Fall Photography Tips

Ideas for the Autumn Season

The summer has past, and leaves are turning another colour. It’s not time to hibernate your camera though. Fall photography is a dynamic opportunity to capture nature at its most beautiful.

If you’re ready to be inspired iPhotography has got some bold and dramatic ideas to help you make the most of the changing seasons and really capture incredible outdoor photos in the fall.

1. Show the Changing Colours

Autumn (or fall) isn’t just all about orange leaves – you need to look closer to appreciate the actual truth. There’s orange, reds, yellows, greens and browns – and that’s just in the leaves alone.

Therefore, a great way to capture the iconic symbols of fall photography is to gather mix of coloured leaves and lay them on top of another or in a small cluster. Use a macro lens to pick up the crisp fine detail in each leaf.

You can shoot it on a black background in your dining room and create a piece of still life art good enough for the living room walls.

autumn fall photography leaves changing from green to brown white background

2. Woodland Paths

Leading lines are a brilliant compositional tool in fall photography. You’ll find uses for them at any time but definitely worth exploiting with an autumnal woodland walk.

To make your paths look dynamic get up high where possible or look for meandering lines through the trees. Winding paths feel mystical and adventurous – especially under low key autumnal lighting.

You can also make these paths look more dramatic by getting down low and making the appearance of the path seem wider at the bottom of the frame. This will feel like you’re pulling the audience into the composition faster.

3. Autumnal Flatlays

We all love a good flatlay! Fall photography with its colourful leaves and textured pinecones are great little objects to hunt for create your own autumnal photography flatlay.

Simply use a piece of plain card and set the camera up overhead at 90 degrees.

Arrange all your autumn objects on the card to make for a simple but eye-catching display of nature’s finest hour.

fall flatlay hands on cup of coffee beige scarf overhead flatlay

overhead fall photo of lady lying down face covered by leaf

4. Creative Fall Portraits

Fall photography the perfect time to crack out your winter woollies and chunky knit sweaters (which we’ll come to shortly). But before that how about getting some animated portraits in this colourful season of your loved ones.

Get the kids dressed up in their wellies and go splashing the puddles. Shoot in shutter priority or manual mode and turn up the dial to 1/1000th make sure you get that super crisp splash as the water goes everywhere.

Try out some creative crops too. Hide faces behind big leaves, try out some cloning techniques with your partner hiding behind different trees.

Or how about practising your creative portraits and limit yourself to only taking close up photos of your subject – aim to tell the shot but without photographing the whole person.

5. Long Autumnal Exposures

If you find yourself faced with a babbling brook on a woodland walk, then crack out the tripod and try some long exposures on the water. Capturing that contrast of silky-smooth water against hard rocks looks amazing when you’ve got the exposure right.

Use your camera’s AEB (auto exposure bracketing) feature or HDR mode if you have one to really hype up the dynamic range. You can even give focus stacking a go to increase the depth of field. The opportunities are endless.

panorama of long exposure waterfall in autumn fall photography

Summary

We hope you’ve enjoyed these 5 tips for fall photography. There is so much opportunity to capture creative images during the fall season there is no excuse to stay at home with a cup of cocoa – you can do that while you edit your wonderful autumnal shots!

If you’re an iPhotography member remember to post some of your autumn/fall photography into the gallery for everyone to see.

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