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Rather than hold the suspense, I figured I would show you exactly what I was talking about right away. Here, the bright coloured leaves are lit up with my new flash unit, allowing the viewer to enjoy both the sunset, as well as the fall leaves. Pretty cool, ey?

Of course there is plenty of opportunities for beautiful shots that don’t need a flash. I left for a lake trail an hour or so before sunset, because that is when sunlight is coming in sideways, making great shadows and highlights. At that time in the day, the light is also not so bright that it will make things too dark and too light. Here, I used the arm of a really cool tree branch chair to emphasize the bright light, and give a cool curve to the photo.

Here is another shot that shows what I mean when it comes to setting sun light. The amount of light exposes these pine tree branches beautifully, while leaving the background darker, but still with some nice colour to add to the overall composition.

Here is another thing that can be done with late day light. This photo is backlit, meaning the light is coming from the rear of the subject, which are the trees. As opposed to the pine tree branches, the trees here have a ring of light around their edges, and the scene gradually gets darker as you get closer to the camera. I find backlit photos in forests give a really nice glow.

Sometimes, you just can’t beat a sunset, especially on a windless day when the lake water reflects it beautifully! This is an instance where fill lighting wasn’t needed. The reeds in the foreground are not particularly colourful, and looked great as silhouettes anyway.

In this photo, fill flash wasn’t needed, because the backlit leaves allowed enough light through them to give off some intense colour. When you are shooting a backlit photo, try allowing some of the sun into your frame. It can give a nice glare-ey corner, adding another dynamic to the shot.

I’m trying to be more humble in my choice of subjects, because a photo of the sky that doesn’t really have anything to focus on tends to be really plain and boring, no matter how pretty the sky is, for example. Here, I used a worn, old wharf as the subject, and tilted the frame to add some interesting angles to the shot, so they more or less point to the sun.

I’ll admit here that I, *ahem*, increased the beauty of the sunset a bit with some choice leveling in photoshop, but it’s pretty, so why not. Here, I used my fill flash to get some detail from the wharf, adding another detail to the photo.