Light project

I am working on shooting light in it's many forms. Sunlight, lamplight, etc. I have a few images, all are unedited at this time. Critique and suggestions are certainly welcomed!

A few more...

Shooting light

I think that's the full definition of photography...shooting light..we look for it and without it, we have no photography at all.

Angela, I like the concept. A few of these are really terrific. Maybe need some minor adjusting but not sure of your concept. What is the final purpose for your project?

Kathy, thank you for your comment. The purpose of the project is learning to shoot and use light, practice with shutter speeds, mostly learning in general. I hope to see a progression of improvement in my use of light overall. Any suggestions you have for adjustment are welcomed.

Angela Gregory said:

I am working on shooting light in its many forms. Sunlight, lamplight, etc. I have a few images, all are unedited at this time. Critique and suggestions are certainly welcomed!

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Hi Angela,

What abundance! You have chosen or been given a great exercise. I will start by addressing just this lighthouse photograph. The structure at the top of the lighthouse is interesting, shown well and a great subject for this work. But what of the sky, the rocks and the rest of the image? Where are they? We could blame the lack of light, but that is not going to work. It does however suggest solutions.

Here we see a subject that's common and makes great postcards. Your picture here is flat. There is just one point of light and nothing else interesting. But how do we go beyond that? There is a much greater difficulty in photographing what has been done already so well and many times over. Still the lighthouse is so important a metaphor for us that it draws back, again and again. One needs to list all of the elements in your picture and decide how best to represent them. We cannot be dependent on only the happenstance of lighting for one moment in such a difficult project. One time the moon will light the plants and bushes well with even a shadow cast from the lighthouse despite its light. At some time, when the sun goes down, the rocks might be golden. So where are they? I suggest, you must know your world, (in which you want to create a fine picture with different qualities of light), as well as God knows his!

So what might your picture, show? You have, as with all photographs many choices, most of which are not exclusionary.

• Shall it be beautiful and make one breathless
  
• Should it exploit the geometry of the skies, land, buildings, rocks and waters, the light above all, our focus point?
  
• Should it inspire us to think of our purpose in life?
  
• Should it be merely nice, pleasant and decorative so as to complement a room, not distract from anything.
  
• Should it bring us to some spiritual plain and closer to truth and God?

The light is what it is when you release the shutter. You have no ability to control how much light there is on a cloud or reflecting from the water. So what to do? If this was for an advertising campaign you could at least deal with the land, vegetation, rocks and lighthouse by simply schlepping along sufficient lights. For me, I'd cheat. Scout the place. Mark your spot. Determine the exact height of your tripod. Even put a secret marker in the ground. Now I'd return time and again and photograph the lighthouse at different times of the day. You will then have the walls perfectly formed with no noise. You will have the waters exposed to perfection and night shots of the light at the top of the tower and the night sky.

Now I'd put all these in layers in Photoshop and decide what parts you need to build your picture. By selectively using contributions from these pictures, you can build your ideal picture.

Now your picture here is interesting. However, there is no light defining anything else. If you painted it, you would, perhaps be adding in detail that you know is there but your camera cannot see.

You could also do this by a bracketed exposure but that is not as much under your control. I'd use bracketed pictures as layers, but have no compunction against taking some parts from exposures at sunset as well as nighttime.

So I’d start by just doing the lighthouse, if it's near you and ONLY that for this study. Otherwise you are, IMHO, grabbing too much to be able to do well. Monet did his Haystacks starting in autumn 1890 and repeated at intervals until spring 1891.





Monet Haystacks 1890-91 Composite Image from Wikipedia, here.

This period in French art is a renaissance of such importance, which not knowing each and everyone of these pictures by Monet for your project is a tragic self-deprivation. The genius achieved there in Giverny, France 118 years ago can help us here, right now. So unless you know these pictures, by heart, take a break and follow the link so you can refresh your memory and study them. Sounds preachy? Well, it's not meant to be!

So, finally, is the lighthouse near you so you can do this work? If not go back for two days!

I hope my direction is not considered to authoritarian. However it is what it is; just my point of view. One great subject and you'll enjoy a lot of progress. If this doesn't work for you, then let us know. You can continue with a wide spectrum of subjects under different conditions, but we'll have to think about how to handle that. Maybe we should just have one type of subject with varying light and then go to the next subject, that's your call.

Asher

Asher, the lighthouse is about 3 hours away, and is in a state park that is not accessible beyond dusk. Much to my sorrow. I will have to see what potential there is to shoot it from outside the park. My interest in shooting light began with attempting to shoot the light refraction through my mother's beveled glass front door. That didn't turn out at ALL as I had hoped, but I decided to find and shoot what light I can.

Hi Angela

Likely late afternoon light will be perfect!

Asher

I hope that the time of day will make a difference. I waited patiently and attempted to time the sweep of the light just so that I would get at least one shot with the light of the house. I would love to be able to shoot this from the water. I think there is a tour boat that takes you to several lighthouses, this is also an option.

The second photo in the second post was part of my discussion with Ben Lifson yesterday afternoon. He suggested that I adjust my contrast and attempt some color correction since the original was shot through a truck window. I have made changes, I hope this is the direction I was meant to go.

Hello Angela,
Since light is, by definition, the medium of photography ("photography" = "writing with light") I'm not confident that you really have a handle on a genuine project yet.

But that's not really important at this juncture. What is important is that you're exploring subjects' interaction with light under various conditions. I think you'll learn from this effort.

If I may offer two constructive suggestions.

1. Learn to manually meter your scenes. In-camera meters are handy but they're not the last word, particularly when you're working on scenes that have a wide range of brightness.

2. In my opinion you're trying to grab too much of your scenes and, consequently, you're not producing interesting images that convey anything deeper than cliché tourist scenes. Photographic composition is all about subtraction to distill the essence of meaning and emotion. May I suggest omitting the light sources; adding the sun or its glare to your images is a real downer. Concentrate on creating compelling compositions that exhibit the light qualities that most attract you to the scenes. Rule of thumb: if something's not contributing to your image it's detracting from it.

Best wishes for your project.

Ken Tanaka said:

In my opinion you're trying to grab too much of your scenes

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Ken,

What's "grab too much" referring to? Do you mean the framing is too wide or that the subject is not clear, or that these are grab shots and not thought out for composition? I expect you're not referring to dynamic range.

Angela,

In the lighthouse picture, for example, (which is the only one I have fully paid attention to*), it's too wide or not wide enough. We do not have a strong composition and yes, the scene is also not exposed adequately. We hardly know what's there. Is there a wall, rocks, both? Where's the water? A quick sketch is a great idea, Angela, and then you can rough out where things will be. Then meter each of the areas in your picture and annotate the sketch with the f stop required at the ISO and speed you are using to get good exposure for each compositional component that's important to the picture. Looking at the array of f stops you can then work out how to take your picture. Will you bracket, take pictures earlier and later in the day, add flash, use a graduated neutral density filter or some other method. It's unlikely that one can simply point ones camera at the lighthouse and get a composition and exposure covering each part in less than 15 minutes. I'd allow much longer and repeat visits.

You have another thread in which there's a picture of the little girl. This picture is a good basis for working on composition if the garden is near you. Maybe it's even your home! Read my notes there on the composition.

Asher

*Frankly, the other pictures I have not even arrived at studying as I consider the first picture must be the most important and the ones that follow are anyway so different that I had to leave them out for now. However, now that more work has been done on one of them, I'll return to these too.

By "grab too much" I mean that Angela's trying to record too much of a scene, rather like trying to vacuum-up the experience. Learning to spot essence and make subtractive decisions is a critical skill rather unique to photography.

Ken Tanaka said:

By "grab too much" I mean that Angela's trying to record too much of a scene, rather like trying to vacuum-up the experience. Learning to spot essence and make subtractive decisions is a critical skill rather unique to photography.

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Succinctly put! Doing a sketch would help in deciding what to include and exclude. We are both urging slowing down and first making the decisions about what the picture is about.

Asher

Hi Angela, let me wish you the best in your project. Asher, and Ken have imparted more knowledge
than I possess in photography. However, teh following does help me in my efforts.

1. what do i want to show in my pictures and more importantly why?
2. how do I want to show it. I pre-envisage the what and how i would want it to look. this is not the technical part but in your mind. e.g. the lighthouse, some immediate thoughts..why is it there, what
attracts me to it..is it the light from the lighthouse, but how can i show its light in sunlight, is it there
to warn sailors? how does it do it? can they see the light in the day? no, well when? in the dark? how
do the sailors perceive the light in the dark? a point source,diffused or what? maybe helps in the fog?
what? the beam of light? does it also light up the surroundings? how much? where?
3. camera is not needed for this, just your observation as Asher mentioned with Monet and the Haystacks.
4. Concentrate on what is important to you, as one of the forum members Alain Briot mentions in his
book , 'mastering landscape photography', use an aid to envisage the angle of view captured...I do this
with my hands and fingers.

5. practice with your camera continuously and show only your best efforts. I must have taken hundreds of camera clicks of my bedside table. see how variations of your camera settings affect your light capture.

Most important, enjoy yourself, there is no deadline to meet or client to satisfy. not right away I hope for a lighthouse picture!

Best of luck.