Lighting

Tweet Lets talk about lighting for a minute. Most people that are just getting into photography don't realize it but the MOST important thing in photography is light. Light is what photos are made of. It is light, and lack of light (shadows) that makes a photo what it is. Artists know this, painters have been paying attention to light, and working with it for centuries. Without light, we wouldn't be able to have photos. It is after all the light that is reflected off of our subjects and lands on our film, or digital sensor that produces the photos that we have.



There are whole series of books and entire college courses that deal with light so I will not be able to cover everything that you need to know in one post. I can however tell you that before anything. Before you research what camera to get, or what certain settings mean, research light, and how it effects your subjects.



Anyone who knows anything about photography knows the basics. The golden hours are the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset. Unfortunately great photo opportunities don't wait for those "golden hours". They happen all of the time. This is where the use of the available light, and artificial flash come into play. Anytime outside of those two or three hours of "great photo light" a day, you have to use other techniques. You have to use the edge of your shadows. You have to use your flash, and you have to do it all quickly because the light is always changing. I plan on getting more in depth in future articles about each individual subject such as off camera flash, use of reflectors, subject placement in high contrast light, etc. This is a foundation for me to build on. I plan to start on Monday with the first article entitled "why off camera flash is for you". Until then you can check out http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html for some great off camera flash information. That site is the bible to off camera flash on a budget. It's supposed to be almost 70 degrees tomorrow so I plan on spending all day shooting until the Ohio Valley Camera Club meet up which can be found here
That's it for me tonight. Everyone have a lovely evening and I'll see you next time. Jason