3 most important questions to ask when shooting in natural light…

I found it most interesting that the word photography is derived from a combination of two Greek words meaning “drawing with light”.  The focus for this weeks lesson was, you guessed it, working with natural light and using it to our best advantage.

After watching all the videos and reading all the notes, the most valuable piece of advice I came away with was this:

What are the 3 most important questions to ask yourself when shooting in natural light?

1. Where is the light coming from?
2. Where is the light coming from?
3. Where is the light coming from?

Once you determine where the light is coming from then you can decide where to place your subject and where to shoot from in order to obtain the best image possible.

For this weeks homework we had to post 5 images using light in different ways:

This first image is of my lovely model Marianne

Here is the adorable Baby C, this little guy was a real trouper he was teething AND had a cold but I still managed to get some sweet shots of him

The incorrigible Paddington, getting him to sit still for this shot was a MISSION!

A pensive moment with Baby C again and his beautiful Mom, by the time I took this shot both of them were pretty worn out and tired from the woes of teething, here I made use of the natural reflectors in the environment – the white shirt, the white wall to the right of the subjects as well as grey gravel on the driveway

I went down to the sea again (cue for a poem) this week at the crack of dawn and managed to capture another image of one of those beautiful racehorses with a bright sky behind him and his groom

Of course I couldn’t leave it at that and just had to add a few more…

Baby C finally resting, poor little sausage

This is one of my favourite images, aren’t they just beautiful together?

I’ll leave you with this quote from David Young:

“It is the photographing of ordinary things, in extraordinary light, which results in extraordinary photographs.” – Now that’s what I’m striving for.