Landscapes at dusk | Weekly Photography Challenge

This weekly photo challenge is deigned to complement our free online photography basics classes. Each week we will set a different theme and your homework is to go out and photograph a collection of images related to that theme.

You can start this challenge whenever you like and do the different themes in any order you see fit. Think of these challenges as a photography workout. Don’t just do them once and not revisit them. If you do start these challenges as you begin our online basics classes then in a few months why not revisit older challenges to see how much better a photographer you have become.

Also try to think outside the box as much as possible. Photography is as much about creative interpretation as it is about technical prowess.

If at any time you’d like a critique of your images then please feel free to email us.

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I could have titled this challenge night landscapes but really the best time to get a great looking nighttime landscape is just after the sun has set. It’ll still be dark but if your scene doesn’t have a lot of artificial lighting then you are not going to capture many other details in your scene.

Unlike a pure night time scene a dusk shot should still have details visible in areas that are not illuminated by street or building lights. To achieve this you will need to use long exposures and you will also have to experiment a bit. These types of images are just as much about trial and error as anything else.

For this challenge I recommend using a tripod. This will not only allow you to take a long exposure image with a small aperture (making sure everything in the scene is in focus) but it will eliminate any camera shake.

You will also get very different types of images depending on the weather. Stormy cloudy skies can really look impressive as can clear ones.

About Michael Shilling