Light and photography

Let There Be Light!

The other day I stood waiting for my children to finish school and admiring the light. It had recently stopped raining and now the sun was intermittently peeking through broken cloud. Opposite the sky was still dark from the storm. The low afternoon sun coupled with the lack of normal fill from a clear or cloudy sky, gave the light a very rare quality that gave lovely contrast and enriched the colours. The light was constantly changing though, as the clouds varied in their coverage of the sun. I watched fascinated by the subtly with which the shadows and colours changed, before being brought back down to earth by my 8 year old son jumping on my back, announcing school was out!

 

Light is the most fundamental building block of all the visual arts, without it images cannot be captured. Camera settings, lighting modifiers, etc, are just tools we use to shape the way our subjects are affected by it. It's many forms, whether natural or artificial, can be used to bring a huge array of different feelings to an image.. There is no such thing as bad light, just different challenges as to how best to utilise what is available.

 

The more you study and understand the subtle interactions between light, it's surroundings, and the subject it falls on, the more possibilities you will have to manipulate it to produce your desired results. Often we need to look beyond the obvious. So after shooting that lovely sunset, turn around and see how that light is affecting what is behind you.

 

Sometimes it's just a case of opening our eyes and seeing the light!