#Eyespiration: How to get blue sky in photos

When you are on holiday you want your photos to show the local beauty of the place you're staying at. But sometimes on a sunny day it seems you can't take a photo of the blue sky, the sky turns out pale, white.

How to take photos with blue sky:

- Position of the sun. The most important advice is to make sure to have the sun behind you when you take a photo. The more you are facing the sun, the paler the sky will be

- Contrast. Put e.g. a white or light colored object like a building in the front of the composition. Your camera will automaticly adjust the sky into a darker blue

- Morning or evening light. All colors are more intense at this time of day

- Polarizing filter. With using a polarization filter on a mirror-less or an dslr camera lens, the blue and other colors deepen

- Instagram. Photo editing apps and other retouching software will make colors come out better

If you turn your camera in the direction of the sun, you'll see a change of the colour of the sky. The more you turn towards the sun, the paler the sky. Buildings turn out sallow and grey. Especially in the middle of the day, when the sun's at her highest point, the light is very bright. Try to take photos early morning or later in the day, when the light is softer.

Blue sky: sun in my back, building in front creating more contrast

Blue sky: turning towards the sun the blue gets paler

Blue Sky: opposite of photo 1, the sky is pale, white and buildings grey and dark

We all want to take photos showing the best of our holiday. What's more beautiful than walking through a town and take photos of little, white houses against a dark blue sky? Blue sky is the ultimate holiday image, like a photo of the sea, feet in the sand or a selfie with a cocktail in our hand.

With your smartphone you can always adjust photos in an easy way. There are a lot of apps and even when posting a photo on Facebook or Twitter you can adjust the photo before posting with just one click. My favorite is Instagram. Ofcourse you can always use professional software afterwards, but wanting to retouch all 500 holiday pics might be a bit much.

Polarizing filter

With using a polarization filter on a mirror-less or an dslr camera lens, the blue and other colors deepen. Disadvantage: when bringing more than one lens, you'll need to buy more filters, as often lenses don't have the same diameter. Advantage: all colors look better, e.g. green is greener and especially a blue sky with white clouds will look dramaticly darker, a special effect coming out great with landscape pictures. Another advantage is the reflection in windows will dissapear when you use it, though I do like using this reflection in my photos. 

Backlight

Though sometimes using the sun in the back can create a beautiful photo. Backlight photos, photos taken towards the sun showing mostly shade of the subject, are fun too!

Clouds will enhance the dramatic appearance of blue sky over a landscape

Published in Dutch on Vakantieboulevard.nl