You don’t have to be a professional photographer to want to take great pictures. In the age of the smart phone, everyone is trying to capture that moment in the best way they know how. People always think it’s the camera that makes great pictures and yes, a good camera does help, but it is possible to get beautiful photos, no matter the gear. There are many factors that create a great picture; composition, perspective, angle, posing, and the most important, lighting! For me, lighting has been the most challenging to learn but also the most rewarding. Understanding light is essential to taking your photos from good to great.
Lighting is something that one can spend a life time studying. There are so many factors that go into understanding light, but because y’all are not professional photographers, I’m just going to give some simple tips and explanations for your daily photos.
Light with a lot of contrast
There may be a technical term for this but I can’t think of it, so I’m just going to describe it. Light with a lot of contrast can be beautiful, but for this post, I am describing situations where the contrast affects your photos in a negative way. High contrast lighting can product undesirable effects in a couple of ways.
- Dappled lighting – dappled lighting is when your light source is shining through something that creates a pattern. This can be a really neat effect when done properly, but most of the time, it’s just a nuisance. An example is when the sun is shining through trees with leaves. Another example would be a pattern from blinds. When I first started taking pictures, I wouldn’t notice the uneven lighting on my subjects until I got home and loaded my pictures. I would realize that if I had just asked my subjects (usually my kids) to step fully into the shadows, I would’ve gotten more pleasing photos.
2. Split lighting – this is another type of lighting that people use to create dramatic photos but when it’s done on accident, it looks poo! I always have this issue when taking selfies (yes, I’m that person) in the car. The visor is down which creates a shadow across my eyes, but the sun is shining brightly on the bottom half of my face and it’s horribly overexposed. Overexposed means that it’s so bright, all of the details are lost in my face and it’s bright white. To fix this, I typically use something to diffuse the light fully so that it’s more even across my face.
3. Blown out highlights with underexposed subjects – I don’t want to get too detailed with this but basically, our cameras don’t have the ability to see the variances in light and dark the way the human eye does. What that means is, when you adjust your camera so that you’re subject is exposed properly (meaning the light is accurate on your subject), the brighter areas are super bright. The brighter something is in your photos, the less detail is shown. If you’re trying to have a picture of your family on a bright day and you adjust your camera so that your subjects are clear, the skies will be super bright white. OR, if you’re using your iPhone and you can’t get your subjects to be bright enough, it’s because your phone is trying to get everything exposed correctly and it just can’t. There are a variety of ways to handle this situation, so keep reading!
Tips for fixing those situations
- Dappled light – Like I said above, review the first picture you take and notice, is the light on my subject’s face even? If not, there are a couple of things you can do. A) you can move your subject somewhere deeper in the shade so that he/she does doesn’t have the dappled light on his/her face. B) you can use that light to make a super dramatic or creative picture. This is a creative choice, so you have to play around. For me, I try to make sure both eyes are visible and allow the pattern to fall around that area. I’ll also step back and capture more of the light in the picture, keeping the face lit up as much as possible. It doesn’t even have to be the face, it could just be whatever I’m trying to highlight in that moment. C) I can move my subject into the sun and take the picture with the sun behind or to the side of my subject.
2. Split light – With this type of issue, I typically just diffuse the light with something. The other day, I had issues with light coming through and splitting on my face so I used a magazine to block the light underneath the visor. If I am taking pictures for my blog and using window light, I will take the cover off of my reflector and diffuse the light that comes through the window so that it’s even. Whatever I can do to block the light from shining directly on my subject will be helpful. You don’t have to have a reflector to do it. You can use anything, even a sheet of paper!
3. When the light behind your subject is super bright, the best way to get around that is to bring them to a spot that reflects the sun back on their face. For example, if you’re on the beach, try to find a spot with light sand. If you’re outside somewhere, maybe bring your subject to a sidewalk. If those two things don’t work, you can use something white to reflect back on to your subjects, a piece of poster board, a reflector, even a white t shirt! If none of those are available, I suggest turning your subject so that the sun is coming from the side instead of behind. The lighting will still be dramatic, but as long the sun is not directly overhead, it will still be attractive lighting. The last thing is to find the shadows, and get even light there.
I hope this post has been helpful. If you like this and want to learn more about taking better pictures, let me know in the comment section. Thanks so much for reading!
