The Right Light

Within any given 24 hours the light around us is continually changing. Now for a photographer this can be either a fantastic thing or an annoyance. The sensational aspect of changing light is that it offers us a huge range of moods, colours, contrasts and shadows to choose from. While on the other side of the coin, once we have the “perfect light” for our chosen shot, it will only last a brief period of time.

Early morning and evening will often produce soft, warm light that is wonderful to photograph in. These times also create the longest shadows of the day and the luminance range in the foreground tends to be low because the sun is oblique to surfaces, the light is weak and shadows fill the textures. As the sun rises the shadows become shorter, the surfaces receiving light increase and become brighter. The affect of this is that the shadows don’t lighten at the same speed, resulting in an increase in the difference between bright areas and shadows, which increases the contrast.

Low warm light at sunset.

Long shadows cast in late afternoon light.

The colour of light is affected by the time of day, for example light around midday appears white because any colour looks white when it is bright enough. At this time of day the sky is blue because the molecules in the air scatter more blue light than red light. In contrast, when the sun is low in the sky it is less bright and is redder because blue light has been scattered out and away from the solar light rays, leaving red and yellow as predominant colours in the sky. Salt particles in the air enhance the orange of sunsets over the ocean.

Photographed just before noon, vibrant contrasty colours.

Just after noon. Rich blues both above and below in the Kimberleys.

Sunrise on the edge of the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia.

Many cameras will offer you colour balance capabilities with various white balance settings. If you are taking pictures in a heavily shaded area the images will often appear “cold”, with a blue hue to them. To compensate try altering your white balance settings in camera to add more warmth into the picture. When often refer to colours as being cool or warm, as cool colours fall into the blue/green colour spectrum while warm colours include red/yellow/orange colour spectrums. Candlelight for example is a very warm light while shaded areas and flash light produce cold light. Experiment with your colour balance settings to improve your pictures.