Photographing in hard light

Here's a photograph I took for The Sunday Times some while ago. They commissioned me to photograph a whole list of British seaside locations, and this was taken on the beach at Aberdaron in North Wales on a hot summer's day.

The light was very hard and contrasty - what I would normally consider to be poor quality light, especially when shooting in black and white - but as a professional photographer working to tight schedules, I simply had to make the most of what I was given.

I started to look for shapes and shadows, and noticed the shadow of this chap cast on the windbreak. His shape has been distorted due to the angle of the sun, and this has added a touch of whimsical humour to the situation.

It is always good practise to look for unusual angles and the way light and shadow falls on different objects.

Of course, with this shot in the bag, I photographed the man from the other side as well - with the light behind me. But this produced a very ordinary shot.

The other advantage in photographing a subject's shadow is that those of you who are a bit nervous about taking pictures of complete strangers can do so without drawing attention to yourselves. In fact you may not be noticed at all.

Tomorrow I'll show you another, very different type of photograph taken in this same location on the same day.

Photographing older people - part 1

It’s an old saying that a person has the face he deserves by the age of forty. Maybe these days sixty would be more appropriate. Certainly as far as photography is concerned, the older a person gets the more of their life story will be etched into their features – and this means that older people make natural and fascinating subjects for portraiture. The sensitive photographer should be able to capture the essence of a person’s personality and of course this will be that much easier if you have a good, expressive face to photograph.

Remember, an understanding of light is your most important tool and most vital asset; its direction, quality and colour. The direction of light that can most often enhance texture, shape and form is sidelight. So it stands to reason that if you are photographing an elderly person and you want to emphasise the lines and wrinkles of that person’s skin – its texture – then side light can come in very useful. However, like everyone else, some older people can be extraordinarily vain, and will not take too kindly to photographs that make them look decrepit. So a degree of diplomacy may be needed if a photography session is to go smoothly. If you want to take a more flattering picture, try using backlight and reflect it back into the subjects features with a white reflector. We touched on this simple technique when I wrote about the Quality of Light.

I love photographing children because of their natural innocence and charm – they can be very funny. Well so can older people, and often the spark of youthful mischief and memories can still be seen in the older subject’s eyes and facial expressions.

Older people tend to be less self-conscious and easier to work with than younger adults. Older people often take it as a great compliment that a photographer should want to spend time photographing them, and will usually be more than willing to give their time as a result. You will almost certainly be able to work closely with an older person in order to achieve the picture you have in mind. So explain exactly what you want to achieve at the start of the session

Top photograph

How could any photographer resist a face like this. The light is from one big window to the right of the camera. It was very important that the shepherd’s hands and his crook should be included in the composition – they told his life story

Bottom photograph

Share your enjoyment when you are photographing older people. They are naturally interesting in the photographs you have taken. This is Graham, one of the student photoghraphers who joined one of my photography holidays in Menorca. He's showing the old guys outside a Bar the pictures he has just taken of them – it breaks the ice and can lead to many more wonderful photographs and opportunities – it makes it all fun!

Next in Part 2 - 5 good reasons for photographing older people

The quality of light - Part 4

As a final demonstration of the effects of being able to manipulate the light in order to improve its quality, just take a look at my photograph of the Indian tin whistle player. Now I’d say that light was pretty high quality stuff.

But when I first spotted this chap sat on an old oil drum and playing his tin whistle in front of a temple, the light was so awful that I did not even bother to take a photograph at all. He was sat in direct sunlight. The sun was high in an empty blue sky and the shadows across the man’s face were hard and black. Even worse, he was sat in front of the white marble wall of a temple. The background was far too bright.

So, I had hard, low-quality toppy-front light, a glaring white background, but a wonderful subject. What did I do?

The first thing I did was to drop a couple of rupees into his tin – come on, he’s a street performer, so pay the man! I then gently turned him right round on his seat so that he was facing the wall. He was now maybe around 15 feet away from that wall. Now I positioned myself with my back to the wall and used it as a reflector.

Notice that the direct sun, which is now behind the subject, has lit up his silver hair with attractive rim lighting while the reflective wall has pushed all that soft light back onto his face. The added bonus effect is that the background is now darker and further away. So it has fallen out of focus and is far more attractive and less distracting.

So, you see, often you don’t even need to carry a reflector with you – they are there all around you if you look.

If you’d like to know more about light – its direction, quality and colour, - and how to use reflectors effectively, my DVD Light and Composition covers the subject and shows you how you can improve your pictures once you really understand what’s going on. It is available on my website www.photoactive.co.uk and costs just £9.99 plus postage.

The quality of light - Part 3

Top Photograph: Shooting straight into a light source like this window can create very hard, empty shadows. But here a large white reflector has been place below the camera to the right of the picture. You can see its effect on the brickwork underneath the dusty shelf – there is lovely soft light there bringing out the detail in the wall and brick

You can often create good quality light, even in hard sunlight, by using reflectors to re-direct light into deep shadows. Reflectors are all around you in many everyday situations: white walls, snow, sand, water – your own white shirt. Even the wretched white van, the ruination of so many good photographs, can be used as a reflector if it is behind, or at the side, of the photographer and not in the picture. Expensive, purpose-made reflectors are wonderful, but not essential. I always have at least an A4 sheet of paper in my back pocket for those impromptu portrait shots. Just an ordinary sheet of paper, it weighs nothing, costs nothing and can reflect light back into the shadows under eyes and chin – creating beautiful, high quality light. This piece of paper was used fo the photograph of the sea shells below.

In the demonstration portrait session, Picture 1 shows the set-up using the hard frontlight with the wall behind the subject and the sun behind the camera. The result (2) is unpleasant with hard, empty black shadows in the lady’s eyes and under her nose.

By turning my subject right around, putting the wall behind me and shooting into the light (3) the effects on the model’s portrait is fantastic. Now her face is lit by soft, high quality, reflected light from the wall. Just look how it has lit up her eyes and softened her features (4)

Yes, there are downsides – be wary of flare in the lens when photographing into the light, and don’t use light green or brightly-coloured walls as reflectors – they will give a nasty colour cast. This wall was slightly off-white and has added a natural ‘warm’ effect.

The quality of light - Part 2

I must stress that when talking about the quality of light I’m using my own definitions – this is not text book stuff. It’s just the way I look at things, and that seems to have served me quite well enough over many years.

I said last time that I think of poor quality light as having two extremes:

1 Very hard, contrasty light that produces hard, empty black shadows. The sort of light you get from a bright sun in an empty blue sky. This can be horrible for portraits and some landscapes.

2 Flat, non-directional light that creates dull, drab images. The sort of light you might get on a day with thick, total cloud cover. Sometimes you can get away with this for portraits, but most landscape photographs just look dreary.

Between these two extremes lies a whole range of beautiful high quality, directional light that will enhance almost any subject. So what makes the difference?

TIP Remember - the smaller the light source, the harder and poorer the quality of the light it gives. In general, the larger the light source in relation to the subject, the better the quality of light.

If the sun is veiled with just a thin haze of wispy cloud, it will diffuse the light and soften the shadows by creating, in effect, a very large light source. The light can still be directional, but the outline of the shadows will be less defined – softer, more diffused. There will be some detail in those shadows and I’d call that high quality light… directional yet slightly diffused.

The sort of conditions that produce high quality light are frequently created in the late afternoon when the sun is low in the sky and shining though a hazy atmosphere that has built up during the day. It is a good idea to have a particular subject in mind for the times when these conditions occur because they are very special and will not last very long. If you do have a subject in mind, you will be able to go straight to it, be in position and use every minute of the high quality directional light.

TIP When the sun is glaring down from an empty ble sky, try looking for pictures in the shade where the light can be soft, yet still directional.

Top photograph: Can you make an appealing photograph out of an ugly concrete sea wall structure? Yes, if the quality of the light is good enough. Here the sun is over to the right and I am shooting slightly into it, but look how much detail is in the shadows. That’s because that hazy sky has diffused the sunlight and created high quality, directional light

Look for shade
When the sun is glaring down from a clear sky the light will be very poor, hard quality top light. Time to hunt pictures in the shade. Here I have found a great subject and the quality of the indirect, reflected light is excellent. Look on the floor at either side of the man and you can see just how hard and poor that direct sunlight is outside – that hard light is also cutting across his right shoulder and the right side of the box he is sitting on. But he is in shade and there was a white wall behind me reflecting light back onto him. This has created excellent soft light that shows all the folds in the blanket covering his knees – and the creases in his face

Next, in part 3, I’ll show you how you can change and improve the quality of light.

The quality of light - Part 1

When we talk about the ‘quality of light’, what exactly do we mean? Can you recognise good and bad quality light? Can you do anything to improve it? Well, it’s yes, to both questions. You can recognise it and you can often improve it.

When asked to define the quality of light, there are some photographers who go all precious and twitter that it’s the sort of thing that only ‘artistic’ people (like themselves presumably) can recognise. Well, as I’m only a simple soul I’ll try to be a bit more objective.

I think of the quality of light in terms of its softness or harshness. Its diffuseness or clarity. High quality light brings a luminescence to the shadows and reduces – but does not lose - contrasts between shadows and highlights. Once you know what to look for, you will be able to recognise high quality light when it’s there. The real bonus is that when you realise what’s going on, you may well be able to alter and enhance the quality of your light by using some very simple tricks.

If you photograph someone out in the open on a sunny, cloudless day you’re going to get hard, sharply-outlined, empty black shadows. I’d call that poor quality light. The sun may be almost a million miles wide up there, but to a photographer it’s just a dot in the sky – a very small light source - and the smaller the light source, the harder and poorer the quality of the light it gives. Poor quality light has another extreme; if you take that same picture outdoors on a gloomy day with thick cloud cover, you are going to a get flat, uninteresting image with no contrast and no indication of the direction of the light source – poor quality light.

Different parts of the world can to produce their own particular light qualities. Mostly this is due to local atmospheric conditions. It is one reason why travel pictures from different regions can vary so much. Quite apart from the subject matter, there is no mistaking the dusty, smoky light of an Egyptian slum (top photograph) with the sparkling clarity of the light in the Galloway countryside with its pastel blue skies (lower photograph).

This is an important factor to bear in mind when trying to capture the ‘feel’ of a particular place or subject. The sharp angles of a modern building might suit the striking qualities of bright, hard sunlight, but a portrait of a child or an attractive woman will almost certainly be better photographed in much softer, higher quality, light.

Next, in part 2, we’ll look at the light between these two extremes – high quality light.

In part 3, I’ll show you how you can sometimes change the quality of light.