In this article:

• Overview – lighting in photography
• Light characteristic
• Quality of light
• Light intensity
• Light direction

Photography lighting techniques deal mostly with light. Lighting is very essential element in photography technique. Without the light; it is impossible to create a photograph with your digital camera. As a photographer, being familiar with the light is very essential and becomes the basic element you must master perfectly; understanding the nuance and the light detail are very essential. So any immediate changing in light can be anticipated immediately by reacting as necessary as possible for creating a wonderful photo result.

To being familiar with the light you should understand the light characteristic; how to improve the quality of light; fill-in-flash, how to handle low light conditions, and other nature lighting photography techniques. Flashing and studio photography lighting techniques are not discussed in this article.

The first thing you should understand in photography lighting technique understands the characteristic of the light. There are four elements you should understand regarding the light: quality of the light; color; intensity and light direction. In the effort of producing photography works; you need to control these four elements during the shooting or editing after production in the computer.

Understanding lighting in photography helps you build your instinct about the light, how you can react when the light is changing. For example in the cloudy morning when the sun is still covered by the thick cloud, the wind suddenly sweeps the cloud away and the sun shines and illuminates the misty forest and then evokes a golden misty forest. This usually happened in a couple of minutes or probably just in tens of seconds. If you do not bring the camera with you – you miss the golden moment. So remember to bring the camera with you all the time if you don’t want to miss the moment.

There are various tricks discussed in lighting photography techniques to handle different lighting situations. Ideas in mastering and tricking the wild lights and utilizing the ambient light for the best usage to achieve good results will be discussed with simple examples.

As photographer; you need to understand light characteristic and must be capable of adjusting the camera setting according to the ambient light. There are four elements of the light that you need to understand; quality of the light; color; intensity and light direction.

Light Characteristic

Nobody denies that light is the main element that takes important role in producing good photographs. Without the light, the camera sensor cannot receive the light to create image of objects. As photographer; you need to understand light characteristic and capable of adjusting the camera setting according to the available light.

The four elements of light characteristic, as a photographer you should be able to control these four elements during the shooting or during editing the images in the computer using image editing software.

During the shooting, probably you need to adjust the camera setting appropriately including ISO setting; selection of white balance; picture style; metering; aperture; shooting angel; shooting position and so on. And the last is processing the image in the computer to correct the light only if you need; don’t make “correcting the light” in the computer is your habit. As a photographer you need to make sure that the result from the camera is the best effort in producing the photographs.

Even though the intensity of the light is very small in a dark room; the camera can be adjusted to capture the image with this small light. As photographer; you need to have a good knowledge in tricking the light to produce a good photography works.

Quality of the light

Strong shadow in the sunny day

Another element of the light characteristic you need to understand is the quality of light. A simple way to know the quality of the light is by measuring the shadow it creates. When the sky is very clear the sun shines very strong; it creates a sharp shadow from its strong light. Similar to the flash light; it creates a sharp shadow that must be controlled the way you use it. The camera will work hard in compromising to accentuate both detail areas of the shadow and the strong light.

The above photo was an example of the strong sun light in a sunny day at the beach that evokes a sharp shadow. Sorry it is my own leg; I spent almost two hours on the beach that burned my skin. I should’ve used a sun cream that I left on the car; my eagerness in taking beautiful landscape made me forget using the sun cream.

In the morning; afternoon and cloudy day; the shadow is soft because the contrast between the light and the shadow is slight. This condition is ideal in close-up or portrait photos.

You can increase the quality of the light in a small scale by using something like diffuser; reflector; fill-flash or similar devices. However, for landscape lighting; nothing you can do but wait the presence of sufficient light to capture the panorama.

Color temperature is discussed more detail in the coloring techniques articles. Warm color something like sunrise and sunset situations evokes a soft harmonious color; sometimes can be used to present a romantic atmosphere.

Backlight from the sunrise

On the above photo, backlight from the sunrise evokes a silhouette effect to the object at the foreground. The sunset provides warmth color; a uniform harmonious red and yellow color that evoked a romantic atmosphere. The predominant feature of the sunset color occupied a large area in the frame. The object at the foreground was composed in one of the points of power according to rules of third; facing to the sunrise. The viewer eyes will naturally do the same thing; pointing to the object at the foreground and then facing to the sunrise before exploring the whole frame.

Cold color such as at daytime evokes a cold atmosphere that can produce colorful photographs.

Luckily the color temperature can be adjusted in the camera by selecting the appropriate white balance and picture style. Besides; color temperature is easy to correct in the computer by using image editing tool such as Adobe Photoshop. Color can also be influenced by using filters; such as blue filter to make a cold color; a yellow filter can be used to make a warmth effect of the photos.

As general color temperature can provide a taste in the photographs.

Light intensity

High speed freeze the propellers of the Chopper

Unlike color light temperature that can evoke a taste to the photograph; light intensity takes very important role in producing good photographs in regards to exposure. The more the amount of light intensity; the smaller the aperture is; whilst the camera still can give a fast shutter speed. A fast shutter speed can freeze the fast moving objects. Sport photography needs to capture the speed of sport action; thus the amounts of light and fast lens with wide aperture are essential elements.

With much amount of light; even though it was cloudy; my camera still could provide the shutter speed up to 1/500 with aperture f/6.3 and ISO speed 100 to freeze the propellers of the Chopper above me. I had to persuade the safety officer to allow me to get closer to capture this moment. But I had to promise giving him couple of shots for him with Chopper as the background.

With much amounts of light; you can set the smaller ISO speed that will provide a much better detail quality of the photographs. However; the likelihood of having the overexposure result is also open. Therefore; it is better to review the results using the histogram display at the camera to see the distribution of the tone.

Light direction

In lighting photography techniques, at least there are three light direction that can be used to illuminate the objects; backlighting; side lighting and front lighting. Each direction provides different taste if applied to the object.

Backlighting can evoke a silhouette effect to the object and it can also evoke something like ‘halo’ effect and dramatic mood. Have a look at the above photo that was shot in the morning around 7 am when the sun light illuminates the leaf.

You need to pay attention not to allow the light coming direct into the lens; it will produce a flare that will reduce the contrast. Lens hood sometimes help to reduce the light coming into the lens; but not always.

Side lighting in Photography Lighting Techniques is commonly used in landscape photo to provide detail of the landscape texture. Front lighting is commonly used in close-up photography; whether natural light or artificial light in photo studio.