This post is written for our Image of the Week Linky – we would you to link up with your favourite images too – please see here for more information and hope to see there!
This week I want to go straight to the heart of a photographer’s addiciton. Light. It’s like cocaine to us. No, it’s better than that. It is addictive, makes our hearts leap, it challenges us and when two or more of us are together it won’t be long before someone says “oh..just look at that light”. Light is not just what creates wonderful images used wrongly it can kill a potentially fabulous scene. Lack of light or the “wrong” light or the right light at the wrong angle is where many photographs can go wrong.
Let me walk you through a few everyday light situations and how I used them to create the images. Today I’ve stuck to available light – in later weeks we’ll look at how to artificially light images using flash. Today’s model is the ever willing (bribed with chocolate!) Kate.
1. Without doubt the easiest light to use. Outdoors in full daylight. Light falling onto the subject who is just slightly turned away to avoid squinting in full sun. The key about this shot is to keep the light behind you and onto the subject. A high shutter speed helped to shoot this shot in strong light with a wide aperture. ISO 250 55mm f/2.8 1/3200
2. One of my very favourite lights. Indoors facing a large window. Window light (at a slight distance) is soft and flattering and creates lovely gentle contrasts and form in a portrait. ISO 600 55mm f /2.8 1/80 sec
3. Bathtime shots are lots of fun – but lighting can be poor. Here I’ve used one of my favourite tricks for dull light. Finding a large white surface to reflect light back onto the subject – here the mass of bubbles makes a great reflector and again Kate is angled towards the available (electric ) light. Any white or light surface will help to reflect light onto a subject – on a dull day outside a white wall will make a fantastic light reflector. ISO 640 50 mm f/2.5 1/125 sec
4. Screenlight. With our children so often lit by phone, tablet or computer screens – make the most of that when photographing them inside! ISO 3200 50 mm f/2.5 1/80 sec
5. Backlighting with low sunlight. Soft and glorious and when shot at a wide aperture and filtered through leaves as here creates the fabulous sparkling bokeh of light that Penny talked about in her post last week. This is a little harder to do and deserves a post all of it’s own! Again we’ll come back to backlighting in future post. 85mm ISO 200 f/1.8 1/500 sec
