Artificial Lighting – Learn to love it: Tip of the Week

Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light and you will know the key to photography – George Eastman When I first started photography, I was scared of artificial lighting.  I didn’t understand it, so I avoided it.  It was always easier just to put my subjects in the shade and call myself a “natural light shooter”.  Ah, the lies we tell ourselves. Eventually, I learned how to use artificial light and light modifiers, and it opened up a whole new world. No longer was I dependent on the time of day or weather.  Supplementing natural light grants me freedom on when and where I can shoot. Good lighting is key to making your images dynamic. This  means avoiding the on-camera flash which typically blasts your scene, lighting  up every nook and cranny like it’s high noon. The location of this image was already dramatically lit, all that was needed was to illuminate the couple. Without additional lighting they would have been underexposed and lifeless; with an on camera flash the drama of the scene would have been washed out.  So, I set up a directional Profoto head using a strip soft box with a grid ...