Properly Learn Light — How to Become a Better Photographer
Way too many books and articles about photography start with the “definition” (actually the etymology) of the word photography, that comes from two greek words that mean painting or drawing with light. I wanted to do something different in this article but I didn’t manage to find a better way.
Nevertheless, I completely hate this idea, so I’m not going to. What I am going to do is talk about light, because yes, it’s a very important part of photography, it’s a very important part of our growth in this wonderful world.
This article will not be a tutorial, rather it will be a guideline on what to learn. Jumping ahead too much is not going to be OK for you, so try to learn as much as you can, understand as much as you can (and maybe ask in the comments?).
Physical Light
From a physics point of view, light is both a particle and a wave. This means that it can bounce off walls and other objects, it can diffract and diffuse. But it also means that it has a property we call color and therefore can be mixed to obtain different other colors, effects and combinations; that it looses it’s “powers” when the distance from source increases. It travels at a ridiculous speed, actually the highest speed possible in our universe.
Understanding light from a physics point of view is important, as you will encounter lens faults like diffraction, chromatic aberrations and so on that are a direct consequence of physics and greatly impact your photography. These faults can often be overcome or bypassed, but only if you understand light properly.
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Types of light
At first, it might surprise you to hear that there are many types of light. Actually this is common sense. If you think about it, a sunny day has a very different light than an overcast one, right? This is where these two large types come into play.
Hard Light
Imagine a very sunny day, with no clouds, in your youth. You raise your hands and the shadow on the ground is crisp. You can count all of your fingers, even make a duck shape, or a wolf, maybe a rabbit. This is because there is a clear distinction between the lit part and the shadow part. We call this hard light, because it “drops” very visibly from light to shadow. There is little or no transition between these parts.
Hard light can be a pain and a blessing. It tends to drop hard shadows and increase contrast, generating ugly images if you do not pay attention to these details. But it also can reveal shape and increase color intensity (or saturation). Hard light is more flexible, but it won’t forgive you for any mistakes that you make.
Soft Light
After a couple of hours, in the same sunny day, some thick clouds cover the sky. Now, if you try to make rabbits, you see that it’s impossible. This is because now the whole sky is a light source, and it comes from all over the place, flooding shadows. The former clear distinction from light to shadow is not so clear anymore. Transitions from light to shadow are large and maybe, in some cases, the shadow is not even visible anymore.
Soft light can also be a pain and a blessing. It tends to eliminate shadows, so the images turn out flat and boring. Also, it decreases saturation in colors (now you know I’m talking about intensity of the color), so they are more muted, almost pastels. Soft light also has a sweet spot distance from the source, and if you miss that sweet spot your images will not be OK. This means that it’s less flexible, from this point of view.
The biggest asset of soft light is that it’s forgiving. As long as your subject is in the sweet spot distance, a slight pose change does not affect the light so dramatically as the hard light does. And, from my experience, your first great shots will be with soft light, but you will get bored of it rather quickly.
In-between
Most light you will encounter will be a mix between these two. Daylight in a sunny day is a mix between the hard light of the sun and the soft light from the sky itself (yes, the blue sky itself is a light source). Try to master both and learn to mix them for great shots. Vary as much as you can, so that you will learn to feel the great mixes of light qualities.
Types of reflections
You may think that light bouncing off of things is just that, but in reality there are two types of bounces and the mix between the two describe the characteristics of materials. These two are diffuse and direct reflection.
Direct reflection
Direct reflection is a trait of glossy objects, like plastics, metal, glass, water and so on. These types of reflections are harder to master, as they reflect almost all of the light that hits the surface, giving you a hard time when selecting exposure settings. This kind of reflection goes well with soft light (that usually comes from very large light sources) and creates the so-called specular highlights. A very good article on this matter can be found on the Strobist website.
In the summer, leaves create a layer of wax on them, so that they become highly reflective, messing up the colors. This behavior can be altered by using a polarizing filter. This filter can also be used for other effect, like darkening the sky, and it may be the most useful filter in the digital era of photography.
Can you explain why the colors of the forest are less saturated and even off, if you don’t use a polarizing filter?
Diffuse reflection
Diffuse reflection is usually generated by non-glossy materials (think velvet) and it’s responsible for the color of the objects. The more light hits that material, the more intense and visible that color is. Unlike glossy materials that reflect light in a more uniform way, non-glossy ones scatter the light in all directions.
In-between
Usually, all materials have both of these types of light reflections. An apple, for example, can have a wax coating that makes it glossy, but you can still see that it’s red or green. So, materials will have a mix of these two and how you manage to work with the two will greatly improve your photography.
Light as a tool
Remember the painting with light that we spoke about in the beginning? Now that you have a better understanding of what is light and how it behaves, you can start working it. There are at least two aspects of working with light, that I will briefly discuss about, with more things for you to discover while working and learning.
Shaping with light
The type, intensity, color and direction of the light that you use can have dramatic impact on the subject that you are photographing. Figures can be slimmed, bodies can be “put into a good light”, an image can have a flat or three-dimensional appearance, and many more. You can look at light as your chisel and hammer that help you draw attention to where you want it to be.
A splash of light can provide background separation, drawing the eye to the subject while the background can provide context. How you use available light along with flashes and light modifiers can influence even the lens choice that you make for a specific context.
Painting with light
Light can not only be a helper or a chisel, but also it can be the paint that you put on a canvas, or the subject in an image. Long exposure photography can open a world of possibilities, while in a studio you can use multiple lights, maybe with colored filters, to create interesting backgrounds or other effects.
Light will help you raise certain image areas from shadows in order to balance the image, it can be used to separate the subject from the background (see hair-light of rim-light). Don’t be afraid to experiment with this type of light use. The results might just surprise you.
Final words
Light is and should be the first love of any photographer. It should be a revelation. And you should know everything there is to know about it. What if your camera has automatic exposure control? Intimate knowledge about stops and other light-related things (like the Sunny 16 rule) can give you the edge in difficult situations.
I encourage you to read, study and learn as much as you can. You never know when an obscure and old piece of information might come in handy. The camera, its accessories, and the technical knowledge are just tools to help you express your visions. Like a pen full of ink, or like a brush full of paint, they do no create the image, but your creativity and imagination does it. But, your pen should be a quality one and you must know how to master the brush and paints that you use. So does light have to be mastered.
It takes time, lots of time, trial and error and probably a lot of frustration. But it’s totally worth it. So, learn and enjoy your path in photography! And don’t forget to ask in the comments for help.
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