Photography Tutorial – Look For The Light

Same spot, just facing different directions.

Light is a BIG concept in photography, and one that I cannot tackle completely in one post. Instead, I will do a few mini-tutorials on it and see if my haphazard knowledge of light is helpful to anyone else. 😉

A lot of people ask me about light, how to get or find great light for pictures and that is such a loaded question. There are several different kinds of light: morning, evening, direct or full sun, shade, filtered, and artificial and many ways to make the most of each kind. Today I share a little about filtered light.

The image I shared above has light from the sun, obscured by heavy clouds. Now, I really do love to shoot pictures on cloudy days because it’s a nice, soft light. However, even on cloudy days you need to pay attention to how the light is hitting your subject.

In the first image, the light (sun behind clouds) is coming from slightly above and behind her. I noticed the shadows on her face, so I merely turned her around and shot from the other direction. The light in the second shot is just lovely; soft and full on her face. We stayed in the same spot and only turned 180 degrees.

This repositioning worked wonderfully for me, especially since I did not care what was in the background. If you are trying to keep something interesting or special in the background and you have shadows, try using a reflector to provide fill light.

It's not the easiest, but you can hold a reflector and shoot a camera.

The best thing I did for my photography was to learn to take a moment and really LOOK at the subject, look at how the light is hitting them. Do you have shadows? Do you have dappling (splotchy light hitting the face, like through tree branches)? Move your subject to better light. Sometimes that is just but turning in the same spot, sometimes that is by moving to a different spot.

You will spend just a few moments finding the right light, but you may end up spending a long time in post processing trying to fix poor light.

About Amanda

I am passionate about helping others learn how to use their DSLR cameras and editing programs. More information about me can be found at my About page, or by visiting my personal blog.

Comments

  1. Glad to know I’m not the only one that will hold my reflector and look silly to get a shot 😉
    The “flamingo” is also a popular stance to get proper reflector light lol

  2. Well I always wondered how you could hold the filter and the camera…….now I know thank you for sharing 😉

    • Lucy, glad that helped you some. I love my reflector and since I don’t always have a helper, I have learned to hold it and shoot. Sometimes I prop it against my legs or rest on something nearby.

  3. Great tute! You are too cute with that reflector, lol! 😉

  4. Amanda….that is a great tip, just to take a second and LOOK at the light. I love tips like these!

  5. Amanda: You always amaze me with your generousity!!! I am off for 2 weeks for the Christmas break and plan on stocking your site!!! I admire you so much!!! Thanks again for all that you give!!!

  6. great tip! I forget to just stop and look so often. Love the picture of you holding your reflector and taking a picture!

  7. Great tips Amanda!

  8. Thanks! Always good to keep this stuff in mind. I’m working on having my hub build me a reflector holder! May not look “professional” when it’s done, but if it does the trick, who cares?

  9. Thanks for putting a light on this very important subject!
    BTW, what color is your reflector? It doesn’t look white on my monitor?

    • Betty, my reflector is a 5-in-1. It has a zip off cover that can be reversed. The colors I can reflect with are: silver, gold, silver/gold zigzag, white and a mesh (for filtering, not reflecting). It is an Impact reflector that I bought from B&H Photo for about $40.

  10. Love this straight forward mini tutorial!

  11. Great post! So glad you I found your site!

  12. Do you ever use a fill flash? I’ve used my regular pop-up flash (because it’s all I have) to fill in light outdoors when I feel that the shadows are hitting wrong.

  13. This is so helpful. I have not been using reflectors, and I feel like that or fill flash will take my photography to the next level. It’s good to know that I can just hold it myself.

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