Lighting basics
The Appalachian Trail takes hikers past Pink Lady’s Slippers for several days. When the angle of the sunlight is perfect, it reveals beautiful orchids growing in a shady forest.
Studio photographers have the luxury of being able to control their lighting at all times. Studio photographers also have the burden of needing to control their lighting at all times. Shooting outside requires you to accept that you have virtually no control over the lighting. While you can’t control the lighting, you can control which shots you take (and don’t take). There are three main variables to help: timing, subject, and perspective. Timing may mean waiting fifteen minutes for a cloud to pass or waiting ten hours for the sunlight to come from the right angle. It could also mean waiting several months for seasons to change so the sun can rise in just the right spot. The pictures of flowers demonstrate how to choose your subject carefully and also show how changing your perspective can have a huge impact on the end result.
While a studio photographer will spend time managing softboxes, reflectors, and cables until they have perfect light, a hiking photographer will spend time walking or waiting until they have perfect light. Our work is not to control light, but to find it.
It is possible to use maps and weather to plan shots, but that’s difficult and it’s not nearly as important as learning to compose shots as you go.
This is an unedited photo of a very dark area. With a decent camera body and lens, the black levels can be lifted during editing (as below). But sometimes, there’s nothing that can be done.
This is harsh lighting in the Mojave Desert. There’s not much to be done with this photo because the aggressive midday sunlight washes out the whole image.
Hiking in forested areas will obviously be dark - but look at the patches of light on the road.
Because trees have been cut down to make a pathway, sunlight can come through for a good shot. All I had to do was keep hiking and wait for my friend to walk into the light.
There are three main lighting problems for landscape photographers: not enough light, harsh light, and patchy light. The first problem is easy to spot and there’s not much to be done about it. Adjusting manual settings can overcome some obstacles but if your camera can’t handle low light well, you’ll be rather restricted. You can either wait for more light or you can choose to take a different photo. The issue of harsh light is less obvious but is just as easily corrected. Harsh lighting is common during the middle of the day or when direct lighting is used (like pointing several headlamps at the subject). The brightness of the light can cause one or more aspects of the photo to be overblown. Editing the image or using some sort of lens filter can help quite a bit. The last problem is also the most complex. Patchy light requires you to pay attention to not only whether the subject is well lit, but which other areas of the photos are light or dark.
The forest in Washington allowed a single beam of light through the canopy. This tiny tree is lit, but not perfectly. Rather than waiting to see if the sun would illuminate the tree soon, I looked up at the canopy and saw that this was my best opportunity. When the sun continued through the sky, it would have been blocked by the upper branches of the big trees. This is as good of a lighting situation as I was going to get that day, so I took the shot and kept hiking.
I wanted a hammock in a forest, illuminated by crepuscular rays. What I got is a few rays of light, a blown out sky in the background, and a shadowy hammock in the foreground. I could crop and edit this photo to make it mediocre, but the poor lighting will prevent this from being good. The only way to get the shot I wanted would have been to own better hardware - or come back several months later, when the sunlight would be in the correct place to pierce through the trees.
The impending snowstorm in Colorado caused most of the forest to be shaded by clouds. I saw a gap in the clouds and waited a few minutes for it to blow over the patch of golden aspen.
To finish this lesson, look at the four photos of orchids. All four of them were taken within a few feet of each other, and within a few minutes of each other. Two of the photos are terrible and a third is average at best. The lighting changes drastically simply by using different perspectives. The subject is “a small group of orchids are illuminated, standing out from the shady forest.” It’s a complicated lighting situation, so that needs to be the primary consideration when composing the photo. After that, work through thirds and halves, depth, balance, etc.
As you practice taking pictures, remember that you have two goals for lighting: First, find the best light for the picture you’re going to take. Second, accept that you won’t always find good light and sometimes it is completely impossible to get the shot you want. That’s okay. You’ll still find a nice scene, analyze what you’re seeing, mentally compose the image, and try a few different ways of taking the picture. And that’s exactly how you become a better photographer.
This was the lighting situation. First, I tried to focus on an orchid in the back left to contrast the light and shadows. It’s too far away and the spotty lighting makes the subject unclear.
The orchids are well lit. The subject has better definition, but the angle of the light is wrong in the background. There’s a vertical streak of light along the left third that I don’t like.
The orchids are well lit in this photo. That’s about all it does well. It’s a boring picture of orchids growing from a pile of leaves.
The orchids in front are clearly lit. This photo makes good use of thirds and halves. There is one obvious dark orchid in the shot, which emphasizes the contrasting light without muddling the subject. It also adds depth to the image and its stem splits the image nearly in half.