Photographing Forests and Processing in Lightroom for A Dramatic Mood

In certain parts of the world, specifically parts of Europe and the Pacific Northwest in the USA, gloomy weather is quite often the rule rather than the exception. In this video, we learn how to use these conditions to our advantage while out photographing forests, and also how to bring out a dark, moody feel from the raw files in Lightroom.

Coming to you from landscape photographer Alister Benn, is this thoughtful tutorial about photographing woodland scenes, and simple but effective post-processing using only Lightroom. Here, he is specifically focusing on dynamics and color, and how balancing and enhancing color in a scene can draw the viewer deeper into the experience he hopes to create. While only a small portion of the video is dedicated to actually photographing the woodland, I can appreciate that this is something which could merit a whole video on its own because extracting a balanced composition out of the chaotic nature of these landscapes can be extremely challenging.

My key takeaway from this tutorial is his thinking behind drawing the eye through a scene. He even thinks about flipping one image horizontally — presumably taking into consideration how westerners tend to automatically read from left to right — but eventually decides to leave it as is, in order to create more tension. It is this level of detail in thought that every landscape photographer should aim to achieve. There are some great editing tips contained within the video as he take us through several beautiful images, so please check out the whole thing for a full breakdown of his editing process.