Shooting Landscapes in the City of AngelsKevin Gilligan shows LA's "softer" scenic side with the Tamron 18-270mm VC lens. |
Article By Jennifer Gidman Images by Kevin Gilligan |
Los Angeles may be known as the entertainment capital of the world, but Kevin Gilligan doesn't traipse through Tinseltown or cruise down Rodeo Drive when he's looking for some R&R. Instead, the roving photographer takes a run on the beach, pulls out his camera, and captures the landscapes, cityscapes, and sunsets in the South Bay region where he lives. "I've never lived more than a few miles from the water, and I really appreciate it," he says. "I work in the city, and going to the beach with my camera is how I get natural beauty back into my life." |
Gilligan also appreciates the Tamron 18-270mm VC all-in-one zoom lens for his local jaunts. "I love the distance and the range on the 18-270," he says. "With that one lens, I can do wide angles, then shoot objects at a distance. I handhold a lot when I'm shooting people and families, so the Vibration Compensation feature is great for that, but I like that the VC feature can be turned on and off: When I'm shooting landscapes, I'm almost always on a tripod and focusing manually." |
Gilligan shares his tips for capturing the City of Angels in a more natural light - illuminated more by the sun than by Hollywood's spotlights. |
Always be on the lookout for prime shooting locations. |
Take advantage of the light at different times of day, and in different seasons. |
You also need to take the different times of year into consideration. The summer light in Los Angeles can be really beautiful, especially when it's shimmering off the water, but from October to March, there's this incredible winter light that I really like for my landscapes. You get gorgeous, soft light in the late afternoons in the fall and winter. |
Fine-tune your landscape compositions. |
Offer a sense of scale. |
Try to show a side of the city that's never been seen. |
Be prepared to encounter sunsets in a variety of forms. |
I happen to love stormy weather. Clouds and rainstorms are really interesting to me, so I try to keep an eye out for dramatic skies right after a storm. I was driving home after a major downpour one evening, and I was glancing down the pathways leading down to the beach as I was driving (I'm always looking at the ocean when I can!). I happened to spot this amazing sunset, so I turned my car around, jumped out, and grabbed my camera, which I carry with me at all times. I braced my camera against the wall to stabilize it and was able to catch an amazing red sky. |
Hold steady for evening landscape shots, and experiment with exposures. |
For my nighttime shot of a pier, I ran out again after a major storm to get those clouds for contrast. I experimented with the exposures using my shutter release. I wanted to capture the crispness of the pier and the clouds, but with a slightly longer exposure, I was able to capture the motion of the waves to contrast with the pier. |
Keeping still was especially important for my shot of Los Angeles at night. I was shooting from the Griffith Observatory, and using the tripod was critical so I didn't get any blur. I was able to capture the entire downtown area, and it was all so sharp. |
Get to know your manual exposure features - they're so useful in low-light situations. Don't always rely on automatic! |
To see more of Kevin Gilligan's work, go to http://www.photosbykag.com. |