Nature Photography Day

What is it and how you can celebrate

The North American Nature Photography Association, or NANPA, established Nature Photography Day to bring awareness to the fragility of the world around us. The first step to celebrating is to stop replying to emails from the comfort of your couch and take your camera (mobile phone, point-and-shoot or DSLR) into the great outdoors!

Journey out to your local park or find a comfortable spot in the shade to sit and watch your surroundings change. Find an interesting subject like a well-known tree, mountain range or sea stacks and observe how the color and quality of light changes from daytime, sunset and into the blue hour.

Once you have identified the subject you wish to photograph, adjust your camera settings accordingly to create the image you wish to portray. A quick shutter will freeze movement, a high aperture to create a starburst flare effect on a light source & a long exposure to show movement or allow your camera’s sensor to collect light for as long as it remains open. The possibilities are endless when it comes to nature photography.

I know what you are thinking. Not everyone has interesting locations like a mountain range or ocean at their disposal. Well, there is good news – you don’t need those things! Look in your garden, flowers or cracks in your driveway. A whole new world awaits your discovery! There are also great free and paid tools at your disposal to help you plan your next adventure. The website sunsetwx.com looks at variables such as cloud cover and different forecast models to help predict if your sunset will be vibrant/vivid. The application PhotoPills has a wide gamut of tools for you to plan and photograph around sunrise/set, moonrise/set and even when and where the Milky Way will be visible.

Still not convinced? 

Here are a couple of photographs for inspiration to prove that landlocked photographers can create something great with a little planning:

 

 

Now that you have some motivation, get out there and photograph those things around you that you may not have noticed before!