Since I began my career as a photographer, I have been fascinated by moody images. Of course, in the beginning, this style was hard to achieve as I had zero experience in photo editing. But I practiced a lot, especially trying to find myself surrounded by cloudy, foggy, and rainy conditions. After years of practicing and trial and error, I finally achieved what I wanted a couple of years ago, and my style even changed how I plan my trips. So this would be my first tip to create moody images.
Then, finding the right balance between hue, saturation, and luminance is crucial. Having complete control over these factors in post-processing lets me create the kind of look I want. If you are a beginner, the following steps can help you with your first moody photograph:
1) Start by adjusting the highlights, whites, shadows, and blacks sliders. This way, you can better control the brightness of your image with each exposure range. I often use a lot of contrast and shadows and bring down the highlights and the blacks.
2) Use the tone curve to emphasize the shadows. Start by changing the tone curve type: Use point curve – this tool allows you to manually add anchor points along the curve, offering better control over your adjustments.
3) Move on to the HSL tool to target and desaturate the most dominant colors in the photo. Scrolling down to the HSL adjustment, start things off by adjusting the hue of your colors as needed.
If some muted tones still are present in the image, try to desaturate the most dominant colors while leaving the less significant ones untouched. Then you can move on to the saturation option.
4) Next, by clicking on the luminance adjustment in the HSL panel, you can brighten desaturated colors with luminance. By targeting the previously desaturated colors, you can help make them pop by increasing their luminance value.
5) You can increase the contrast slider slightly to finish your first moody edit. This adjustment helps to darken some specific shadows and make your overall image pop a little more
My name is Dylan Shu, 26-years old landscape and travel photographer based in Almere, the Netherlands, which is a city located near Amsterdam. I believe that traveling has a different meaning for everyone, influenced by where you come from, your family and your experiences, and which can evolve overtime. My first travel was at the age of 14, when I went to Thailand for three weeks. Nowadays, traveling isn’t a tourist thing for me anymore, it’s a passion and photography has come with it.
My photographic journey really started in 2018 returning from my trip to Thailand. During the trip itself, I was just taking photos for fun with my mobile phone to show family and friends. However, when I came home I started to focus on editing photos. Since that time I’m passionate about photography. I started to read a lot about photography, watched many YouTube editing tutorials, got inspired by the big accounts on Instagram. When I just had my camera, I immediately put everything on the manual mode and I started practicing a lot.
In nature I feel most alive; mountains, forests, beautiful landscapes… The moments I spent out there are so valuable to me. Lying on the beach for hours, everyday, is not for me. I get bored very quickly and I need to keep exploring the world. I’m always looking for new beautiful spots to eternalize; discovering new places not only when abroad but also close to home.
A few of my favorite places in the Netherlands are the Amsterdam water supply dunes, Lelystad nature park and the Amsterdam forest. I have seen many different places in the Netherlands and always try to discover new ones. For capturing the sunrise, it doesn’t really matter where you go because there are so many cool spots. I often use my drone for shooting the sunrise and especially when there is fog, you can take beautiful photos almost everywhere. Moments like waking up early while everybody is still asleep, getting the perfect shot at sunrise, is where I live for.
However, the Netherlands is the exact opposite of that. The country is very flat, but has beautiful sceneries, many forests and a lot of water; you can find lakes, canals and rivers everywhere and of course there’s the North Sea. From the ground it’s so much harder to see all this because you can’t go up anywhere to see it from above. That’s why I am so happy with my drone, many of my pictures taken in the Netherlands are made with my drone. If you wake up early and go to one of the many forests or find a spot with water, you can make some incredible shots. If I want to take photos for sunrise in the Netherlands I always look for places with water, and if I’m lucky there’s a foggy atmosphere.
I can’t imagine a life without traveling and photography anymore as that’s what I love to do the most. I decided to go on a solo trip to Madeira a couple of weeks ago. Just because I wanted to. Being able to do your own thing feels good. I hiked to the top of the mountain at 5AM to shoot the sunrise. These feelings are so magical and that it makes me want to do it more and more. Landscape photographers and outdoor fanatics often talk about addiction, but that’s so true. I guess you can only understand it when you have experienced it yourself.
With my photography, I want to show people how beautiful the world can be, motivate people to do things, chase dreams and experience this magical feeling. If you want something, don’t wait, just do it now. Live is short enough so make the best out of it!
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Eric is a passionate landscape photographer based in Germany whose love for travel and the outdoors blossomed during the pandemic. A trip to the Dolomites in 2022 turned his hobby into a deeper pursuit, leading him to capture breathtaking landscapes with both his camera and drone. Eric now combines his hobby with professional gigs.
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