Directions:
Please take a minute to take a photo during a sunrise or sunset. If the sky is especially grey and cloudy, that is OK! I will teach you to transform the dull grey into something spectacular when we edit these photos together. If you do not have a minute to spare, then please locate a sunrise/sunset photo in your phone's library.
Prior to taking that photo, please review some of the best practices outlined below for taking a memorable sunrise/sunset photo with your cell phone.
STEP 1 - Get to know your camera phone
You can take incredible photos on your cell phone. Do not feel discouraged by the lack of a fancy camera! Your cell phone is the right tool for this! Before you go out to take your photo, practice controlling the exposure on your phone.
If you are using an iPhone, complete the following steps:
Open your Camera App.
Pick a subject for your photo and hold your finger on the screen until a yellow box appears around the subject and blinks twice. You have now set your focus point.
Release your finger from the screen and you will see that the yellow box has remained and a small yellow sun appears next to the box. Slide your finger down the screen and notice how your exposure darkens. Slide your finger up and notice how your exposure brightens.
Step 2 - Let the sunset be the background, NOT the subject
Often the strongest sunset photos include a subject other than the sunset itself. Having a clear subject gives your viewer an obvious place to land on your photo. Having a distinct subject will also allow us to have a foreground AND a background, thus creating more depth in our shot.
Step 3 - Understanding how your camera sees light
A cell phone cannot see as many stops of light as a fancy camera with a large sensor can. Our eye can see many, many more stops of light at once. What this means for the purposes of our project is that we cannot have our subject AND our sunset each properly exposed at the same time.
What is a stop of light? See below.
Stop of Light
A stop of light is a unit of measurement used to make adjustments to exposure in photography. Your phone camera cannot see as many stops of light at once as your eye or a higher end camera.
For example, if you are inside right now and it is daytime, then look out the window. You can still see both inside and outside at the same time. If you were to try to take a picture of that window, then you would need to either expose for outside the window and the room would be underexposed OR expose for the room and outside the window would be overexposed. Cameras are getting better and better at seeing a wider range of light at the same time, but it is still not as great as our own vision.
Step 4 - Take the photo
Since we cannot have our sunset AND our subject properly exposed at the same time, we are going to prioritize the sunset so we can see those beautiful colors and not have them turn too bright or white.
Select a subject with an interesting shape because when we expose for the sky our subject will turn dark and we will not be able to see any of the details of our subject. If you are taking a photo of a person, ask them to strike a unique pose!
To expose for the sky and not the subject, hold your finger on the sky on your phone's screen until the yellow box appears and flashes twice. Now drag your finger down until your entire sky is properly exposed. You should not see any white areas, especially in the sky around the sun! The sun may be white, but that is OK!
Final Steps
Do not edit your photo. We are going to edit together as a group, so please download the free Adobe Lightroom App. (There is a paid version, but you do not need the paid version! Everything we will do is available in the free version). When setting up your Adobe account, please use a personal email address.
Inspiration Gallery
