness of each color, you will now be possible to adjust the luminance of your black and whites very creatively. This way, you can really control the contrast and mood of your image much better and easier. Adjusting the luminance of certain colors, within a converted black and white image, can drastically change the way the photo appears to the viewer. Here is color image after being converted to black and white.

Here you see the same image, after some selective adjustments in the black and white section of the HSL panel.

Working with the HSL panel may look overwhelming, but once you understand how each adjustment affects your photo, it becomes a lot less scary. By being able to adjust the hue, saturation, and luminance of colors, independently of one another, will allow to take a huge amount of creative control over your post-processing. Don’t be reluctant to experiment with HSL and have fun with your photography!

Have you used the HSL panel before? What other tips or tricks to you have for using it? Please share in the comments below.

How to Find Inspiration Photographing Locations Near Home

A Post By: Leanne Cole

Everywhere you look there are thousands of images depicting beautiful places in the world. How many times have you thought to yourself, “I wish I could travel so I could take the same photographs?” The reality is that most of those photos were taken by people who live close to the locations, or have the ability to travel there multiple times.

It is a statement that you hear from many photographers. It may be true, but the truth is most of us live in wonderfully rich photographic areas. The problem is that you see it every day, so it no longer seems interesting.

Knowing that a storm is coming, then being able to get to a good location quickly, is an advantage when you photograph near where you live.

What would you recommend to a visitor:

If another photographer was coming to your area and wanted to know places to go, what would you recommend? Think about what someone else might be interested in, that is a way you can photograph it. Try to look at your area from another point of view.

Also read :Tips for Minimizing Reflections When Photographing Through Windows

How to find something to shoot:

There has to be something unique or different about where you are located. Look at the history of your town or area. See if you can find out about an event that happened where you can visit the place. Use the history as your motivation for photography. Google the area around you, and see what you can find.

Think about interesting buildings, ones that are abandoned or still in use. There may be some interesting landmarks that can help tell a story. Perhaps there was an industry there that no longer exists.

For example, suppose in your area the local hospital started as a home for incurables. Then the land was given to the city for a permanent hospital. How has that hospital shaped the town? Is the original hospital still there? Has the hospital gone, but now something else is in its place?

There is always the possibility that nothing has ever happened. Maybe your location is devoid of that, and in which case you could photograph the normality of it. What makes it boring? What does the main street look like? Is there anything interesting there at all? There will always be something.

An older part of the Austin Hospital in Heidelberg.

How far are you willing to travel?

Mark a circle on a map of where you would be willing to travel to in a day. For instance, you might be prepared to travel at least two hours to get somewhere. Perhaps time isn’t on your side, and you can only travel 15 minutes in any direction. That becomes your zone, and the area you are going to photograph.

My area is two hours, or around that. I will travel somewhere for the day and take photos. I will go back to the same areas. There is a lot that is within that area near where I live.

Find the story:

Perhaps instead of finding individual images of the place you might be better off trying to do a whole story on it. Find the story of the area. What makes it important to the people who live there? Why have they stayed? Why do you live there?

The answers to all these questions will help you find the story, and can inform your photography.

An old car left to rust in the Mallee.

Advantages:

When you photograph where you live, you have nothing but all the advantages:

1 : You can take photos at the best time of day:

One definite advantage you have over visitors to your area, is that you can work out when the best time to photograph that spot. Then, you can go back as many times as you need.

If it is very close, you can get up early and see if it is worthwhile going there for a sunrise. Perhaps in the afternoon you can see if there are clouds in the sky, which might make it a good opportunity to get a sunset. You will be able to look out the window and figure out when you want to go.

Most people have to hope that the one time they go, the conditions will be perfect for what they want to photograph. You know how often that happens.

Getting sunrises is easier when you can wake up and go down the road to capture it.

2 : Visiting the location multiple times:

How often have you gone somewhere, put your photos on the computer when you got home and thought, “I wish I had noticed that tree” or something else on the side of the image? Maybe you wished you could have taken it at a different angle.

If you live there, that will never be a problem for you again. You can visit that spot as many times as you like, to get exactly the photos that you want.

Old towns can have great buildings that have just been left, like an old shearing shed make from kerosene tins.

3 : Experiment with different techniques:

You can try a lot different techniques to take photos. You can go home and see what you have, then go back and experiment with other angles or conditions another time. You can try more experimental types of photography, that other people who only have one opportunity to go there, might not want to try.

Every time you go, try to shoot it that spot a different way.

Sunset over a salt pan in the Mallee. Being able to get back to the same spot to get the best photos is a bonus.

4 : Have access to local knowledge

Visiting any places where you might only go once, you have to be content with information from the internet, or with what you see when you get there. However, when you live in an area, you can talk to people you know, who may be able to introduce you to others. If they know you are interested in the local area and taking photos, then you might find people coming to you, to tell you about places that you didn’t know existed.

Disadvantages:

Are there really any disadvantages? Perhaps the fact that you aren’t going anywhere exotic to take photos, unless you already live somewhere like that.

When you decide to photograph the area you live in, you get all the advantages that so many others don’t have for that place. It is up to you to make the most of it. Some examples:

A Mallee Town of not much consequence:

Take a small town in North West Victoria (Australia) where my mother lives. I go up there to visit all the time. According to the locals there is nothing there. But when I drive around, I see shops that are now empty, or a train station that has closed, and stopped being used many years ago. There are things that give hints to a time past, that was industrious. The town had a past where it was bigger, where those stores were open for business.

It would be easy to agree with the locals that there is nothing there, but that would be a mistake. The story is there in those closed buildings and what is left of the town. As a photographer you can then show what is happening there.

Getting to know locals in towns can give you access to buildings, like this old church in a Mallee town.

Finding the history of where you live:

For many years I always travelled to other places, in the city, or in the state of Victoria, to take photos because I was convinced that what was around me was boring. Who would be interested in what’s here?

I started to realize that this area has a rich art history. Some famous Australian artists have painted this area, and perhaps that was where I needed to start looking. Once I started looking with different eyes, a lot of new places started to open up to me. This area has some great parks. It is quite old so there are ancient homes, hospitals, cemeteries. Now I photograph it all the time.

Knowing the local train station and timetable, can be great for getting to the station at a good time to take photos.:

When you photograph somewhere you live or a place you travel to often, you really get so many wonderful opportunities.

Many photographers dream of travelling to other places and photographing the world, but sometimes your best subject is right outside your door or within a stone’s throw of where you live. You just need to get out there and see what you can find.

What would you recommend to photograph in your area for someone who was visiting it for the first? Please share your local photography finds and your images in the comments below.

Tips for Minimizing Reflections When Photographing Through Windows

by Leanne Cole

Have you ever wanted to take a photo through a shop window, but couldn’t work out how to cut the reflections? Or been up on an observation deck, trapped behind glass that had so many stray lights shining into the glass, that you couldn’t get a good shot of what was on the other side?

It is hard to take photos through glass and not get lots of unwanted reflections.

Glass can be one of the hardest things to take photos through. It doesn’t seem to matter where you move, you will find more reflections. Then just when you think you have the perfect shot, you put it on the computer only to find that they are still there.

Shop Windows:

One of the most commons places to take photos, is through shop windows. But, they are often in well-lit places, and they are tough because you will be getting reflections from all directions. There are ways of minimizing the reflections, and things you can do to help prevent them.

Polarizering Filter:

A polarizer filter will help reduce the reflections. It may not remove them all, but it will help you to eliminate many of them. Take the images below, it has all the lights on the outside of the store reflected in the glass, and with a polarizing filter.

The reflections of the lights from outside the shop can be seen on the glass.

The reflections have been removed by the help of the polarizing filter.

A circular polarizing filter was put on the lens, and in order to remove the reflections, it was turned until they just disappeared. Take a look at the image above right, the filter has helped remove many of them.

It doesn’t always work, but it can help reduce reflections. In some cases, you are going to find that reducing them is better than having them ruin your images.

Using a Lens Hood:

If you can get your lens right up to the glass of the window so that it sits on it squarely, it can stop any unwanted reflections from getting in front of the lens. However, it means that you can only take photos of what is directly in front of the camera, what do you do if you want to take some at an angle? There is no doubt that once you move it on an angle you will start to see reflections.

You want to be able to create a seal around the end of the lens, and a rubber lens hood can do that. Look at the following photo, you can see one on the lens.

The rubber lens cap is on the lens, and pushed against the window.

The advantage is the flexibility, and how you can move it around and change the angle of your lens. The following two images show one with reflections, and one without. The latter is the one taken using the rubber lens hood.

Reflections on the glass are apparent here.

The rubber lens hood has eliminated the reflections.

They used to be very common and a lot of people would have the rubber hoods for their lenses, but slowly the hard plastic ones have taken over. It is good to see that if you hunt around on the internet, you can still find them. The one used for this demonstration was found on Ebay.

Trams, trains and cars:

There are numerous places you could use it, and on a recent trip to the mountains around Lake Tahoe, it would have been great in the tram up Squaw Valley. The glass in the tram had so many reflections it wasn’t worth trying to get any photos. It was the same on the tram that runs from Roosevelt Island to New York.

Trains and other moving vehicles have the same problems with windows and reflections. The rubber lens hood would help you to get an image free of any distracting reflections. However, there is one place in Melbourne where it wouldn’t help at all.

Eureka SKydeck:

In Melbourne there is an observation deck that is 88 floors up, Eureka Skydeck, that provides some stunning views of Melbourne. It is a great place to see the city, but a terrible place to take photos.

There is glass all around, and it reflects everything else in it. The one place where you can go outside has mesh across it and for most cameras the holes in it are not big enough to take photos through. At night there are lights on the floor that create their own effects on the windows.

If you go up to the glass to take photos, you will find that if you use the rubber lens hood method won’t work as there are two panes of glass. You might get rid of the reflections off the first pane, but there is not much you can do with the second.

Here are two images, the first was taken during the day and you can see the reflections. The second image was taken at night and you can see all the lights that are there reflected in the glass.

Taken during the day and you can see the reflections.

At night the lights inside reflect everywhere, and you can also get portraits shots, whether you want them or not.

Like everything in photography, there are always ways to get around problems.

To eliminate the reflections, you will need to put your camera on a tripod, or something similar, for the following image a GorillaPod was used. It was placed close to the ground, as you can see in the image. At the Eureka Skydeck they have lights in the floor, so you have to make sure that light isn’t coming from under the camera.

The camera on the gorillapod on the floor.

Set up your image and create a seal around the camera with fabric, you could use a piece of black cloth. It needs to be dark as a lighter colour will reflect as well. For these images a lightweight black jacket was held up against the window, to help prevent the reflections. You want to be able use the fabric or jacket to create a closed-in area around the camera, so you don’t get unwanted views in your image. Look at the following image.

The jacket is placed around the camera to stop reflections.

Of course no system is going to be foolproof, but, if you compare the following two images, you can see that it does make a big difference. The first image was done without any protection, and the jacket was used for the second one.

This image has had nothing done to stop the reflections.

This was taken using the above method with a jacket to block the reflections.

You have to judge each situation as you get to it. While one technique might work in one place, it may not work elsewhere. There is no doubt that glass and windows are one of the hardest objects to photograph through, a bit like photographing a mirror. Take care, and I hope the next time you are taking photos of a shop window, you get some great photos.

 This article already published in Digital photography school