Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs: Light

From Exposure to Light, let's continue Photography with Henry Carrol. 

Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs - Henry Carrol: Light

Whether you have your camera with you or not, the only way to learn about light is to observe it constantly. Hard light causes anything in its path to become a highlight, while everything else remains dark. Soft light is less intense meaning there isn't such a stark divide between the highlights and the shadows. The strong, decisive shadows that go hand in hand with hard light create depth and three dimensionality. The blanket evenness of soft or flat light means that there are no dramatic shadows and highlights to create depth and draw the eye. Hard light is dramatic. It creates cutthroat shadows and stark highlights, which are unforgiving and expose all. Portrait Photographers love soft, diffused light as it draws out form and features without being severe. Natural and artificial light are unequivocally distinct. They convey different moods and are very different in colour. A couple of white balance presets you may find on your camera are: tungsten incandescent, fluorescent, noon daylight, flash, cloudy, and shade. Inbuilt flash dominates the look and feel of an image. To force your flash to fire find the button or menu icon marked by ( ⚡ ) and scroll through the options.  

Examples: 

- Heinley Street, Adelaide by Trent Parke

- Wes (gator) by Ryan McGinley

- Callanish after Hailstorm, Lewis by Fay Godwin

- Oregon by Lee Friedlander

- Jemma on Mirror by Richard Learoyd

- House Under Highway by Nadav Kander

- Untitled (Woman in white dress running in Yokosuka) by Daido Moriyama

- Seagull and Chips by Elaine Constatine

Join me next week as we discuss Lenses. 

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