#48 [Enlighted Thursdays]

A bit of theory to fix some ideas on my head. I love to study ;) Just abandon me in a library for twenty years and I will be a happy person.

The light itself has three main characteristics: Brightness, Color (Tungsten x Daylight) and Contrast

About Contrast

I found the concept of the (open) sun being a "small" light quite awesome. They say small but it is not regarding to the physical size of the sun, but because the sun is far away (so is relatively small) and when the sun is shining and you have no clouds, the rays fall in parallel over your subject, defining a hard shadow with very sharp edges. This is a high contrast scene: the borders of your shadow are sharp, hard.

I went to look for some photo to illustrate this concept and I found those lovely sheeps hanging around on a winter day. The sun was very bright and the sky absolutely clear, so the sun rays were falling over the sheep in parallel, causing the hard shadow behind the lovely animal.

How can this knowledge help us on our daily life?

1) Never turn the face of your subject (or sheep) to the sun because they will squint and that is unflattering for your sheep (subject).

2) One of the 1.652.372 things that you need to remember in order to get better pictures is being aware of the current light situation. Try to classify the light you have: small or big? Bright or dark? And whenever you are on a situation of small ligh (direct sun light or using flash) and don't want HARD SHADOWS, diffuse your light. Find a way to force the light rays to not fall in parallel over your subject. When using a flash it can be a folded tissue in front of the flash head. If shooting on open sun, create a shadow for your sheep (subject).

3) Remember that hard shadows equals to high contrast and this can be pretty interesting sometimes. May be not for the face of your sheep, husband, kids but it can be great for objects (like this building in NY). It reveals texture and can be quite funny...

4) Sometimes you might look small to the others, but be of the size of your own shadow. Be big!