Experimenting with white balance

Image copyright Ian Ho 2010

Made this image last night... It's a 1.5 minute long exposure @ 16mm ultra wide angle.

If you ask me what makes this image work, I'd say it's two things. Firstly, the cloud formation and movement captured during the long exposure. Secondly, it's the fiery colours.

Now of course the sky wasn't this red... so how did I achieve it? Simple! Set white balance to cloudy! This warms up everything in the shot and in this example contributes to the mood and emotional element of the picture, and adds more 'drama' to the clouds. I think this image wouldn't have worked at all in auto white balance.

The simple tip here is that photography need not always reflect what we see. So try experimenting with various white balance settings to create something different!