Natural Light Photography - Tips And Tricks
Control Your LightYou may not be able to control the level of natural light or its clarity, but you can still manipulate certain aspects of the way it interacts with your subjects. For example, when you take pictures in your house, you can open or close the curtains or blinds to change the amount of light coming into the room. This also works for creating focused directional light. If you"re in a room with two light sources like windows, you can always cover one side to get the focus and direction of light that you want. Try moving around buildings and structures to see how your movement changes the way your pictures end up.
Watch Out for the Sun
Though it seems like the best time of day for using natural light would be when the sun is the brightest at high noon, that is actually the worst. The bright and direct light in the middle of the day can cause high contrast, hotspots and stark shadows in your pictures. If you"re looking for these qualities in your images then noon may be a good time to shoot, however if you"re interested in soft portraits or subtle color scales you"ll find much better results in the early morning hours. Morning air has a sort of clarity to it that is hard to describe, but you"ll immediately see the difference in your images. You will also find that overcast days are great for natural lighting of subjects as your pictures will be bright but lack harsh directional shadows.
Control Your Speeds
If you use regular film instead of digital, it"s advisable that you use a medium-range film speed (400 is ideal) to ensure that you"ll be able to shoot in most situations. High and low speed films are very situational and may cause you to work around available light rather than with it causing you to have missed shots. It"s also good to choose a shutter speed for the day (you"ll get good at judging these as time goes on) and only adjust the F-Stop, or vice-versa.Ò The less things you have to remember during your photo shoot, the more "in the moment" you will be.
Taking pictures with natural light can be one of the most enjoyable experiences (or the most frustrating) a photographer can have. As you use work more regularly in natural light photography, you will see more successes and less mistakes. As always, remember to keep it fun and everything should turn out just fine.