Use Creative Lighting

Work with natural and artificial light to produce unique blends

Work with natural and artificial light to produce unique blends or landscape photography, the beginning and end of the day offer the best quality of light. The so-called golden hours, when the sun is low in the sky, provide a softness and richness of tone not seen during the rest of the day, so for many scenes sunrise and sunset are the times of choice. While this light is directional and so enhances texture and detail, the greater diffusion by the atmosphere reduces contrast for softer shadows and highlights.

Retaining digital information in these tonal extremes is often seen as a cardinal rule, forcing photographers to employ hardware filters or exposure blending software techniques. When seeking creative ideas, however, ignoring established concepts can give us images with unusual lighting styles. Shooting under high-contrast lighting allows us to play with exposure choice to emphasise graphic properties, and enables us to make more of tonal extremes to create depth. It’s for this purpose that infrared photography is useful, as IR images often look their best under harsher lighting. Whether you choose to shoot with an IR filter attached to your lens, or commit to the genre by having a DSLR converted for it, IR adds a unique styling. If you’re unable to visit at one of the golden hours, using IR will play to the strengths of midday lighting, drawing the viewer’s attention to detail and texture.