A frame can save you from a boring sky

Thursday 9 June 2022, 22:11 by Nando Harmsen | 3,355 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

You have no doubt experienced a boring sky while photographing a landscape. A completely blue sky without a single cloud, or a dreary grey sky without any detail.

Should you go home without a photo? Of course not. Use a frame.

If there is one thing a landscape photographer dislikes, it is a boring sky. Ideally, we want clouds and inspiring light that has no equal. But Mother Nature does not always give us what we want.

Beautiful light, but what a boring sky. How do you solve that?
Even so, a boring sky is no reason to go home. You have several options to 'work around it.' You may then think of replacing a sky, as Luminar promotes so often. But that is not a solution, it is too much photo manipulation.

You can choose not to include any sky in the frame, or very little. This prevents part of the photo from becoming boring. But it is also possible to use frames, so you fill the sky with other elements from your landscape.

Using a crown of leaves fills the sky beautifully. It immediately looks less boring.
You should see a photo as a flat surface. You give the elements in your landscape a place on that surface. A photo is therefore never three-dimensional, but simply flat with the illusion of depth. If you have a large area that is plain or without detail, you can still place something else in it.

With a frame, you give that plain, boring area some content. You keep it in the frame, but introduce something interesting into that area. It can even be that this plain area is perfect for using a frame. The background is not so busy that it becomes distracting.

The leaves fill the sky above the silhouette of the tree in the landscape. The sun adds an extra accent

You could also work with black and white and strong contrasts. You then work in a very graphic way, and in some cases even artistically. Just give it a try.

A frame does not only work for a boring sky. If the landscape also does not immediately show anything visually striking, the frame can save you.
Does the landscape where you are going to photograph not have the look you had hoped for, and is the sky uninteresting? Then try photographing with frames. I am sure this can be very inspiring.

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