How to take dramatically lit landscape on boring light days
Here's a fun technique. I think it's new, but if somebody else has already done this or something similar, please feel free to correct me. The technique allows you to simulate very directional lighting even on days with so-so lighting, but it does take a little bit of planning. Let's say you're out and about shooting photos, and there's a light overcast/mixed cloudy sky. If you wait until a break in the clouds hits your subject, you can take photos like this one: Decent, but nothing too spectacular. How could you make the lighting more dramatic? One option would be to mess around with levels or curves, but that's going lead to clipping of highlights and/or shadows, pretty soon. Like so: So here's my idea. First you wait until the clouds move a bit and your subject is in shade. Then you take a SUPER boring picture like this one from exactly the same camera position. This photo has completely diffuse lighting and next to know threedimentionality