National Award Winning Photographer
Light
Light is one of the most important things when taking a photograph. Before you take the photo, work out what type of light you are seeing in your photo. This could include:
- Sunlight
- Moonlight
- Ambient window light
- Flash light
- Candle light
- A lamp
- Camera flash
These are just a few different light sources you might come across, and they all will effect your photograph in different ways.
When photographing people in sunshine, never have the sun behind you shining straight onto their face. First of all, it makes them squint and pull some strange faces. Also it is not going to make them want to have their photo taken when they are staring into bright sunlight. I always try to shoot with the sun at least to the side of the main subject, but usually I even have it behind them. This straight away gets rid of any squinting and harsh strong light on their face. When shooting with a back lit light source, make sure the faces are not under exposed (too dark). You can get over this problem by either:
- Over exposing slightly on the camera
- Putting some flash light back onto the subject to brighten them
- Using a reflector to send different tones of light back onto the subject.
If you want to completely get rid of the problems when shooting in sunny conditions, find a shaded area such as under trees or shadows from buildings. This will help you to achieve a properly exposed picture much easier!
Here is an example of a picture I took, where the subjects where under the shade of a tree. The bright sunny background is well over exposed, to allow a correct exposure on the subjects. In my opinion it gives the back ground a quite “cool” effect and makes the subject really stand out!
When left with no choice but to shoot in direct sunlight, make sure you expose your camera on the brightest part of the subject. This means that the brightest part of your subject will be well exposed, making the rest of the photograph slightly darker. Just remember…. Its much easier to brighten a photo, then try to bring back blown highlights where you have over exposed the shot.