Project 52 - Week 7: Natural Light

Four hundred and fifty-two photos into practicing photography back in late 2011, I began to see a pattern with regard to taking pictures in natural light.  I probably would have figured the pattern out a lot sooner, if I did not live in Northeastern Pennsylvania, where unnatural things happen so often, the weathermen have taken to throwing darts at a weather map on the wall. 

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE NATURAL LIGHT! Just the right kind of light can help to make a fantastic portrait of any subject. And it's true that the best times to take photographs is in the very early morning or just before sunset, but sometimes clients have conflicts which do not allow them to necessarily meet at these wonderfully-lit times of day.

I like to spend some time taking practice shots in all kinds of natural light conditions, but Pennsylvania winters generally are their own gray card, and sometimes we don't see the sun for 10 days. So I am learning to become proficient in dull light. 

The saving grace is SNOW!  Snow really brightens up the landscape and helps with reflection (the good).  It can also reflect too much, be too bright, and become a vast wasteland of undefined nothingness (the bad).

This past week, while digging out from our second snow and ice storm, I had a chance to photograph our new neighbor's dog, a German Shorthaired Pointer (GSP) named Maverick, who was a willing participant, and enjoyed the snow way more than I enjoyed shoveling it.

The contrasts in a GSP's coat are great for setting against a blurred out snow scene, and despite the fact that this picture looks bright, it wasn't at all bright outside at the time.  I compensated with camera settings for sure, but while Maverick was doing a happy dance around me, I was analyzing the QUALITY of the light all around us, until I found this very open spot in his yard which afforded me good light, despite the overcast day.

Some tips:
1) Analyze the quality of light around you. (Look for the spots that will give you the best photo options.)
2) Look for contrasts to help you in dull lighting situations. (Generally these contrasts will come out much better on a dull, gray day, than on a bright, sunny one.)
3) Watch your white balance. (Remember, snow tends to have a blueish tone.)
4) Overexpose for snow.  Although this is counter-intuitive, the light meters in our cameras want to "fix" things for us and move in the direction of medium bright, but if you want the snow to be WHITE, you need to increase the exposure.  (In the photo above I increased my exposure by 1 and 1/2 f-stops.
5) On a sunny snow day, use a lens hood.  This helps with the massive reflections of the sun on snow effect.

A tip that a photography instructor shared with me a few years ago, is one I have never forgotten and always use: "Always try to have something other than snow in your photo to ground the subject in the image."  In the photo above, I have allowed the little rock wall, background trees, and snow hills to lend some interest to what otherwise might be an all-white scene surrounding Maverick.

And, as Maverick shows us, even when our light is right, that doesn't always mean both ears will be. (This face just makes me laugh out loud!)  I hope to take many more photos of Maverick, who is absolutely one of the friendliest dogs on the planet.

Now, because there are many more ways to use natural light, and many more people in our blog circle to give you examples, start here with Rochelle from Dark Sapphire Pet Photography in Nelson, New Zealand, then travel around the blog until you see this page again.  We are now headed into a warm up period weatherwise, but we Pennsylvanians know that more snow and cold are on the horizon through March and sometimes into April, so we are not fooled, Mother Nature!  Enjoy your weekend with whatever light you find yourself in!