Exercise: Variety with a low sun

This exercise is used to demonstrate some of the advantages of shooting when the sun is low. Obviously, there is no sudden moment in the day when the sunlight switches between low and high, but as a guide, the sun is low within about two hours of sunrise and sunset, except in winter when it stays low for much of the day.

You can choose any subjects for this project, but they must be in sunlight. Take as many pictures as possible, but aim to produce at least 4 as a final result.

• Frontal Lighting: With the sun behind the camera, striking the subject fully. The lighting effect should appear intense, and any shiny parts of the subject will reflect the sun.

• Side Lighting: With the sun to the left or right. More or less, half of the subject will be lit, and half will be in shadow.

• Back Lighting: Shoot towards the sun light. Depending on whether the sun is in view or hidden behind the subject, the exposure may be difficult to predict.

• Edge Lighting: This is a special condition for shooting towards the sun, in which the sun is outside the viewfinder frame and the edge of the subject is lit. This is not a common type of lighting and you may have to work hard to find it. If you choose a small or moveable subject, you could move it into position against a shaded backdrop because a dark background shows up rim lighting more clearly.

For this exercise, I decided to use the same wooden model I used for the exercise ‘Colour Temperature’ as I would be able to move it around in order to achieve the desired lighting effect.

Frontal Lighting:

This was taken with the sun behind me. The book tells you that when the sun strikes the subject fully, the lighting should appear intense and any shiny parts should reflect the sun. With this, the lighting is intense, its very bright. The smooth sections of the model reflect the sunlight more, making them appear more brighter in places.

Side Lighting:

I turned the model so the sun was on its left hand side. Half of the subject has been lit with sunlight, and the other half is in shadow. It said that you should be aware of over exposure, however, I think this has managed to sort the exposure out itself.

Back Lighting:

Back lighting was harder to do as I had to turn the model away from the sun whilst climbing around a table to try and photograph the model. I prefer the colour temperature of this image. The subject isn’t too light and isn’t too dark, unlike the previous two. I should have also re focused on the face as it is a little bit blurred.

Edge Lighting:

Side lighting was also difficult to do, I had to move the object into the shade by my steps, and try to position it with the sun not on the object but shining on the step, but at the same time, I needed to keep some of the sun near the edge of the object. This image is a lot similar to the Side Lighting image.

Project: The time of the day

Dawn to Dusk:

As the sun moves through the sky, it creates new possibilities for photography. Sunrise, early morning, mid-morning, midday, afternoon, late afternoon and sunset, all have a special character in their light. There is very little that a photographer can do to change the way that natural light appears, except on a small scale and with certain filters. But what you can do is choose the time of day at which you shoot. The main control that a photograph ahs over outdoor lighting is simply to wait. Landscape photographers do this a lot.

Most casual snapshots are taken some time around the middle of the day, between mid-morning and mid-afternoon . The main reason is simply convenience. This is an undemanding time of day to shoot. By the time the causal amateur has woken up, had breakfast and travelled to wherever the photographs will be taken, the sun is already fairly high. On top of this, taking photographs under bright lighting is easier for shooting. But midday light, whether sunny or cloudy, is not necessary the  most interesting or attractive. For one thing, it is over familiar and by definition, not special. If you are planning on learning how to use natural light, you will need to work more in the early morning or late afternoon.