5 Simple Photography Tips for Amazing Fall Photos

Planning a family leaf peeping trip this weekend? Or would you just like a great excuse to get outside and enjoy a beautiful fall day with your child or grandchild? These photography tips are for you!

As the American poet, William Cullen Bryant, so perfectly professed, Autumn is “the year’s last loveliest smile.” Why not capture its joy in your camera’s lens?

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Do you follow along on SoulyRested.com? Just click “FollowThisBlog” in the right-hand column, you won’t miss any future photography tips or challenges, and you can even snag a FREE 7-page, chock-full-of-information printable that will get you started on an unbelievably easy, unlimitedly rewarding journey of nature study with a child. Learn more about the amazing insects, tress, and leaves you are photographing and discovering in your own backyard. Even the least science-oriented parent (or grandparent) ever can dive right in.

And love it.

Really.

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When I think of how Henry Beston, a New England writer and naturalist, summed up fall, I wonder if he too had the seasonal wardrobe difficulties we have in our family. Beston wrote, “The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools.” After all, as reluctant as the seasonal changes are outside our window, the clothing changes inside are even slower. Our drawers and closets are overflowing with too many seasons’ worth of clothes, since we need a little bit of it all right now, with rather warm sunny days feeding into frost-filled nights. When we headed out to try some techniques for our Fall Photography Challenge, my young photographer personified my thoughts and chose an outfit that exemplified the day’s weather: shorts, a winter coat, and of course Bogs, the quintessential New Englander’s choice of shoe.

She and I had enjoyed our first two Mother/Daughter Photography Challenges, and, with the beautiful foliage surrounding our days, she was eager for some photography tips for capturing some stunning autumn images. Thus began our third challenge: a Fall Photography Challenge. Whether you would like to try them on your own or with a child or grandchild, you’re sure to find that these 5 simple tips lead to some great fall photos.

{{ See the forest and the trees }}

Don’t be afraid to zoom in on colorful detail in the landscape. My Blogger wrote a whole post around this shot she took yesterday:

But some shots beg for a wide angle. The beautiful yellow canopy over my daughter as she bowed down to get her camera ready was one I had to zoom out to capture.

{{ Tell a story }}

With the explosion of unnamable hues around us for the few brief weeks of autumn, words become inert. Let your lens tell the stories.

Her attire spoke volumes and her companion was quintessential. I couldn’t help but let my camera write this narrative.

And her image of this long-ago-deserted bob house leads each viewer to craft their own story. (A bob house is a small, portable fishing shack that die-hard ice fisherman set up on iced-over New England lakes every winter.)

{{ Build on all you’ve learned }}

Regardless of the breathtaking beauty around us, we can’t do justice to the heavenly hues if we forget all the other techniques we’ve been talking about. (Eight fundamental basic techniques are covered in this recent post, followed by this one.)

My Blogger captured a stoically beautiful image of our now-deserted bird house. Yet without the use of the rule of thirds, it would have been too simplistic. (Use your camera or almost any photo editing program, under the “crop” function, to see the 9-paneled grid, and line up focal points accordingly.)

When I noticed her endearing four-legged sidekick was far enough in the distance to be a strong background element, I got down low enough to make the grasses a blurry foreground element and focused on the photographer for this nice layered look.

{{ Think beyond the trees }}

All fall foliage shots don’t have to be arboreal. Fall is a wonderful excuse to get outdoors and expand what you see, not limit it to one subject. From vibrantly growing mycelium fruiting bodies (fancy talk for “mushrooms”–guess what Biology module I’m studying with my daughters?) to simple signs or buildings that are suddenly matted in autumn’s richness, there are so many other things to see this time of year. My blogger and I didn’t have to go far to find interesting subjects.

{{ Just add water }}

Admittedly, adding the mirror-like quality of water is an effortless technique if you happen to be leaf peeping in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, but any pond or even puddle can be conducive to a great shot. We enjoyed using the reflective qualities of quiet morning waters as backdrops and center stage.

And I couldn’t resist the appealing polka-dotted-duckweed spots scattered on the blackness of shallow shore water.

A few other tips my Blogger and I enjoyed as we challenged ourselves to get the best autumn pictures we could capture:

If the sky is grey and overcast (which by the way is the perfect time to capture the true colors of the leaves), minimize the amount of sky you show in your frame. Save the sky shots for the clear-blue days.

If you often feel that your foliage pictures never quite do justice to the beauty of reality, do some adjusting. If your camera or your photo editing program allows for it, just slightly increasing your saturation, contrast, and sharpness options will help your camera mimic the true colors the way your own eye captures them.

Whatever techniques you decide to try, enjoy capturing “the year’s last loveliest smile.”

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And don’t forget to take a second to follow along on SoulyRested.com. Just scroll to the top of this page and click “FollowThisBlog” in the right-hand column. Whether you catch up on a few antics learning experiences here on our homestead, enjoy musings about a two centurys’ old farmhouse, or glean a little homeschooling insight from this momma who’s been failing at the effort for almost 2 decades, I hope my focus helps you Keep it Simple while being Souly Rested on Christ. 

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Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them;
    let all the trees of the forest sing for joy. Psalm 96:12

Don’t miss this post, full of a dozen more inspiring ideas–>