Let's talk about LIGHTING!

Ok, so vacations are over and you're getting back to your routines. You have a stack of summer pictures staring back at you. What do you think of those photos? Are you completely happy with what you see? Were some to dark or others over-exposed? Did your beach pictures turn out? How about those evening BBQ photos? Let's talk about the basics of lighting and what you want to learn about your camera and yourself before the next big event rolls around!

Light has three main factors to consider: Color, Type and Direction.

COLOR - Light comes in different hues and colors. Compare the light of a noon sun to the orange-ish glow of the light at dusk when the sun is low in the horizon. A picture taken in the evening will have an orange cast to it, where the afternoon photo will have truer colors. Indoors, the light of your household lights gives a yellow tint while flourescent lights give off a green tint. I took a photo of my son in our living room. The shirt got all the flash exposure and his hair was left to the light of the room for illumination. It has a yellowish-orange tint. The flash on most cameras will give you white light similar to that at mid-day. Be aware that the colors of the walls in a room will also reflect color into the photo.

TYPE - Light is also typed into the categories of hard and soft. Hard light is a strong light that produces sharp shadows with well-defined edges. Hard light is created by a high, bright sun or a camera flash. Unfortunately, hard light causes a loss of details found in soft shadowing.

Soft light on the other hand is diffused and creates depth in shadows and in contouring. Diffused means that light is not direct. An over-cast day is a great example of soft light. Because of the details visible when photographing in a soft light, this is an ideal situation for portraits and still-life photos. (Please note that soft light does not mean LOW light. Soft light can be bright, it's just not direct.) The photo of my dog, Daisy, was taken on a bright sunny day, but she was in the shadows of the trees in the front yard. The bright sunlight was diffused through the leaves of the trees and produces a beautiful photo, both in color and in soft shadows.

DIRECTION - The direction from which the light comes is another very important factor in composing your photos. Let's compare light sources from the top, front, back and side.

Top lighting is equivalent to that of a high mid-day sun. It causes strong deep shadows and is usually what causes shadows on the faces of your subjects or dark racoon-eyes. I can't take credit for this photo, (I would have used a fill-flash), but the next photo of my niece and daughter was taken in the bright sun. It's not directly overhead, but still pretty high. There are strong shadows and bright areas of this photo. It is not a successful photo, because you cannot see their faces well at all. In this instance, you need to use your camera flash, set on “fill-flash” mode if you have that option. That will tell the camera that the background is bright, but the figures in the foreground need lighting from the front.

Front lighting like that from a built-in camera flash gives light directly from the front. With front lighting you loose detail created by shadows. The result is a one-dimensional effect and even lighting on your subject. If you're slightly off-center when taking flash photos in a dim room, you will likely see a shadow on the wall behind your subject.

(con't. . )

Back lighting is typical of that from a bright window. Without camera adjustments, you will end up with a silhouetted subject. In this instance, if you want to see your subject's face, you will want to use “Fill-Flash” to tell your camera that you need the dark subject in the center of the frame to be lit. The photo of the bear was un-avoidable. We were driving through Bear Country, USA in SD, and did not have the option to take this photo from another angle. The result? A terribly back-lit bear. My solution? We drove a bit further and I took photos of a couple of other bears at slightly different angles from the sun with happy results.

How do I put this all together and use my camera more wisely? Ideally, for outdoor, everyday photos, you will want to consider the time of day and the direction and angle of the sun. You do not want the camera lense shooting directly into the sun. The result will be a silhouetted subject and flares, which are bright circles of light around your subject or on any dust or fingerprints on the lense. Ideally, you want the sun to strike your subject at an angle between the side and the front. Be careful that the sun is not causing squinting. Alternatively, you could position your subjects in the shade and use fill-flash to give light where the shadows fall on faces or use a reflector such as a white board or even a car window reflector. The last photo was taken outside in the shade with a bright background. Knowing I needed my kid's faces to be light and realizing that the snow behind was very bright, I set the flash on “fill” and the results were exactly what I wanted.

For indoor photos, use your flash and consider bouncing it off the ceiling with a piece of small mirror (try a broken piece of a CD) or white reflective board. You'll avoid harsh shadows and red-eye. The purchase of a portable flash unit (available in a range of prices) is another way to direct light at your subjects without it coming directly from the front. Also consider other reflective surfaces that may be in the photo. A mirror or window behind someone's head, will reflect the light of your flash. Take the picture at an angle rather than head-on to avoid seeing the flash in your picture.

For taking portraits, a strong, soft light coming from the front/side angle with reflected light opposite and a bit of reflected light from both the top and bottom are ideal.

When taking photos in low-light situations, it's best to have a tripod. Your camera takes longer exposures and camera shake will cause blur. Evening photos with lights in the background should be considered as “back-lit” situations. You may have a night setting on your camera and this is the appropriate time to use it, but if you don't, then use “Fill-flash” so that you can see both the people in the foreground and the colorful lighted background.

As we move from the summer months, into fall, remember to take your camera out on cloudy days. The colors of the trees and flowers will be the most vibrant. If you must shoot on bright days, consider some type of light diffuser such as a bed sheet or trees to turn hard light into soft diffused light. Happy photographing!

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Karen Thaemert

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