Light
I have written a lot recently about the quality of light and a friend recently asked me why I talk about the quality of light in the morning and evening and dislike the light in the middle of the day.
There are a number of reasons why photographers talk about the ‘golden hours’ of sunrise and sunset. First of all the colour of the light is warmer and therefore more welcoming. In the same way as sunrise and sunset often take on warm tints of orange, red or purple so do the subjects in photographs taken at these times.
A camera simply captures the light reflected off the objects around us so it is natural that any colour variations are reflected and captured by the camera also.
One of the reasons I like shooting at sunrise or sunset is that the rays of light from the sun are horizontal rather than vertical, thereby revealing lots of texture in the landscapes around us. Consider for instance the surface of an undulating river or sea, the furrows of a ploughed field or a row of trees. At mid day, with the sun directly above, the shadows that reveal texture are subdued or indeed removed completely giving a sense of the photo being washed out. At sun rise however, the shadows are at their maximum and reveal the individual undulations or depth variations, providing a more detailed view that holds the eye longer with the elements standing out in a 3D effect.
Looking away from the sun, at dawn and dusk the sky is often darker than it would be in the middle of the day and therefore presents less of a challenge in controlling the contrast between a light sky and a (relatively) dark landscape. As digital cameras can only record a limited dynamic range (the difference between the lightest and darkest part of a picture) we are less likely to need to revert to other solutions which ‘adjust’ this dynamic range prior to the light entering the lens.
A low sun also offers other opportunities to exploit its light in a photograph. Consider for instance my photograph of the poppy field and white flowers in the “Poppies” blog entry. I intentionally shot this photograph towards the sun in order to backlight the flowers and hence have the sun shining through rather than onto the subject. Perhaps more importantly however, I wanted to produce a ‘rim’ light effect on the stems and seed heads making them glow. I hope you will agree that this is far more interesting lighting than simple flat light appearing from overhead.
Finally of course there is one big advantage of shooting at these times, there are generally less people around to get in the way, spoil your composition or pester you with questions and comments about your photography, the view, the weather etc.
There is the big problem however of having to get out of bed at 4am just to bag the shot you’ve been planning but hopefully the results are worth it!
