Rule Number Two is better known as “Know where your light is”. Well, I know it as that. If you want to get very technical about light then feel free to get a book, but I am not going that way. I will just give you some common sense to use. No flashes or reflectors or any of that stuff here. The main reason you need to consider light is because all too often people have photos with extremely dark shades or overly bright spots in all the wrong places. This happens because a camera sensor, unlike our eyes, shows exactly what it sees. Our brains interpret what we see and the variations in light appear much smaller than it does to the camera. With practice you will learn exactly what your camera can handle and you will learn to avoid situations that mess up your photos.
To illustrate, let’s imagine some situations. (Unfortunately I don’t yet have photos from my phone as illustrations) It is 1pm and the sun is shining in all its glory. You would think this is good, but to a camera all this means overly bright areas broken up with extremely dark areas. On your face that will mean dark areas in the wrong places. On a scene it will be dark areas with hidden shapes under very bright trees and roofs. I don’t know many people who like photos that make them look strange or hide important objects.
It is not fool proof, but you can avoid this to a certain extent by taking the most important photos before 11am and after 2pm. The sun is out, but it is just not that harsh and makes for much better photos.
Something similar to the above example is when you are standing in the shade but everything around you is in the sun. This is something that happens when you are standing under a roof of some sort and the background if not under said roof. You will most likely end up with a nice photo of the person, but everything else will be a harsh bright, something, if not completely white.
Avoid this by taking the photo at another time, using a flash or maybe just taking the photo from another angle to try and change the background.
The last example of something you will see often is when people take photographs with the source of light behind the person being photographed, be it the sun or some sort of light electric light. One of two things will happen. Either your camera will try to expose for the light and make whatever is on the foreground very dark, or it will try to focus on the foreground and you will see an extremely bright background that spills over and whites out part of the foreground. Neither is good. This one is easy to fix. Just move so that the light source is behind you, the photographer, and in front of the subject.
One last tip. Many people don’t think of as a useful time to take photos, but overcast days are great for photography. Everything is mostly at the same brightness and no ugly shadows or blown out white areas will be bothering you. The only time when weather like this is a problem is when you are actually trying to show the blue sky.
One last tip. Many people don’t think of as a useful time to take photos, but overcast days are great for photography. Everything is mostly at the same brightness and no ugly shadows or blown out white areas will be bothering you. The only time when weather like this is a problem is when you are actually trying to show the blue sky.
* I took these photos with my phone because I don’t want people to complain with "Yea, but I don’t have a good camera.” The camera does not make the photographer.
** This is the second post in a series, with Rule Number One posted last week.
*** Thanks to Jo for doing a few quick poses in an attempt to get example shots.
No comments:
Post a Comment