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Fall can be a wonderful time of year. Not too warm, not too cold, and the colors changing from one week to the next week, making it well worth photographing for posterity. But how can you ensure you’re taking the best shots in the fall?
There’s no magic formula to taking great shots in the fall. You just have to make the colors and textures that make this season feel special, work for you. So, here’s how to get the best fall shots with your smartphone.
1Shoot at Dawn or Dusk to Complement the Fall Colors
When it comes to fall, not all times of the day are created equal. While you CANcapture wonderful shots in any lighting conditions, shooting at dawn or dusk will help the natural colors of the season stand out in your photos. This is due to the effect the light, and its angle, has on the fall colors.
The first shot above, with the sun dappling through the trees, was shot at dawn. The park was empty, and the scene had an ethereal quality to it that it wouldn’t have had in the middle of the day. The second was shot at dusk, just as the streetlights came on, brightening the fallen leaves.
2Look for Color Contrasts That Are Abundant During Fall
Fall is all about the colors that are abundant in nature. Trees and plants are dying back ready to survive winter and make it to the spring. And if you’re able to find contrasts with the fall colors, you’ll have a great shot on your hands. Water, buildings, artificial objects, and even gray roads can all work.
In the photo above, the trees are at different degrees of decay, adding interest before anything else makes it into the scene. Add the lake behind to bring blue into the scene, and then the unnatural colors of the boathouse right at the back.
3Shoot Seasonal Objects in Close-Up
Given the beauty of nature at this time of year, it’s easy to get stuck shooting scenes from a distance. However, it’s also worth getting up close and personal with some of the objects associated with fall. This allowsthe colors and textures to really pop, filling your screen with shades of autumn.
While I have opted for leaves in the above shot, just because they were my focus for this shoot, you’re able to choose any of a number of seasonal objects to shoot close-up. Think pumpkins, pine cones, fireplaces, or even someone holding a cup of steaming hot chocolate.
4Use Natural Frames to Add Focus to Your Fall Shots
Given that shooting in the fall is all about shooting outside to capture the wonderful colors, you should seek to use natural frames as much as possible. This will enable you to add structure to a shot that has a lot going on and nowhere obvious for the viewer to focus their eyes. AndI recommend using grid lines to help you find frames(among other things).
As you can see above, this shot of a local park could have been a messy mishmash of colors and shapes, with nothing holding them in place or providing context. However, by shooting through these two trees, which create a natural frame for what’s behind, the whole scene suddenly makes more sense.
5Shoot When It’s Wet or Misty to Add More Atmosphere
As lovely as fall can be, in terms of the color palette on display, and the opportunity it brings for textured photos, it also signals a change in the weather. However, budding smartphone photographers should view this asan opportunity to take more interesting shots.
Wet weather or misty conditions can create an atmosphere which simply doesn’t exist in hot and sunny weather. So look to use the changing weather conditions to your advantage. A foggy night with leaves on the ground can instantly create atmosphere. As can rain, whether it’s falling at the time, or it has already saturated the ground.
I took the two shots above just after rainstorms. In the first, the ground is completely sodden, making everything shine as if it had been painted. And in the second, the puddle provides a reflection of a pretty nondescript tree.
6Get Down Low to Capture Fallen Leaves on the Ground
With fallen leaves everywhere you look, you may as well turn them into a feature of your fall shots. And doing that means getting down low on the ground, allowing them to fill the foreground of your shots.
Don’t think of these fallen leaves as background noise that just adds texture and color; they can be the main subject of your photo. And if shot well enough, the viewer can imagine kicking through them like they did as a child.
To demonstrate, the shot above doesn’t really have a subject, as it’s just a nondescript piece of land with a couple of trees and a streetlight. But by filling half the frame with fallen leaves, it suddenly becomes an interesting photo.
7Edit to Enhance the Natural Colors, but Don’t Go OTT
I edit all of my smartphone shots in a handful of waysand find it extremely addicting to crop, adjust, and add filters until I’m happy with them. However, you can easily go too far with edits, and I have been guilty of doing so in the past. This is especially true of fall photography, where the color palette encourages over-editing.
The image above is a good example of over-editing, albeit on purpose. It’s a close-up of some holly, with fallen leaves around it, and trees reaching up to the sky behind. But I’ve over-edited it (on purpose), and the result is a little disappointing. The holly itself ends up out of focus, and everything behind looks saturated to the point you can’t determine one thing from another.
As usual these days, with smartphone cameras so capable, you don’t need expensive equipment to capture some beautiful shots. By utilizing the above tips, you may capture the natural beauty of fall with nothing but the camera you always have to hand.
