Hi, it's Karen from the photography playground Welcome back. Right is one of the key ingredients in a photograph. As a regular smartphone photographer, you will work with natural light most of the time. Your best friend is the sun, no doubt about that. But you can't control the sun, no doubt about that either. This module is about looking for the light chasing the light searching for the light.
To be able to do that you need patience, you need to have an open mind. You need to dance around the light, see where it's coming from and find the best angle, recognize the quality of the light and adjust your shot. It's all about being mindful. In my experience photographing is one of the most mindful activities you can do. Because if you're attentive of your surroundings if you chase the light, if you move your body to find the best angle, there's not much else that can enter your mind. Now why is life so important?
Why can it make or break a shot life can make The most mundane objects are situation interesting because it sets a mood. It creates depth contrast shadows, it shows texture, it highlights a subject or hide things in the shadows, and it makes colors alive and vibrant. Let's take a closer look at a few images to show you my point. This is a rather ordinary thing alive boy, there's no light falling on it. And I tried to make it a little more interesting by focusing on the view behind it. But that didn't do the trick.
It's an uninteresting photo. As the bird traveled on its angle towards the sun changed and the beams of the Sun reached the life boy, creating a wonderful play of light and shadow and making your orange come to life. It's the same object with and without light. This photo of a yellow wall is not very interesting either. Because the sun didn't reach this part of the wall the light is flat, there's no texture and it has no shadows. A few meters down the road the sun could reach the wall creating a more interesting shot.
We can see the texture Off the Wall, the sun creates a few shadows and it makes the colors vibrant. Now you might think that having the sun shining in your photos is always better, but that's definitely not the case. The soft light of an overcast sky can be as interesting as officially shining sun. This is the skyline of New York on a very cloudy day, it sets the mood for the short of an abandoned container shouting liberty. The light caused by the cloudy sky intensifies the feeling it evokes. This is another photo where the absence of sunlight creates the mood, the feeling of the image.
I can do many different things in your photos. It's not so much about good or bad light. It's more about making the light work for what you want to show until See you in the next lecture. And in the meantime, happy photographing