Before there were photographers, there were painters. These painters helped pave the way for our photographic endeavors through their dedication to studying light. Fortunately, much of what these “Old Masters” knew have been passed down to us and established themselves as the fundamentals of photographic lighting. Through studying the works of the painters such as the English Masters, we can better understand how to utilize light to create impactful photographs outdoors. Let’s take a look at some examples as we examine five lessons that the English Masters can teach us.
Understanding Light Articles
For the uninitiated, flash photography can be scary. There’s all this talk about lighting ratios and sync speed and…it gets to a point where some people just check out of the conversation and carry on using their pop-up flash, despite less than stellar results. But even those who have made the courageous move to at least experiment with off camera flash often find themselves hating the way their photos look. The most common cause of this unhappiness is due to using bare flash. It won’t matter if your settings are perfect, aiming a bare flash at your subject is sure to stand between you and photographic satisfaction. The good news is bare flash syndrome is easily averted — all you need to do is modify the light.
Many of us will go about our photography without ever looking at those magical graphs called histograms, yet by doing so, we are severely restricting our ability to get the perfect exposure. Histograms are perhaps the most powerful, and often overlooked tool in the photographer’s skill-set. By understanding what they are telling us and reacting to that information, we can dramatically increase the quality of our exposures.
The topic of color relationships in photography is somewhat akin to the topic of composition in that there are no set-in-stone rules governing these issues, yet there are plenty of useful guidelines that some photographers like to adhere to. Color relationships are essentially a set of principles or guidelines that serve to provide a deeper insight into how two or more colors interact from an aesthetic point of view.
As much as we love natural light, there are times when you have to rely on artificial light to create striking portrait images. Artificial lighting allows you to rework the look in your portraits in multiple ways. From a dramatic look that emphasizes strength and character to a softer look that highlights innocence and compassion, you can have full control over the final result.
In a previous article we took a look at metering using the camera’s built in metering system, explaining the different metering modes and in what situations to use them. For the vast majority of people the metering systems of modern digital cameras is so good that we need not consider other means of reading our […]