Flash paint your landscape photos

James Paterson shows how to make one flash do the work of ten by painting scenes taken during daylight with light over several frames

- James Paterson

THE MISSION

Use a flash to light a landscape in several places then combine your shots in Photoshop

Time needed

Two hours

Skill level

Advanced

Kit needed

• Tripod

• Portable flash or Speedlite

• CTO gel

• Light stand

• Umbrella

• Remote shutter release

• Wireless flash trigger

We often hear portrait photographers talk about underexposing the ambient light, then using a flash to pick out the subject. It’s a technique that can result in wonderfully atmospheric portraits with bold skies. So we thought, why not use the same method to create a bold landscape? This way, we can underexpose the scene for a dramatic evening sky, then pick out parts of our scene with flash.

The problem is – like the neolithic burial chamber here – subjects in landscape photos tend to be larger than people, meaning that a single flash may not be big enough, or strong enough, to light the entire thing. Thankfully, there’s no need to bring along an arsenal of flashes.

One of the advantages to landscape photography is that – apart from the movement of clouds or foliage – the scenes in front of us tend to remain still, for the most part. So we can capture our scene in several exposures, then piece it together afterwards with Photoshop.