Finding your image

When I leave the house I always have my camera with me. Generally in seat right beside me, or in the bag behind the seat. Just in case I see or happen upon a situation or a moment that would make a great image. I have always done this since I became serious about taking photographs and it is something I still do day in and day out.

When I first became serious about my work I would find myself taking multiple photos nearly every single day. Not missing what I thought were great shots. In those days there was a different type of passion in the newness of the moment and my new DSLR at that time. I would often find upon my arrival home and after uploading my images what I thought was a great shot at the moment was hardly that. I still take pictures almost every day of one thing or another and it is always a learning experience. I would consider myself passionate about photography and it is something I truly love to do. I certainly take fewer images now than I did in the early days of my work. Some might say the newness has worn off and that may be true to some aspects. I feel as you grow as a photographer and learn more, you tend to realize what makes a great shot therefore limiting the number pictures you take. It is not a lack of passion at all, if anything it is a greater passion to take the best images you possibly can. It is that same passion that drives me to try to learn more and what drives me to find the most beautiful subjects to share.

If I had to say there is one single element that helps in finding good images, and separating the good from the not so good it would be understanding light. There is a pretty hefty dose of a number of elements and to pin down one is kind of hard to do. There is technique, experience, composition, and the quality of your equipment to name a few. I do feel that understanding how light affects every single shot you take in a major way is one very large step that will help you.

If you are a camera pointer, snap snap snap, or if you are hesitant about your shots not really sure if it is the right on. There is something I recommend everyone who has not ever done so try. Take a day, or a couple of days to really notice the light, and how it changes from one moment to the next. Once you really start understanding what you are looking at you will find yourself doing this everyday or I know I do. I know that may sound kind of un realistic, “How light changes” , but it does. It is really amazing to me how much light changes from minute to minute every day, day in and day out.

I would end up writing a book here if I continued on the way I would like to. But I am going to try to break this down into some easy steps for everyone to understand. As a photographer, one thing will be true as long as you are really serious about doing it, and that is time is out the window. Get up before the sun, prepare for the morning light on days you know there will be an opportunity for great shots.

Notice as the sun comes up how the entire sky starts to brighten this is the birth of your daily light, even on rainy days your have the same thing just at a slower pace. At this point you almost have no light at all to work with. Then early as the sun does come up there you have a low light situation, and from there you go from great light to really harsh light in a pretty short period of time. I could not consider this a true and complete explanation without mentioning nighttime. I am not going to focus on that right now, it is kind of in a ball park all by itself.

As the sun moves across the sky the light changes obviously because the angle is continuously changing. One thing you probably do not realize though is that the color temperature is continuously changing too (This being your White Balance). Then you have so many factors at work clouds, buildings, your equipment and how it handles each situation differently.

One of the best ways to watch light and how it changes is to notice a stationary object or a moving object at the same during the day. Notice how the shadow is cast, and how bright the shadow is that is being cast. How fast is the shadow changing position? Another way is your camera, spot meter and area throughout the day to see the differences in your exposure values. Expose a couple of different images and use your color graph to indicate how much the color is changing in the object or the color that is being cast on the subject. This could be anything from a post or a flower pot to a car or a mountain side.

Notice the elements of the sky and your surroundings, is there clouds and were they are, will the sun soon disappear behind them. Will it soon be blocked by a tree, shrub, building or anything else? These are just a few of things that will help you understand how to use the light you have to your advantage for the different type of images you are taking.

As my basic rule of thumb these are the types of images under the given light I try to take and avoid.

The early morning light is really your best light for Landscape and certain nature shots; if you can use it correctly it is softer and more brilliant. You often have fog coming from the ground and or water at certain times of the year and the color temperatures this lighting situation creates is almost unmatchable under most all other situations. If you are on vacation, and want some great representative photos to show off don’t stay in the bed until 7 or 8 o’clock. Find your area the day before or a certain area you can ride through, get up before dawn and arrive. Chances are in certain vacationing locations you will not be alone (especially if it is a great spot to shoot).

As the morning wears on the light becomes much harsher, and the mid morning to noon light is not a photographer’s dream lighting situation for almost any shots (Unless it is Cloudy) but right now we are talking a typical sunny day maybe some clouds. Around noon as the light from the sun is coming down almost directly overhead, this time of the day into the early evening makes great lighting situations for action shots, and nature shots. Nature meaning animals, birds, butterflies. You typically can dial up higher ISO values without getting as much noise in your pictures and higher shutter speeds; while dialing your aperture (F-Stops) down to increase the detail in the picture.

{As a side note here and the reason I mention it is because I use to never know what people meant when they were talking about dialing your aperture down, until I figured it out myself and then realized what there were talking about was turning up my F-Stop as I use to refer to it. Truly your are dialing your aperture down, F-5 the opening in the lens is allowing a pretty good bit of light to enter the lens, by shutting the aperture down like F-20 you have narrowed the hole the light is entering.}

Anyway! For those who did not know

As the evening light sets in you typically get some pretty good light here to for Landscape and some nature pictures. The main difference between this light and your early light is that it typically produces much warmer color temperature than your morning light does. When shooting in areas of high elevation you tend to get more smogging and or hazing in the distance than in the morning. This can be helped with an HD filter.

My favorite days are rainy days, one reason is because I love to shoot running water i.e. waterfalls. This is my method, and I love to hike into the woods in the rain, and get under a bluff shelter or rock shelter and prepare my equipment. Deep in the woods, usually deep down I a canyon somewhere looking for a waterfall. The rain sounds so great, and the slight chill in even the warmer summer air is lessened by the downpours. But the primary reason is for the clouds that cover the sky and the real life light box effect they create. You can run much longer shutter speeds with much lower aperture values under these circumstances. This is a great light for a lot of other situations as well, were you have little to no shadow on any of your subjects. On a cloudy day, I mean pretty much the entire sky is cloudy walk outside and notice the pretty much non existence of shadows. In these situations you don’t have the sun over exposing on area or feature while the shadow underexposes another feature right next to it. (Example a barn with a tin roof) the light is much more even throughout on these light box days and for the pictures I enjoy taking the most this is my favorite light. Thank you for reading and please visit anthonypostonphotography.com