By Derrida Flynn

Anybody can shoot great, professional looking photo’s with a good understanding of lighting. It does not take special talent nor a fancy high-end camera to take striking and unforgettable images.

Majority of striking photos depend on manipulating the lighting on your subjects. Because photos are a two dimensional medium, people tend to notice pictures that have a three dimensional feel to them. This means you use the right contrast between dark and light, and create a shading on your subject to make them stand out.

Tips for Outdoor Lighting

1) Instead of shooting photos where the sun is hitting everything at full blast (this is usually during anytime from 10am - 3pm on a clear day), try to shoot during the day where the sun (or light source) is at an angle that would offer a more dynamic lighting environment. If you shoot during noon on a clear day, you will get what is called “flat” lighting where everything looks ugly and dull.

2) To make your subjects look most flattering, stand them in an area where sunlight is shaded, diffused, or filtered through by a window or any thing similar. This will help avoid harsh, over-exposed lighting which results in the picture being too bright and “blown-out”, a look that often dominants in amateur photographs.

3) Easiest days to shoot photos are on cloudy or even foggy days where the light is filtered through and soft, creating a nice even light without being too harsh.

4) Aim for “Golden Hour” sunlight. This occurs right at dawn or sunset hour. The sunlight during this time is soft, angled to provide 3 dimensional lighting, and has a special golden color that makes photos look great.

Tips for Indoor/Artificial Lighting

Professional photographers rarely place their light source directly facing the front of their subjects. They usually use what is called a 3 point lighting set-up. Two lights are shining at the subject from the side (one “main” light shining at 2/3 from the side of the subject’s face, the second “fill” light is a softer light that fills in any harsh shadow on the last 1/3 of the subject’s face). One light from the back to give the subject backlighting to separate them from the background.

You manipulate lighting set up mostly either:

1) Increase the distance from the light source and your subject to make the light softer (decrease distance if you want your light to be brighter)

2) Placing opaque filter (a sheet of wax paper or something similar) in front of the light source. This softens and diffuses any harsh light.

Most lighting techniques can be learned simply through observation. Take your time and move lights around or move your subject around until you get the effect you want.

Anybody can take great photographs if they spend some time before working out the lighting. It is often times the main element that differentiates an interesting photograph and an amateur picture.

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By Wayne G Turner

We live in a world of colour and we assume that shooting colour is easy. But, there are a few things that need to be considered when taking a great colour image. You need to be aware of your surroundings and the colours contained in them. Not all colours work together so be careful.

When shooting for colour it is vital that you consider a few points so that your resulting images make it into the outstanding photo category. Putting into practice what we’ve chatted about earlier is great, but there are still a few things you need to consider.

1. Avoid confusion in colour

When looking at a scene that is colourful and has the potential to make a great image, make sure you take some time to think about it before clicking the shutter. As I’ve mentioned, colour has tremendous power to draw the eye into an image, so be aware of all the colours and how they will interact in your final image. Too many strong colours cause your image to become muddled, and the viewer’s eye will be confused, not knowing which colour to be drawn to. Two colours should never compete for the eye’s attention. In simple terms, there should be no conflict. It may be necessary to zoom in tightly to exclude unwanted colours from the image.

2. Learn to create a mood with your colour

Different colours have different meanings to us. A camera can only capture the scene it’s pointed at, it cannot capture the emotion and feelings of the scene. If the event or scene is a happy one, look for bright cheerful primary colours that are well saturated, i.e. heavy or full of colour. The memories attached to an image like this will be happy ones. If the scene was a tranquil and relaxing one, then blues and greens will evoke a sense of peace and serenity. A warm autumn day will have lots of browns, yellows and oranges. Dark greys, blacks and muted colours will have a sombre mood. Always be aware of what your camera is seeing so that the final image will be true to the original scene.

3. Look for a dominant colour

When evaluating a scene for a photograph, look for a colour that is dominant. Vast expanses of colour in a scene will reflect that colour onto the rest of the scene. So if that colour is not captured as the main colour, it’s reflection is going muddle the rest of the colours. For example, the Dalmation with the fire engine. With all of the reflected red you may find the white of the Dalmation may be tinged with pink due to the reflected red. Often it will be necessary to change your viewpoint or angle so that the memory of the original scene is captured true to how you remember it.

4. Keep it simple

A beautiful scene full of rich and bright colours stimulates your creativity and you tend to want to capture everything. We go back to the principle “keep it simple”. This will continually raise its head throughout your learning experience. Less is more as the old adage goes. Rather take a series of photos of the scene with a focus on single colours than one with everything in it. The human brain is amazing, and, what it views is often a series of images as it takes in the beauty of a situation. Sometimes we need to capture the scene as a group of several individual images.

So key to shooting great colour images is awareness of colour and how different colours relate to each other. Just because you are shooting colour and not monochrome it doesn’t mean you don’t consider colours. Experiment and find out what works and what doesn’t.

About the Author:
Wayne Turner has been teaching photography for 25 years and has written three books on photography.

Do you want to learn more about photography in a digital world? I’ve just completed a brand new e-course delivered by e-mail. Download it here for free: http://www.21steps2perfectphotos.com/ To learn how you can take your photography from ordinary to outstanding visit http://www.21steps2perfectphotos.com/21steps.htm

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