The Big Picture: Light, Color, and Composition

The first three pictures in this article are a study in contrasts. Each was taken using only the available light falling on the subject. The photographer’s techniqueunderstanding the quality of the light, selective focus, depth of field, and shutter speedcoupled with the composition, produced the desired image. Learning to see how light shapes the world is the most valuable skill a photographer can develop. This is the article where we bring it all together. The word photography literally means “writing with light.” Most of our discussions so far have centered on the tools we use to work with the light in a scene focus, f/stop, shutter speed, lens design, and composition. This article looks more closely at how to use the light itself. Light provides the contrast, texture, tone, and color that shapes our images and gives them life. We arrange the picture and use our skills to capture an image that shows the viewer our vision of the scene. We’ll start by examining several images, all taken using available outdoor light (the unaltered light falling on a subject), and then discuss how multiple light sources and flash units can give us total control over shadows and highlights.

Observing the Qualities of Light

This picture was taken using window light. The little girl was turned so that the light was coming in from her side, casting a soft shadow. Window light, unless the sun is shining directly in and onto the subject, is soft. Soft here means “moderate tonal contrast”; the diffused light does not cast harsh shadows. So we can see detail on the side of her face away from the window and on her white dress. The window light does not reach the out-offocus background. That’s due to a very shallow depth of field and the fact that very little light reached that portion of the room. The exposure was 1/60th of a second at f/2.8 with an ISO of 400. The photographer rendered the image in black and white; removing any color contrast adds to the soft visual feel of the picture.

Compare that to the landscape shown here. This image has high contrast, bright color, and no shadow detail. The exposure was set to keep tone in the sky. The sun behind the tree was so bright that the exposure rendered the tree as a silhouette. Daylight does not keep the same color or intensity throughout the day. The low position of the sun during the first few and last few hours of the day reduces light levels, because the Earth’s atmosphere filters out some of the blue and green color. That’s what causes red sunsets, like the one in this picture, and the color of the harvest moon.

The orange glow on the face of the fire-tender in this image is caused by the reflection of the light from the open furnace. Geoff Cronje set his exposure to let that glow become a highlight and add a visual accent in an almost monochromatic scene. Notice how the dark shirt is rimmed with enough light to keep it from blending into the black background. The slow shutter speed induced blur in the man’s arm to indicate motion as he stoked the coals.

From a photographer’s standpoint, the direction, relative intensity, and color of the light sources in a scene are its primary attributes. Carla Hoskins’ charming portrait of the little girl in the fountain in this picture would have been much less interesting if the sun had been behind the photographer instead of the subject. Here, lateafternoon sun is coming in at a 45-degree angle from the back left of the scene. That position is what produces the highlights on the child’s hair and dress. It also brightens the stream of water that arcs over her head. Carla chose a shutter speed that almost froze the motion of the water, but not quite. That let the spray record as streaks of water rather than dots, and blurred the arc as it broke up and fell into the pool. The f/stop was set to keep the rim of light from going pure white, while holding detail in the girl's face and the front of the dress. They are lit by the fill light from the sky and the fountain.

If this picture had been taken at noon, the sun would have been overhead, and the results much different. There would have been harsh downward shadows and no rim lighting. The stream of water would have lost its highlights, and the background would have been brightly lit and distracting. If the sun had been over Carla’s shoulder, the lighting on the girl’s face would have been flat, and strong shadows would be cast behind the objects in the scene. Late afternoon sun is warmer (unless the sky is overcast or the subject is in the shade) than the light at mid-day. The image of the couple in thephoto below was taken on a bright, sunny summer day. The sun was still hours from sunset. So why are there no harsh shadows? In fact, there are hardly any shadows visible at all. That’s because the picture was taken in open shade. The light was diffuse. The colors are saturated, but not as bright as they appear in full sunlight, more as they would on a cloudy day. It’s another example of the effects of direction and intensity. The photo was taken on the shady side of the mill, so the open sky, not the direct sun, was the light source. That light is softer and cooler (more blue) than direct sun. The exposure was 1/125th of a second at f/4.5 with an ISO of 100. That’s about three stops more open than full sunlight.

One more example, then we’ll draw some conclusions. Joe Mc Broome’s butterfly in the photo was taken in full sunlight. We can tell by the sharply defined shadows. The contrast is much higher in this image than in the one in the previous image. Joe used an exposure of 1/1600th of a second at f/5.6 with an ISO of 400. The fast shutter speed ensured that neither camera shake nor subject movement would blur the primary subject. The 200mm lens and close proximity to the butterfly created a very shallow depth of field with pleasing bokeh (soft blur due to a limited depth of field) as a background.

Look closely at the detail in the butterfly’s wing. The texture has good definition; that’s due to angle of the light and the contrast level. The animal is facing directly into the sun, and the wing is facing the camera directly. From the camera’s perspective, the sun is raking across the wing, creating shadows that outline the texture. With these examples in mind, let’s look at the traditional definitions for both the quality and direction of photographic lighting. The positions are always described based on how the light appears to strike the subject from the camera’s point of view. It can’t record what it can’t see.