Light

Light (2)

Light and dark. Rules such as Sunny-16 are useful, but sometimes tricky to use. Why? Not every part of the picture receives the same amount of light. Take the pictue on the right. Note the bright light in the hair (which gives it a nice halo-like glow). Note also the dark forest areas in the background, which are underexposed. Now you know why professional photographers always run around with their little light meters to measure out every part of a picture. Usually, the trick lies in compromising. Overexpose the bright areas a little, and underexpose the dark areas a little. Luckily, today's color negative films (e.g., Kodak Gold 100) are enormously forgiving, allowing you to overexpose by at least 3 stops and underexpose by 1 with only little loss in picture quality. Some films supposedly give you even more latitude than (+3/-1), i.e., (+3/-2) for Kodak or Agfa 100.

When making compromises on exposure, there's a technique to hedge your bets. Take a few pictures, i.e. one you think is perfect, one that's 2 stops under, and one that's 2 stops over. (This is called bracketing). One of the 3 should turn out right. Likely your photo shop will make all three look almost identical, thanks to their equipment's compensation and your film's latitude.

Best light. Close to sunrise and sunset are great times to take pictures. The light is warmer than during mid-day, and the sun shows interesting shadows.

Direction. The typical rule is to have your back to the light. However, it's useful to break this rule from time. Light from the side can create interesting effects (see picture), and shooting sunsets or sunrises requires you to shoot directly into the sun.

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