More Looking For Light

More Looking For Light

by William Lulow

It is a constant thing that I do when I’m outside (or inside too, for that matter). I am always looking for light. Since way back when I studied lighting for portraits and then while teaching it and even now whenever I’m out and especially when I am shooting something, I am aware of light and lighting. Here’s one example from a recent trip to Pennsylvania and Longwood Gardens:

This is such a raw example of light and shapes. I was actually shooting with a wide angle lens (Canon 20mm f/2.8) but I knew I wanted to do somewhat of a close up, so I moved closer. Wide angle lenses are sometimes very good at doing shots like this because of their naturally increased depth-of-field. But the side-lighting here just made the entire scene so much more contrasty, that it almost begged to be shot in original Black & White, which this was. The best way to show texture in something is to light it from the side. You then begin see all kinds of detail revealed by the lighting. The highlights and then the deep shadows made for not only an interesting composition, but I knew the lighting would be special.

Here’s another example:

Here, I was shooting flowers as they grew in the garden, so I had to look to position the camera where the light would create little highlights on the edges of all the petals. A backlight is usually the way to do this, so this was just a matter of positioning myself so that my field of view would be lit from behind. I knew I was going to work on the image a bit in post-processing. I knew how I wanted to crop the image fairly closely, and often, cropping the image later, adds to its effectiveness. This can also be achieved with a wider-than-normal lens because it will give you more of a field from which to crop. Longer lenses kind of do the cropping for you.

My technique in making each of these images involved trying to see what the light was and then to position the camera, as I mentioned, to make use of it. It is quite a conscious effort on my part to do this. I have often said to students that once you study studio lighting, you can never again look at a scene or a photograph, for that matter, without noticing and being acutely aware of the lighting. Even if you don’t make photography your profession, but just do it for the sheer enjoyment of it, being able to notice special lighting situations will make you feel much better about the images you do make.

This is an example of a subject that was illuminated by mostly a side light and back light, so it made for shadows in the front. My solution to this situation was to pop up the camera’s built-in flash unit which provided just the right amount of light to fill in all the shadows and give the image its brilliance. Below is the original shot where I saw the lighting, but knew that I had to work to give it the illumination it needed and then a bit more on it in post:

Here you can see what the extra fill-in light and all the post processing can accomplish. The main point is to be able to see the light as it occurs, then know what you would do with it to enhance it when you get to work on it a bit. This was Ansel Adams’ technique as it was for most photographers who created memorable works of art from what they saw with their mind’s eye.