Featured Photographer: April Burns Photography

Wow, I am so excited when asked to put together a little information on how I capture skies. 

I have an obsession with clouds, sunsets and sunrises. They always put an immediate smile on my face. My husband always jokes that my head is always in the clouds, literally because I am always starring at them and pointing out how beautiful they are!

 

The majority of the time when the sky is beautiful, the boys and I will run outside and I will snap a few shots of them running and playing. I will  point then in the direction that I am aiming for based on the sky. When my sister is home in the summer, I check the sky first thing and if it is awesome we get the kids dressed quickly and head for the pasture, lol!   

 

Ok, back to the boys in the pasture. When photographing them I spot meter and expose for their skin, then after snapping a few images of them playing or whatever I will take a few shots of the sky. When photographing the sky I expose for the sky of course or if I am in a hurry I will just decrease my exposure quickly and take several shots of the sky at different exposures. I do focus on the boys and then recompose up to the sky, filling most of my frame with the sky. I want the sky to still look natural and if I am focusing on the boys then the sky is not going to be sharp, it should be a little out of focus if that make sense.  Now I have several sky images to bring back in as overlays during my processing if the sky is blown out in the images of the boys.  I use a 50mm 1.2L for my sky images, but I have been known to photograph the boys with my 100mm 2.8L macro lens and then switch lenses to my 50 to capture the sky. I love the sharpness of my macro lens. 

I photograph the sky if it is beautiful even if the kiddos are not around to photograph. Sometimes when I am feeling blue it always cheers me up to create something. I keep a folder labeled clouds, it is full of sunsets, sunrises, puffy clouds etc. When I photograph sunsets I will take several different shots with the sun on the left side, centered and right side. Then every once in a while I have a pic of the boys that fits perfectly with that sunset!  When I am just photographing the sky I still focus on something closer to me, or wherever I would envision the boys playing and then recompose up to keep the sky somewhat out of focus. I also always shoot the sky straight forward, not pointing the camera up above my head. I do this to keep the clouds as natural looking as possible.
 

On bright, sunny, puffy cloud days, I can usually expose for the skin and the sky is not blown out which is awesome because it is so much less work. 

The images of the puffy clouds are examples of this.  

The night time bubble image was me being creative!  The bubbles were supposed to be glow in the dark bubbles, well the solution glowed in the dark when it was poured all over your hand but not really when the bubbles were blown. So, we placed a flashlight on the ground facing up to light up the bubbles. Then I had an image of a sunset that I added to the image, just something creative. 

  

One other little trick that I use when adding in a sky overlay in photoshop is to increase the height of my picture canvas a little, this way there is more sky in my image, then I crop to get the desired look. 

If at all possible it is awesome to have an image where the subject is exposed perfectly along with the sky but it has been hard for me to achieve this especially for sunrises and sunsets.  Of course there are always silhouettes!!

April Burns Photography:

I always say that I live in a house, on a hill, in the country and I love it.  I am married to my high school sweetheart, we have two amazingly beautiful boys and we have a gorgeous dog named Behr.  I love them all more than they will ever know. I also have a love for gardening, it amazes me that there is such beauty all around us. I am fascinated by the sky, the clouds and how they are an ever changing painting. I know most people do not see them that way, but just stop and think about how beautiful they really are.  I have such a passion for photography, to be able to stop a moment in time is so precious to me. I spend most of my time photographing my boys, my niece, and clouds, lol!  Yes I have a crazy fascination with clouds.
I am thankful for so many things, the love of my family, being a mom, wife, sister, daughter. I am thankful for this beauty that I am surrounded by and that my husband and I are able to raise our children in this safe beautiful place.   

April Burns Photography: Facebook