A Drop of Reflective Light...

[benjikan]

Most of us have taken images outdoors and indoors. We generally use flash indoors when the available light is such that it is a necessity. Unfortunately, in most cases that light source is on the camera or perched in the hot shoe. When you think about it though, the effect of that massive blast of light kills most of the nuances of the available light and the result is often quite flat or just plain uninteresting.

The play of light is often very subtle. We see the dominant but pay less attention to the subtle play of light as it bounces off of reflective objects to finally land on the most absorptive materials. Move one of those reflective sources and the whole landscape changes. We often look for that dominant light source and feature it as the node or focal point of our images.

What I am suggesting here is perhaps looking at the scene from a different perspective. Studying the nuances will open up different way of viewing your composition. When using available light you may start to play with multiple reflectors to change the ambiance of your image. Moving your reflected source just a few inches can change the final outcome significantly. This can even be more apparent when using flash sources and reflectors, mixing those with ambient light and adjusting them to your taste. Even a half of a stop will have an effect that can prove to be dramatic.

What are your feelings about how you approach light and how do you think you can enhance your vocabulary?

 

[Mike_E]

I squint my eyes and look for shadows. The light is most likely going to be there it's the shadows that are hard to catch just right.

mike

 

[benjikan]

I squint my eyes and look for shadows. The light is most likely going to be there it's the shadows that are hard to catch just right.

mike

That is exactly what I do when shooting in controlled environments as well, really helps to see the high and low intensity points.

 

[Garbz]

Strobist last week came up with the idea that if you are having trouble visualising how light falls on the subject, put down the camera walk over to the light source and look at your subject.

I think too many people fear light and restrict themselves to shooting with natural light at set times of the day, rather than using reflectors and diffusers, or god forbid actually taking a flash outside and balancing the real and the artificial to gain additional control over the tones in a photograph.

 

[THORHAMMER]

I need to make some reflector holders on wheels !!!