I must admit that I’m rather addicted to photographing landscape scenes at sunset and sunrise. When I look at my Instagram feed, I can see that most of my images feature a colourful sky of some sorts.
There is however another type of scene that I find more attractive than a sunset or sunrise. These shots can happen at any time of day but not usually at the ends of the day and tend to occur less frequently. They exhibit a characteristic that I call painterly light. When it occurs, the light in the scene seems to take on a quality that makes it look a little like a painting by one of the old masters.
Here’s a recent image taken a couple of hours before sunset where the light had this quality.
I shot it with the Panasonic Lumix G9 using a Leica 8-18 lens at 10mm. I had the camera mounted on a tripod for a 1/60” exposure at f/8.0 and ISO200. The camera was also set to High Resolution mode at the time, so the native image is around 35 inches on the long edge, at 300dpi.
The High Resolution mode on the G9 is excellent, except that the RAW file it produces doesn’t quite have the intensity of colour and contrast of the standard RAW file. Consequently, I don’t think that I have the processing of this shot quite right just yet. I may yet decide to fall back on the standard RAW file that the camera captured at the time.
I hope that you like the image and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
That certainly is a special light.
Thank you
Just gorgeous! A testament to Four Thirds and the eye of a superb photographer. Wel done!
John Marsh
Thanks John. That’s good of you to say.
Yes, I really love your image as it, indeed, evokes the “painterly” in all its landscape beauty. I have, for years, tried to emulate master painters, primarily via software, but I have never captured my vision of a version of the great French impressionists that I so love. Lately, I have had a renaissance of the “Pictorialists”, especially Leonard Misonne with his dreamy romantic style. Although “pictorialism” always did depend on much chemical and paper manipulation, I have found my love for impressioinism mostly in monochrome infrared. For me, it produces that dreamy atmosphere that just hits the right note for me. John Marsh
Thank you for your comment John. I have to admit that it isn’t only the old masters that influence me. I also love the work of many Hudson River School artists. If I could work out how to combine the two and then capture that in photography I would feel that I had arrived. Thank you also for mentioning Leonard Misonne. I wasn’t aware of his work before but it’s absolutely beautiful (I do recognise a couple of the shots). I will be sharing his name in the next edition of my newsletter in the “Photographers you probably don’t know” section.
It would be interesting to see how the single RAW file compares. A beautifully processed image for sure. I have the GX9 with the Leica 8-18, so I lack the high res feature.
I’ll probably publish something about this in the future. People often want to see a comparison with the RAW file but forget or don’t realise that the RAW file will render differently in different software – even without any adjustments.
What lovely light and a fine composition. I love the shot!
Thank you. That’s wonderful to hear.