Capturing the Best Light

Florian Shulz is an outstanding nature and wildlife photographer. He has mastered his craft and he knows the key to capturing the best light.

What follows is an excerpt from our interview, but be sure to watch it too. Marc asked him for his tips for getting stunning wildlife images, to which he responded:

Get up early for the best light

Get up in the dark and don’t expect to go home before it’s dark. Some of the most special light is happening right before the sunset and just after sunset. Often the light becomes more neutral, you don’t have that extreme contrast anymore, so, this will actually give a beautiful alpine glow or just like a shimmering rose color in the sky without having harsh contrast on the landscape that you might have in the foreground. So I think that’s probably one of the most important things for me as a photographer in getting stunning landscape images.

Be aware of the sense of direction of sunrise and sunset locations. Get your butt out of bed early enough and get out to a location. Often, you are still, you know, somewhere comfortable in bed and you say, “well, I’ll give myself another 15 mins.” These 15 minutes, most of the time, are exactly those minutes that you’re missing at the end, so, give yourself a little bit of extra time when you get out there.

Learning from other photographers

What I find really important is that you analyze images that you are really impressed with. Understand, what did the photographer do here? Was it the lens he chose? Was it the composition? Was it waiting this a specific moment? What was it that is so appealing in this image and then taking such elements and bringing them to your photography.

What I think is really important about that and might some times happen often in landscape photography, don’t try to copy an image exactly, that’s not the point. It’s understanding what another photographer has done and learning from that. That’s something I definitely do when I see another image, I wonder why do I think this image is so great and I make little mental notes and maybe apply this in a completely different situation, but I’ve learned from this photographer.

Watch our full interview with Florian,  make sure to take a look at Florian’s work.