Available light is the most common form of lighting that all photographers use. If we’re shooting outdoors, available light is the light from the sun or other available sources. Indoors, it’s the light provided by lamps and other light sources in the room. Using the available light to your benefit is the key.
We have at our disposal six “flavors” of available light:
■ Frontlight This is the light coming over your shoulder and falling on the subject. Frontlight creates a flat, often dull light. If you want to shoot in frontlight, try moving around the subject so the light comes more from behind, and try using a flash.
■ Sidelight As the name implies, this light comes directly from the side. Great for landscapes and scenic shots, this light is pretty severe for people pictures, unless you’re trying to emphasize character
in a face (lines, crags, and the like).
Be kind here, because you want to be remembered in Aunt Bettie’s will. This being such perfect light for landscapes, as it creates dimension in your photos, you can perhaps include a person in the shot to provide a sense of scale, placing him or her at the edge of the shot, and shooting wide—just establishing the human presence.
■ Toplight Noon, with the sunlight illuminating the subject from the top down, is not a favorable light for
photographing people, because it creates harsh shadows and tends to be colorless. This is a great time of day to scout areas, however, so you can decide when to come back. If you have to shoot in this light, use a graduated filter, which will help saturate the sky’s color and create a bit more interest. It’s also a great time, if you are photographing Aunt Bettie, to use the on-camera flash to “fill” the harsh shadows with light.
■ Backlight This light comes directly from behind and can create an ethereal look, emphasizing the spray in ocean waves, adding depth and magic to smoke, and creating halos when used in portraits. This is wonderful light, but it does weaken the saturation of color. Try popping in
a little flash to bring up the light on the backlit side and strengthen the colors.
■ Overcast/shade This is one of the kindest types of light for photographing people. Clouds create a giant “soft box,” softening the light and smoothing out the skin. This light also helps out the exposure, as the dynamic range of light that the chip can capture is within range; often side/front/toplighting will provide an exposure range greater than the sensor can capture in the frame.
■ Twilight Twilight can be the “magical hour” for taking great shots. The sun has nearly or just passed the horizon, and
the ambient (aka available) light starts moving toward the blue range. Shooting on a daylight setting will emphasize
this effect, but do not set auto-white balance, because that will remove this cool/cold effect. Try setting the camera to the correct exposure, manually, for the scene, and then use a strobe to fill-flash the subject. This will create a wonderful
dichotomy in light—the warm light from the flash and the cool ambient light.
The Golden Hour
It’s noon at the Grand Canyon. Everyone is standing in herds on the South Rim,
photographing the giant expanse of canyon. The noon light is sterile, with no character of its own—yet this is the most common time that the tourists turn out. Inevitably, their images are a disappointment—horribly bright and with a lot of contrast, almost monochromatic images.
This scenario is a perfect introduction into a discussion of The Golden Hour. The light during this magical time, the hour before sunset, produces a gigantic warming filter,
and it’s almost difficult not to take a good photograph in this environment. One benefit of air pollution is that light passing through all that crud in the air is softened and warmed, creating a beautiful glow.
I’ll often arrange shoots so I can benefit from this great light, which occurs not only in the early evening, but in the early morning as well. Shooting at either of these times can result in better photos. I like shooting in the
evening best, not only because I don’t have 65
to get up at the crack of dawn, but because, as night approaches, the light keeps getting better and better, reaching its crescendo in the final minutes before the sun touches the horizon. The photographer working in the late afternoon/early evening light has the opportunity to work the subject, moving around the shot to find the best place to be
when the light reaches its peak. Early morning light is also beautiful, but we have to be in place as the sun crests the horizon, and the quality of light deteriorates the longer we work into the morning, away from the crescendo that occurs at the moment of sunrise.
Back to that scene at the Grand Canyon; I’ll head out for these scenic vistas and other “photo-op spots” in the late afternoon or early morning, and I’ll usually be shooting alone
or with little company, save for other serious photographers. The tourists are filling the restaurants or sleeping in (which is one of the benefits of a vacation). However, with just a little rearranging of their schedules, these folks could make time for visiting spectacular views that coincide with The Golden Hour.
Chimping
Most experienced digital photographers are familiar with the term “chimping.” Not a reference to our Simian cousins per se, but it does take on one characteristic of those critters.
The next time you are at a function that may draw a number of digital photographers, say a sporting event, watch the clutch of photographers from the sidelines. After a play
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It’s always great to be able to photogr aph in the best light possible , but sometimes that’s not realistic . This was the case on a shoot in Cairo, Egypt, when I had a ver y shor t window to photogr aph the pyr amids—at noon, not a good time of day. I r an into this fellow at a classic over view of all three Pyr amids…and I had less than three minutes to figure out a photo as our bus was leaving for the air por t. Hour s before there had been a sandstor m
in the area, and enough of the par ticulate matter was still hanging in the air to cause a diffusion of light. I placed him looking out of the fr ame , positioning him asymmetr ically with two of the three pyr amids, finishing off the
composition. The overhead and diffused light wor ked in my favor in this simple por tr ait as the sand-filled air acted as a giant “lightbank,” causing a soft and flatter ing light. 12–60mm lens at 20mm, 1/80 second at f13, 100 ISO
is over, you’ll see a number of those digitally- equipped individuals direct their vision, and attention, to the monitor on the back of their digital cameras. As their latest and greatest work of art is displayed on the screen, you can almost hear the “Ooh, ooh, ooh!!!” utterances of admiration coming from their lips over that image.
This is all well and good when photographing an event that has a defined
start and finish of action, but it can be a habit that mistakenly diverts the photographer’s attention from the subject they are photographing. There’s nothing worse than snapping the shutter at what you think is a perfect moment, stopping to admire your work on the monitor, look up to see the real moment occur before your eyes, and then
not have the camera ready. So remember, no chimping!
Tips for Golden Hour Photography
Here are a few hints for using that Golden Hour light:
■ Add the tiny strobe atop many consumer and prosumer cameras to the mix of Golden Hour light, and you have the recipe for successful people pictures.
■ Plan your day to make the most of The Golden Hour. Use the middle part of the day to scout and reconnoiter the area to determine where you want to be during the late afternoon.
■ Use a compass! I always carry one in my photo vest. A number of websites offer exact compass points for finding the location of sunrise and sunset from your
present or projected location. Carrying 67
this information, along with a compass, can help you choose your spot with the knowledge of where the solunar event will occur (sunrise or sunset, I mean).
■ I also carry a page I’ve printed from the website of the US Naval Observatory, “Sun or Moon Rise/Set Table for One Year”: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/ RS_OneYear.php. This information
tells you, for a specific domestic or international location, the exact times of sunrise and sunset. Another great site for determining sunrise/sunset in addition to moon phases, moonrise, and moonset is www.sunrisesunset.com/custom_srss_ calendar.asp.
Guadalupe Peak is the tallest mountain in
Texas, at 8479 feet. This image was shot for Texas Highways magazine ,
par t of a stor y on the
“Seven Great Wonder s” of the state . I found
pilots Geor ge West and Richard Davies to fly me over the r ugged ter r ain shor tly before dusk, so I could take advantage of the low setting sun to
emphasize the str ucture and str iation of the
landscape . I intentionally included the wing of
the Cessna because I
thought it provided a bit of human per spective to this stunning landscape . 12–60mm lens at 12mm, 1/250 second at f5.6,
200 ISO
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One of the most beautiful monuments in the wor ld and one of the most thoroughly
photogr aphed sites, the Taj Mahal in India is a challenge for the photogr apher to come up with something different. I was par t of a National Geogr aphic Expedition, the Taj being one of the
stops. Pre-dawn, I gathered a group of the photogr aphically-dr iven Expedition member s and headed out to photogr aph the building. I’d been there before , and I knew there is a classic
vantage point just across the Yamuna River. We ar r ived ear ly, photogr apher s spreading out to capture dawn from different angles. Shor tly after the sun rose , this camel dr iver appeared,
taking his camel to dr ink for the Yamuna. The scene was illuminated by the heavily-diffused
sunlight (pollution is good for something—adding so much par ticulate matter to the air, acting as a giant “lightbank,” softening and war ming the har sh light), but I still had to use a Singh Ray Galen Rowell Gr aduated Neutr al Density filter to allow the exposure on the foreground to
balance out the br ighter exposure value of the sky. 12–60mm lens at 12mm, 1/500 second at f6.3, 100 ISO, Singh Ray Galen Rowell 2-stop, hard step Gr aduated Neutr al Density filter
■
Take a tripod. To quote the Boy Scout motto, be prepared. You may want to extend your shooting into the evening hours, and there’s nothing more frustrating than not having a simple piece of gear that can make a huge difference in your ability to keep shooting.
■ A graduated filter can make the difference between a successful shoot and one
that is almost there. A scene where the sky is brighter than the foreground is the perfect situation for this type of filter. These filters are dark at the top, graduating, either sharply or in a soft change, to clear at the bottom. This allows the photographer to capture the bright sky and the darker foreground in the frame; without using a filter, this would be impossible, due to the great
difference in exposure in those two areas. Singh-Ray makes some very good filters; I like them because they are rectangular and can be moved up and down in front of the lens, giving you far more control over where the impacted area will be (see www.singh-ray.com/grndgrads.html).
The Singh-Ray filters can be purchased in varying degrees of density, from one stop all the way to five full stops. The filters can also be purchased with different colorations for different effects.
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Singh-Ray gr aduated filter s, seen in both hard step and soft step. The hard step is for an
exact hor izon line , and the soft step is for a
more subtle change . Photo cour tesy Singh-Ray
■ Many photographers carry a neutral density (ND) filter. This filter reduces the overall amount of light entering the lens. Why not just stop the lens down? If you want to use a low ISO setting and shoot a slow exposure, perhaps a waterfall at
midday, using an ND filter is a great idea.
70 NDs can be purchased with one, two, or more stops. Singh-Ray sells a Vari-ND filter that allows the photographer to dial in the amount of reduction infinitely from one to eight stops.
The same neutr al density filter, Singh-Ray Var i- ND, offer s three phases of controllability.
Sometimes the Simplest Light Is the Best
I always carry a flashlight with me for lighting purposes—just a small one, either a standard bulb or a halogen, with an adjustable beam. A flashlight can offer a spot of light for a dramatic effect. I was on Alaska’s Yukon River, working for National Geographic, photographing a story about the river. The day was cold and dark, and the village, Kotlik, was nearly empty. This was an important village in that it is the last outpost on this mighty river. An old man walked by and I started a conversation with him. Turns out Tom Prince was the oldest
man in the village, and I felt that warranted a photograph. I wanted to maintain the icy cold, blue look of the scene, so instead of using a warming filter or white balancing the
blue out of the frame, I shot it as is, a daylight balance, and lit Tom’s face with my flashlight. The exposure was about 1/15 of a second; I had to move the flashlight slightly to smooth out the light. The effect is exactly the look I was hoping to capture. His face is very warm, tending toward an orange-gold, because the
flashlight bulb provided a tungsten light source, and I knew that it produced that warmth
when recorded on a daylight-based setting. The village in the background appears in a bluish cast, which is exactly what I was after.
Cloudy days can provide a beautiful soft light that is ideal for close-ups of people. The light is very kind to human complexions, and your subjects’ eyes won’t be squinting, as they can be when the subject faces the sun.
Dynamic Range
The human eye is amazing in its adaptability. We look over a scene, and our eyes are able to see the full range of light, from shadowed areas to the parts lit by full sun. The eye has the ability to see a dynamic range, or ratio of dark to light, of about 100 to 1, where the camera sensor is able to see a range of only about 10 to 1. Photographers are often surprised when they look at their images and the shadows are totally black or the highlights are completely washed out. The histogram on the back of the camera can display the five-stop range that the sensor can cover.
Tom Pr ince is the oldest fellow in Kotlik, Alaska, the last village on the Yukon River. I used a small flashlight to
illuminate his face . 20–35mm lens, 1/15 second at f3.5
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We can now address the limited dynamic range of the camera by using software packages featuring High Dynamic Range (HDR).
The photographer captures several different exposures, exposing the first for the very darkest areas of the photo, with the next frame closed down one or two stops, and so on, until the final exposure captures the very brightest
area in the photo. Using HDR, the software “averages” the images together, using the broad range of exposures to create an image that more closely matches what the eye is seeing.
The power of this is that the photographer can create an image with an even greater dynamic range than the eye can see.
1/125 second at f4 1/15 seconds at f4 1/2 second at f4
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These three images were “combined” using Photomatix Pro, one of sever al software applications specifically built to blend or “tone map” HDR images. I shot the fir st image exposing for the br ightest area outside ,
another exposing for midtones in the inter ior, and the last exposing for the shadowed areas of the cabin.
The final image shows a dynamic r ange far greater than the sensor could have captured in a single fr ame . All images shot with 7–14mm lens at 7mm, 100 ISO
The final image , a combination of the three images
Reflectors
A reflector offers an easy way to add a little light to a face in the shadow to bring interest to the subject. I always travel with these tools, and I use them often. Sometimes, all it takes is just a little bit of extra light thrown in somewhere to make the picture work.
You want your photos to be noticed for the image content; you don’t want a viewer to comment that you’ve used too much/too hard/ too unflattering light. This is often a case for simplification of the lighting—a little strobe fill, a little reflector fill.
Reflectors can be as simple as a piece of paper used to redirect, or bounce, light into the desired area. If you’re photographing flowers in a field, try using something as simple as a piece of paper to reflect, or bounce, light into a shadowed area of the scene. This simple trick can take an image from ordinary to exquisite.
Reflectors come in lots of styles and sizes—from models small enough to fit in your pocket, to those so large they require an assistant, or two, to set up. In my car, I carry four reflectors: a large one, 54 inches
across, that comes with a reversible cover and provides five functions; a medium-size one of the same type; a very small one that folds to about 6 inches across and fits in my vest pocket; and a large scrim, used to soften the light. All of these fold to smaller sizes and are very portable.
Here is a list of reflectors that you may 73
want to make a permanent part of your shooting kit:
■
Large A 54-inch reflector is large enough to bounce light back and cover a standing person, or it can be used for portraits. The benefit of the 54-inch size is the softness of the light reflected from
such a large area. Move the reflector in for the softest light. Seem like a contradiction? It’s not—the closer a light source, the softer the light will be. Think of moving away from the subject with the reflector, until it’s about the size of a flashlight from the subject’s perspective. The light would be very focused, from a very small point. This type of reflector offers several options, and your choice on which option to use is a matter of taste. One side is a solid gold color that reflects a very warm light. This side reflects about 85 percent of the light, which can be too warm when shooting people. The next side is usually a gold/ silver mixed surface that is not as warm as the solid gold, and is a bit more efficient— about 90 percent in the amount of light it reflects. The solid silver side reflects about 95 percent of the light, but this light can be a little too harsh. The other side may be black, which can be used to reduce light— if, for example, you’re shooting a portrait and a bit too much shadow appears on one side, the black side can be placed on the side of the subject to cut down on the light.
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As a mentor for an Amer ican Photo Mentor Ser ies trek, I was visiting Belgium’s Ruins de
Montaigle for tress for an ear ly mor ning pr ivate visit. I wanted to show the trekker s how much impact a reflector could have on a photo. This photo is shot without any additional light, either flash or reflector. It’s a nice photo, nothing special.
The same scene , with the addition of a reflector that bounced light into the shadowed area of the falconer’s face and on the falcon. This light opens up the photo, making it much more interesting. 17–35mm lens, 1/125 second at f5.6
■ Medium The medium-size reflector is used in situations for which a little harder light is desired—say you are photographing your pet black lab. The large reflector would provide such soft light that the dog’s black coat would absorb a lot of the light; this is an ideal situation for a smaller reflector that creates a more direct light source, effectively brightening his coat.
■ Very small A small reflector is easy to keep with you always, because it fits in a vest pocket or in the pocket of a camera bag. When I was on an assignment photographing scientists collecting bugs on the Amazon, I needed a simple light source to use for shooting the bugs they collected. This small reflector (about
12 inches across, unfolded) worked perfectly. I could get it in close, and it could be pivoted to create the exact light I needed.
■ Scrims These are a Hollywood favorite, as their purpose is to soften a direct light source, which is very nice for portraits taken on a direct-sun day. Open the scrim, have your assistant (spouse, traveling companion, innocent bystander) hold it in between the light source, such as the
sun, and the subject. It creates a very pretty light. I often use a scrim to soften the direct overhead sun, and I’ll use another reflector or flash as my main light. This is called controlling your environment.
Understanding light does not always mean working with an abundance of light.
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Often, simply using your flash in midday light will make all the difference in a photo being a disappointment, as shown here , or…
…a success, as shown here . Balancing the foreground and background is necessar y, and this can simply mean pointing the camer a at the gener al scene in the background, and
holding the shutter button halfway down to lock in the exposure . Then, with the flash set to TTL (Through the
Lens), point the camer a toward your subject and press the shutter. 11–22mm lens, 1/60 second at f5.6
76 At times you’ll want to use the selective ray of light coming through a window to partially light the subject’s face and create an air of mystery. This involves seeing and thinking out of the box. Watch a professional work a scene; he or she will work harder at getting the lighting right than at just about any other aspect of the picture-taking process. Light is everything.
Flash , On
or Off Camera
The flash can be either the most overused tool or the most underappreciated feature of the camera. Properly used, a flash can fill in harsh shadows and turn a ghastly lit midday photo into a pleasing portrait. Here are some tips for using your in-camera flash or accessory flash:
■ If shooting at midday, turn on the flash and allow it to fill the shadows, creating an evenly lit image. You can use your camera’s Program mode for this: go into your flash control and turn it on; it’s usually indicated by a lightning bolt icon. Or, in Manual mode, turn on the strobe and set the exposure to the ambient light.
■ If using an off-camera flash, consider purchasing a remote cord. This lets you move the flash off to the side, and this trick alone will either eliminate or
dramatically lessen the effect of red eye. Red eye occurs when light from the flash bounces off the back of the subject’s eyeball, creating an image in which the subject sports bizarre red eyes.
■ Try bouncing the light—if you are shooting inside a place with a roof of a normal height and a colored light source, you can point the flash toward the ceiling during shooting. This disperses the light, flooding the scene with it. It creates an image with a much more natural look than direct flash can provide, producing a more even light across the frame.
■ You can also use a “bounce card,” which can be as simple as a piece of white paper taped to the strobe (make sure the paper is on the backside of the flash, from the perspective of the subject). This setup still uses the flash bouncing off of the ceiling, but it will direct a wee bit of light directly on the closest subject. This creates a nice fill light, but it still takes advantage of the light illuminating the area—providing a
much more natural look. LumiQuest offers several bounce devices as well as mini light boxes that fit on the flash. I always carry the ProMax 80-20, a reflector that I can attach to my strobe; it allows 80 percent of the light to hit the ceiling, with 20 percent used to fill in shadows on the subject.
■ Get really creative and use the flash with a reflector. Have your fabled assistant hold the reflector to direct the light just to the side of the subject’s head or torso. Then, use the flash as the main light. With this method, you can create a more “dimensional” light source. Try not to go overboard with the reflector—just bring up the level of light, or use it to light a shadowed side of your subject.
■ In the old days of film, many pros using hand-held flashes would tape a filter over the business end of the flash. I kept a very soft gold colored gel attached at all times to “warm up” the light a bit, and this helped quite a lot, by making skin tones look more natural. Inherently, flash light tends to be a bit blue. You can acquire little sample packs of filters from many theatrical lighting companies, or some top photo shops carry them. I carried the Roscolux filter pack. Conveniently, they fit perfectly on many popular strobes, with no cutting necessary. Many different samples of the full range of lighting
The LumiQuest ProMax 80-20 device attaches to your exter nal flash with hook-and-loop
fastener s; the reflector can be attached
quickly or pulled off at a moment’s notice .
filters are included, so don’t limit your 77
experimentations to one.
This inexpensive pack of theatr ical filter
samples makes a perfect war ming/cooling/
softening filter that will fit over the business end of an exter nal flash. Use a little
electr ician’s tape or gaffer’s tape to secure
it. Don’t use duct tape , as it will leave sticky residue . Gaffer’s tape (available at the same
theatr ical supply or pro photo store) will not leave a residue , even under heat.
In the digital era, the effect of this trick is usually white balanced out.
However, if you are shooting in Raw, this will work. Remember that Raw is how the scene looks, and white balance will not impact the file, so the effect of filters on the lens of the camera, or on the strobe, will be recorded.
Kids, don’t tr y this at home! One of the last places a photogr apher likes to use flash units is around water : splashes
can cause shor t circuits that fr y equipment, and cords are ever ywhere—the list of potential problems is long. By using these self-contained flash units, however, I was able to control the light output on each strobe using the TTL capability of the flash. To get this shot, I set the camer a to the onboard r adio controlled mode to get a window on my camer a’s LCD panel that allowed me to set my controls on each flash unit. Then, using the onboard flash of the camer a to
trigger the flashes, each unit fired a precise amount of light on the boater s’ faces. 12–60mm lens at 23mm, 1/30 second at f4, 200 ISO.
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Remote Radio Controlled Flash Photography
High technology has empowered the photographer greatly with the advent of the radio or infrared remote controlled flash unit. Olympus, Nikon, and Canon now offer these sophisticated, small flash units that allow
the photographer to control, remotely and without any wiring connected to the camera,
a large number (10-plus) of remote flash units for complex, sophisticated, or just fun lighting setups. Using this technology in a photograph of boaters, I was able to place three strobe units with people in three different boats, and I controlled the light output from the camera on each strobe unit. Remote control certainly opens up an entire world of lighting possibility to anyone interested in this style of photography.
A Bit of Control from the Menu
Within the menu on digital camera are white balance settings, which can be used as a “filter pack” of sorts. The white balance settings offer different Kelvin degree settings (the standard by which we measure the temperature of light), which are represented on the menu
by several icons. The light bulb icon setting represents 3000K. In Kelvin degrees, the lower the temperature, the warmer the light, and the higher the temperature, the cooler the light. A fluorescent bulb icon represents 4000K, and other fluorescent bulb icons represent 4600K—the 4000K bulb being close to daylight, the 4600K bulb creating the ugly green cast seen under that particular lighting. The 5300K setting is considered the daylight setting; 6000K is a setting for cloudy conditions; 6600K is yet another fluorescent
setting, closest to daylight; and near the top of the thermometer, 7500K is used to offset the extreme bluish cast that shadows in the sun will create.
How is this like a filter pack? On a cold and rainy day, you might want to capture an image that emphasizes the cold feeling by “pumping up” the blue setting. Press the WB (White Balance) button, and set the camera to 3000K, which is a tungsten light setting. Tungsten light, common in house lamps, produces a very warm coloration, and the 3000K WB setting neutralizes that by adding blue. So if you use the 3000K setting in an
outdoor scene, you add blue, or a certain 79
moodiness, to the image.
Conversely, you can set the WB to 6000K, adding a lot of warmth to the photo. Remember that this setting is a default for shooting in open shade—a very blue lighting condition—and the camera will actually use a mathematical algorithm to correct that color cast by pumping up the warmth.
Tips for Using White Balance
■ When shooting in an area with tungsten lighting, set the WB to 5300K, the setting for outdoor light. This will record the light from those lamps in very warm mode, which in a home setting creates a warm and toasty atmosphere in the photo.
■ If you’re shooting on a rainy, cloudy afternoon, you can emphasize the cold feeling by setting the WB to 3600K, the setting for indoor light, to create a cooler environment in the photograph.
■ Don’t use the auto-white balance setting; this takes away much of your control, as the function of this setting is to take the predominant white area in a photo and make it whiter. If you are shooting in a beautiful Golden Hour situation, the WB auto setting will often “correct” the golden hue right out of the photo. If the light is
a very strong gold, use a 5300K daylight setting or a 6000K cloudy setting.