Digital Photography Tips – Seeing The Light

One of the main digital photography tips that elude most photographers is the direction of light.

Where is the light coming from and how will it affect my subject?

This is a question that most photographers never even consider. Light always has a direction. Sometimes you have to study the image very closely, but there will always be a direction to the light.

Consider the photo above.

I took this a few years back for a story on this young lady who ran a youth program in the inner city. There were great bold colors in her office space and it was near the Day of the Dead celebration.

Look closely and identify where the light is coming from.  Do you see it?

The light is coming from the right side of the photo (actually from a large window just out of view). It is lighting the left side of our subject’s face (we call this camera right).

I have placed her head in the upper right convergence areas of the right vertical line and the upper horizontal line and the head of the skeleton is in the upper left area of convergence. The viewer’s eyes are lead to the two heads.

The quality of the light is soft and diffused. This type of lighting is called open shade or ambient. Light that isn’t directly hitting the subject can be referred to this way. Ambient lighting is very complimentary for photographing people, but remember it has a direction to it.

So, we have ambient light that is lighting our subject from the side. We have a subject that is resting in one of our main areas of convergence and we have a nice moment for our subject.

Practice identifying the direction of light as much as possible.

It will help you as you progress as a photographer, so your photographs will begin to be crafted with a purpose, not just random snapshots.

I will be posting more digital photography tips about seeing light soon. Enjoy!