Photographers assistant in training.
I have often said that the most valuable piece of equipment that our business owns is not any of the expensive lenses or camera bodies but is Nigel. A slightly aged piece of equipment without a user manual, but priceless nevertheless. If you ask Nigel what is his most valuable piece of equipment I know exactly what he would say. It’s something that comes cheap, is all around us but always changing, very temperamental and fickle until you know how to tame it – sounds a bit like a description of me but of course I am talking about the photographers mistress – LIGHT. You can reflect and manipulate it to great effect but if you want to improve your photography then you have to learn how to see it.
When we are on our way to a shoot Nigel is always worrying about the light, where is it, what is it going to do, how am I going to use it. And he worries with good reason because light is a key element in photography, always has been, always will be. Whether it be natural or artificial, light will make or break your photograph. Get it right and you will capture every detail in every leaf and every hair in the horses mane, get it wrong and you will capture a flat 2D ’snap-shot’.
I have watched over the past 12 months or so and seen a rise in the ‘equine photographer’ in the UK and I am saddened to see an abundance of new photographers that seem to have little understanding of light and how it works. For example, I have seen a couple of photographers actually adverstising the fact that your shoot can be booked in between the hours of 10 – 4. At this time of year I wouldn’t even consider arriving at a shoot before 4 as the light can be so harsh this time of year. Harsh summer light is not only unflattering but will also lead to very contrasty images, white skies and burnt out faces. If you want to do one simple thing to improve your photography then I would suggest that you don’t take your camera out in the summer before at least 4pm. A pro landscape photographer would tell you not to take you camera out at all in the summer, but then landscape photographers are a very strange breed!
This image would not have worked if we had of shot it earlier in the day.
Of course we don’t always live in an ideal world where you turn up to a shoot and sit and wait for that moment of lovely golden evening light around 7pm for that perfect equine portrait. I have only seen that quality of light half a dozen times this Spring and Summer, and you have to be able to look at the day and predict that it is going to happen and be at right place at the right time because it lasts for just a few moments.
Look how the light takes your eye straight to the subjects then down to the reflection - lovely
Of course Nigel and I live photographically in a commercial world. We had a client earlier in the summer that could only have her shoot done right in the middle of the day. Nigel had to have a little lie down with a herbal tea when I told him I had booked a portrait shoot it at 10am in mid-summer. Now obviously we were not going to turn the job down but instead pray for a cloudy day. As it turned out it was one of the brightest, sunniest and hottest days of the summer, there was very little hedging or trees around the yard to use so Nigel’s great skill of using light to his advantage came into play. We stood the lady, who was also wearing the photographers nightmare colour white, and her horse in the doorway of a large barn. She was standing in total shadow, near darkness but we coaxed light back onto the subjects with a reflector. The great thing about using reflectors is that you can pretty much move light around to where-ever you want it to go without blasting the subject and burning out the image. The result was a really stunning images. The alternative of course would have been to shoot her outside in the full sun in patchy shade and turn the photos black and white to make up for the fact that the light is crap. Seems ridiculous I know but I have seen other photographers doing exactly the same thing they are certainly not doing the best for their clients!
Shot in the middle of Summer in the middle of the day - you have to learn to manipulate the light that you have.
Most of Nigel’s portrait work is shot using refectors, they enhance the quality of light that is around you and take away shadows from your subject. The other great thing about lighting your photography with reflectors is that you can take them anywhere, the middle of the forest, a remote beach. Of course you need a knowledgeable and highly skilled assistant to use them, that it of course where I come in! Only joking, what you actually need is somebody that will carry the photographers heavy kit plus reflectors and walk for miles down a track in search of the perfect location, can reflect the light into the correct spot of the image balancing a reflector with one hand and one foot thus keeping one hand free for throwing leaves and grass into the air to attract the horses attention – just one of my many many obscure and otherwise useless talents!
Use a reflector to enable you to shoot straight into the sun - look at the how the subjects hair is back-light and so is the horse forelock - these things don't happen by accident!
Anyway, as a reward for those of you that have reached the end of my ramblings a few golden gems from the master of using the light to improve your photography:
- think about the correct time of day to shoot
- try to shoot in open shade
- if you are taking photos under trees then sure that your subject are standing either
totally in the shade or totally in the light so that you don’t get ‘hot spots’
- if you look at your image at 100% on the back of your camera or PC and you can’t
see every detail of your subject especially the face, then you’ve got it wrong.
- converting a photo into black and white will not hide the fact that it has been taken in poor light.
- I love this image – look at the detail in the trees – we had to keep moving around to avoid any direct light falling onto the horse or handler.
And just remember Nigel’s favorite profound photographers quote to help y0u “amateurs worry about equipment, professionals worry about money, masters worry about light” – or my less profound quote ” the more I practice the luckier I get”.
