Explorers Of Light
| The great painters of Greece knew what extraordinary light meant to their paintings. Today, it means the same to you when trying to photograph your child. Without light, there isn’t a photograph. Even the word photography comes from the Greek words photos meaning light and graphos meaning writing. So photography means writing with light.
What elements make light extraordinary? Basically, there are three: color, quality and direction. All intertwined, but each have their own merit and all are necessary to have great light. |
Color
Before the sun comes up, you will notice a bluish cast to the light. Once the sun starts to come up, the bluish color evolves to a golden yellow and then evolves again to a white light.
The golden yellow light is caused by the light being refracted off of the water, dust, smoke and other particles as it travels through the atmosphere. At sunset, the same effect happens, however, the light is more of a golden orange, because there of more particles in the air caused by the day’s activities on the ground.
Quality
The hard, harsh mid-day light is the worst light for photographers. During this light, try to photograph your child in the shade. With your white balance on the Shade setting, zoom in on your child (to get an accurate exposure), press the shutter button halfway down, recompose by zooming out and finish pressing the shutter button. Be sure and use your fill flash to illuminate your child’s face.
Thin clouds act as a diffuser and improves the quality of mid-day light. The harshness will be gone and it will be a more even, shadowless light. This is by far the best light for photographing children. Set your white balance to cloudy and shoot. You don’t have to worry about your child squinting into the sun or about the harsh shadows.
The light, from sunrise to about 1 ½ hours after, and again from 1 ½ hours before sunset to sunset, is the best quality light, providing your subject lit from the front; more on that in a moment. This low-angled directional light imparts a warm glow to your subject making for some great child photography.
Direction
The direction of light is the last element. It comes from three different directions: side, front and back. Each has their application, but front lighting is really the only one good for photographing children.
Side lighting, is not good for photographing children because it accents texture. You can change side lighting into front lighting by turning your child so he or she is facing the light. Backlighting is great for making silhouettes, but has little use in photographing your child.
As explorers of light, we constantly look for the three intertwined elements making up extraordinary light. Look for the color. Look for the quality. Look for the direction. Join the other explorers in their quest for the perfect light when photographing your child.
Professional Photographer
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