Photography

#KelbyOneHomework: Just After Sunset!

Hey everyone! Last week, we kicked off our very first social-media homework assignment on our Facebook page, and the reply was FABULOUS! It was so great that our magazine editor picked one of our submissions to print in our May issue of “Photoshop User” magazine. Congrats to Lauri Novak for taking our homework challenge (Starburst Sun Effect) last weekend. Here is the image we are publishing!

Submission by Lauri Novak.

Submission by Lauri Novak.

And HERE is a full Pinterest board with our #KelbyOneHomework submissions!

Ready for Assignment #2? Here are the details!

Theme: Just-After-Sunset Pictures
1. Read the techniques below from Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Book, Part 2.
2. Get to work shooting your just-after-sunset pics this weekend!
3. Submit your image in one of 3 places: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Just be sure you tag your submission #KelbyOneHomework so it will be included
4. Submissions are due Sunday 11:59pm ET!

TECHNIQUES by Scott Kelby
This is an excerpt from Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Book, Part 2.

More and more people have totally embraced the golden rule of landscape photography, which is to only shoot when that wonderful, magical light is available, and that only happens just before and during dawn, and just before and during sunset. However, a lot of folks pack up their gear just a few minutes after the sun has gone down, and the sad part is, they’re about to miss what is often the most magical light of all.

Around 20 to 30 minutes after sunset, sometimes the clouds turn bright orange, or deep red, or purple, or if you’re lucky, a combination of all three, and some of my all-time best shots have been taken after everyone else has gone to dinner. Wait even longer (30 to 45 minutes or more after sunset), and the sky will often turn a vibrant, deep blue (not black, like the night—I’m talking blue—and it happens right before night).

It only lasts for a few minutes (10 or 12 minutes usually), but what wonderful twilight photos you can get then. Try this blue twilight-hour shooting when you have a cityscape, or bridge, or other lit object in the background—it makes for a wonderful scene.

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