May Photography Tips: Life in Full Colour
If March was about tentative emergence and April brought the drama of shifting weather, May is when the natural world finally throws off the covers. Spring has truly hit its stride, bringing with it an explosion of life, activity, and brilliant hues.
Whether you’re up early for the dawn chorus or capturing the energy of a local spring festivities, May is the perfect time to challenge your compositional skills and celebrate the vibrancy around you. Here are four themes to inspire your photography this month.
Renewal: The Busiest Time in Nature
Mandarin Ducks & Ducklings: 1/1000 f5.6 ISO 4000
May is synonymous with revival and new life. Nature goes into overdrive this month, making it one of the most rewarding times to grab your camera.
The Dawn Chorus: Challenge yourself to an early start. The light at dawn is incredibly soft, and the sheer volume of birdsong is an experience in itself.
The Next Generation: Keep an eye out in your own garden, local parks, and nature reserves. From ducklings on the pond to fledglings demanding food from tireless parents, there are endless storytelling moments. Find a good spot, stay quiet, let the wildlife come to you, and enjoy.
Colour: Balancing Our Most Vibrant Month
1/400 f4 ISO 400
As the landscape flourishes, this is arguably our most colourful month of the year. But capturing colour well is about more than just filling the frame with as much colour as you can it’s about how those colours interact within your composition.
Complementary Colours: Look for natural contrasts, like the deep purple of bluebells against the vivid spring green of fresh beech leaves. Play warm and cool colours off each other for dramatic cinematic style imagery
The Impact of Light: Remember that light completely changes your colour palette. The golden hour will give you warm, rich, and highly saturated tones, while an overcast day acts as a giant softbox, perfect for revealing the delicate, pastel palettes of spring blossoms without harsh shadows.
Commanding the Frame: Whether you choose bold, in-your-face vibrancy or a highly selective, muted palette, paying strict attention to the colours you include (and exclude) is a subtle but powerful way to add authority and intent to your images.
Folk Traditions: The Old and the New
Hebden Bridge Hill Millies 1/8 f6.3 ISO 100 (Flash on camera)
May is steeped in folk traditions and celebrations. From the classic Maypoles and the rhythmic clatter of Morris Dancers to Oak Apple Day and the ancient practice of placing flowers on doors for protection, there is a wealth of culture to document.
Look for the Unnoticed: Instead of taking the eye-grabbing shots of a dance, focus on the details and overlooked. The scuffed boots, the intricate floral headpieces, or the quiet moments of rest between performances.
A Modern Twist: Seek out the juxtaposition of the old world and the new. A Morris dancer checking their smartphone, or vibrant ribbons trailing against the backdrop of modern architecture. These contrasts make for compelling, contemporary storytelling.
Taking Flight: Testing Your Skills
Orange Tip butterflies 1/1600 f7.1. ISO 1250
With the air suddenly alive with birds, butterflies, and insects, May is the ideal time to practice your action photography and fieldcraft.
The Challenge: Capturing a subject in flight requires anticipation and a solid grasp of your camera’s autofocus capabilities.
Technical Tip: Bright conditions will help you achieve the fast shutter speeds needed to freeze motion. Combine Fast shutter speeds (try starting around 1/2000s) with high burst rates (continuous shooting mode) to catch that one in a thousand shot!
Inspiration of the Month: Raghu Rai, Photography Made With Love
"If your heart gets touched by a movement or a specific thing happening, it will touch other people’s hearts."
- Raghu Rai
After his passing this week, I had to hand this month’s inspiration to the incredible Magnum photographer Raghu Rai. His photographic work is centred around India and there is a powerful sensitivity that shines through his photographs not least in his photos of Mother Teresa.
There are two photographs of his that have stay etched in my memory. One of a man reading a newspaper at Mumbai train station as the busy passengers pass by in a blur of motion. The other is of a group of people almost reaching out to touch a plane landing, again in Mumbai.
Magnum’s tribute is a wonderfully crafted piece with a inspiring offering of his work you can find it on there website here:
https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/remembering-raghu-rai/
