The power of light
Photo by Berlian Khatulistiwa on Unsplash
A portrait photographer commonly uses things like soft boxes, diffusers, fill lights, etc and you can look those up online.
In street photography, my favorite time of the day is the 2-3 hour range before sunset. During that time the sunlight falls at a flattened side angle and nicely illuminates objects and people. I find the golden color of the light and the color temperature (a concept explained in the next chapter) to be very charming for any purpose. Even the dullest scene can be largely enhanced with the right lighting.
Light plays a very important role in photography. Light can make or brake a photograph. Whether you use artificial light sources such as strobe lights, reflectors or other electronic tools, or by cleverly utilizing natural light; light can help you create amazing results.
Direction and angle of the light all create different effects that one needs to understand. A light shone on any object will create shadows and those can either elevate a picture or hide parts we actually want to show. Portrait photography for example is all about lighting and there are numerous tools and gadgets to help the photographer achieve various results.
Backlit sunset light. Source: www.rachelvanoven.com
Source: www.photographymad.com
White balance & color temperature
Without going too much into this topic, white balance is a concept that talks about how your camera reads the color temperature and adjusts colors around it. Here is a more detailed description.
White balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. Proper camera white balance has to take into account the "color temperature" of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light - Source: www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm
Most digital cameras have auto white balance functions and do a decent job in selecting the right color mix. I found that maybe 1 out of 10 shots was a bit off and required correction (mostly indoor shots in tungsten lighting) but given the power of lightroom, photoshop and co, that’s nothing to worry about too much in my point of view.
Light temperature is mostly referred to as either cold or warm.
Next chapter: Cameras & Lenses
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