Light Trail Photo Tips From the Streets of London (VIDEO)
We hope you had an opportunity to watch our recent tutorial explaining how to boost the impact of photos captured after dark by incorporating water reflections in a scene whenever the opportunity arises. That story was so popular that we decided to bring you another powerful nighttime trick.
Photographing light trails is a very popular technique among experienced urban photographers, but these dramatic in-camera effects are accessible to shooters of all skill levels by watching the tutorial below. In fact the basic method you’ll learn takes barely six minutes to explain.
Instructor Hannah Young is an experienced British photographer who regularly posts quick instructional videos on interesting topics. Today’s video explains everything you need to know from the best time to shoot and appropriate camera settings, to composition methods and gear recommendations. You can see the equipment she perfers in a link beneath the video.
In this behind-the-scenes episode you’ll follow Young as she explores London’s lovely Victoria neighborhood on a gusty day. As you’ll see, she chose this specific location with light trails in mind and it’s one she’s photographed many times during the day. She careful composed her shot with an iconic London building in the background.
Young illustrates her suggestions with some nice images captured during her evening shoot. She arrived early to set up her gear before the sun dropped below the horizon, and her recommendation is this: “What I’ve found historically when shooting light trails is that the best time to capture images that POP is during what’s known as Blue Hour, i.e. just after sunset.”
Blue Hour is when there’s still a little bit of light and color in the sky, and there are a few ways to accentuate these attention-grabbing attributes to spice up a shot. She reveals a very usefull app that provides daily reminders in your area for Blue Hour, First Light, Golden Hour and Sunrise. This way you can arrive onsite in plenty of time to be ready for every “prime moment” you shoot between dawn and dusk.
We suggest that after watching this video you start thinking about an appropriate location near your home, so that you can use colorful light trails to make nighttime the right time in the future.
And don’t forget to watch the lesson mentioned above, demonstrating how to take advantage of water reflections to capture more dynamic photographs.
