I’m sure that you will have seen these sorts of photos before. The ones where the sky is black, and the buildings are thrown into deep shadows, other than for a shaft of light picking out an area of detail. I’ve even shared images like this here in the past.
I must admit that I really like this style of photography, even if it has been a little overdone in recent years. The only thing that I don’t like about it is the amount of complex masking it often takes to produce a finished image.
Here are a couple of examples that I shot in Liverpool. The first one is of the Port of Liverpool Building.
This was taken using a Fuji XT3 with Fuji 18-135 lens at 75mm. It’s a handheld exposure of 1/120 second at f/11.0 and ISO160. The next image is of the Catholic Cathedral.
This was taken with a Fuji XE3 and Fuji 14mm prime lens. It’s also a handheld shot of 1/150 second at f/9.0 and ISO200.
Whilst you might think that I went to a lot of trouble in Photoshop or Affinity Photo to produce these, I didn’t. Everything was done in Lightroom, and they only took me a few minutes work. If you want to know how, you will need to watch my YouTube channel next Thursday 2nd February at 16:00 GMT. That’s when I share the entire process for the Cathedral shot above.
Free Competition
Would you like to win a Universal License for the Affinity V2 suite of products?
Well, I have one to give away in a free prize draw which you can enter on this page of my website https://lenscraft.co.uk/lenscraft-members-area/subscriber-competitions/. Everything you need to know is on the page including the rules. Do please share this with anyone you think may be interested.
I hope you like the photos and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
Dear Robin, the photos are really excellent, I love them! My preference, however, goes to images in which the sky has some more texture: those in which you have a cloudy, overcast sky , with light coming almost parallel to ground level. I must say that I’m really impressed by your ability in digital elaboration, though.
My preference is also for detail in the sky but that’s not really what this style is about. Clouds when they are present are usually blurred from movement in long exposure. But for me this image isn’t really about the photography. It’s about creative phot editing and what can be achieved with relatively little effort. I get a great deal of pleasure from the creative editing aspect of photography.
Hi Robin,
Stunning images. This fine art style is certainly becoming more popular. I’m new to the genre myself but have tried making some 4-5 minute exposures and spending ages creating selections in Photoshop to achieve the style. I’m looking forward to learning about your quick fix.
Thanks for all the effort you go to in producing your entertaining and educational weekly and monthly newsletters.
I’m glad you like the photos. My method isn’t as refined as could be done with Photoshop but it’s still convincing. It also doesn’t use a long exposure so you need to keep people and the like out of the frame, although there’s nothing stopping you from using it with a long exposure shot. The video comes out this Thursday. I hop you like it.