Learn to shoot in every light situation.

On a sunny day you will find hard shadows and bright highlights. Many photographers prefer not to shoot under such conditions and many declare that you can’t take good photographs under such conditions.

As travel photographers we often have to roll with the available light and we cannot always afford to be so picky. Not only would we miss out on a lot of quality shooting time and practice, we would also miss the creative opportunity that the light offers us.

Hard light

Most photographers avoid this time of the day. They scout locations, eat, relax or drive to the next shoot. It is true that this light is unforgiving and the extreme contrast can be discouraging, but we should see this as an opportunity instead.

Many people have fallen to the absurd notion that no pixel can be completely white or black, that everything in a picture needs to be within the visible range. What a mindless way to rationalize creativity.

Here are some examples on creative options the hard light affords us.

I picked the first two pictures from my own gallery.

In the picture of the man in Los Angeles, the overexposed background perfectly separates him. The viewer is drawn to his expression and is not distracted by a busy background. I did expose him perfectly, focusing attention on the subject itself and the foreground while the background fades away. If we do not actively focus on the background, we won’t even see it at first glance. The picture has an almost three dimensional property where the subject appears to be leaping out of the picture.

In the photograph of Arches National Park, I am using the shadows to draw the viewer towards the arch. The sun shining through the arch emphasizes the hole in the rock and gives it an otherworldly property. Although I did somewhat boost dynamic range in this image, it is not an HDR. I often prefer realism over the perfection of HDR. The world is not supposed to be perfect and we should not try to make it so or our subconscious mind will reject the result.

There are many other ways we can use hard light to our advantage.

The hint of prison bars in this photograph sends a very powerful message of desperation. Inevitably we make the connection and we start asking questions about the prison which is not visible in the picture.

We can photograph a shadow instead of the subject itself to hint a presence without revealing everything. Imagine an innocent child with a large shadow looming over the child.

We can use shadows of two people who are seemingly close appearing to drift apart or vice versa.

I found one of the most powerful shadow plays on flickr in an image by vernhart showing a wedding band with a heart shaped shadow. The shadow seems to tell us a story and suddenly the ring becomes much more. The shadow seems to be the heart and soul of the ring.

Shadows can create unexpected patterns like in this image by flickr user CatDancing. With the pattern superimposed, the picture draws attention.

I hope that these examples drive home my point that strong photographs can be created even under hard lighting conditions.

The photographs are often hard to predict and scenes come together by chance very quickly, especially when you are photographing people. That is the reason why we should always carry a camera with us, even during the time of day most “serious” photographers will not bother with.

This article is a part of a larger series on becoming good photographers. I hope you like it and that you subscribe to my feed to stay updated with my next posts.

I am sure you have some good examples of your own. Please feel free to share them below.