How the light behaves - Natural light Portrait Photography | Ken Buslay | Skillshare
Drawer
Search

Playback Speed


  • 0.5x
  • 1x (Normal)
  • 1.25x
  • 1.5x
  • 2x

How the light behaves - Natural light Portrait Photography

teacher avatar Ken Buslay

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      How the light behaves Intro

      2:04

    • 2.

      Valuable info before we get started

      2:57

    • 3.

      Reflecting light

      10:38

    • 4.

      Checking the space / The lightmeter

      6:13

    • 5.

      Open shade / Diferent contrasts

      19:36

    • 6.

      Direct sun / Shadows

      21:45

    • 7.

      06 Light spots / Open shade / Being attentive

      9:12

    • 8.

      07 Mysterious / Coorperate light

      6:15

    • 9.

      08 Last sunlight / Surface brightness / Muddy light

      9:22

    • 10.

      09 Indoor / Directed light

      16:18

    • 11.

      10 Last light of the day

      7:57

    • 12.

      11 Artificial light

      9:43

    • 13.

      12 Favorites / Editing / Outro

      13:36

  • --
  • Beginner level
  • Intermediate level
  • Advanced level
  • All levels

Community Generated

The level is determined by a majority opinion of students who have reviewed this class. The teacher's recommendation is shown until at least 5 student responses are collected.

88

Students

2

Projects

About This Class

In this on location course, I want to help you to sharpen your awareness to the natural light and all the nuances it offers you to play with in your photography. For everyone shooting film, this skill is vital but I personally believe in always getting things right while taking photos instead of trying to fix my mistakes afterwards, no matter what camera I use. So I want to take you on a journey from daytime to the night where we will be covering a variety of light situations such as: 

  • Open shade 
  • Reflected light
  • Direct sun and shadows
  • Directed light indoors
  • ...

These are just some bullet points but you will see that within these light situations there are so many nuances that can separate a good image from a great one if you know how to find the sweet spot and play with it. Painting with the light, also always means to be playing with composition and that will play a role in our journey. I want to make sure that you gain an understanding for how the light behaves so that you can apply your learnings in any situation you might find yourself in with your camera. In this course, I will be taking portraits but not matter if you photograph documentary, architecture or street, this course will help you grow as a photographer. 

To enjoy this course, you should have a basic understanding of the exposure triangle and what it means to expose correctly. I would say intermediate sums up best who this course is for but if you're an ambitious beginner, go for it! Also, once I get started talking about photography I can't help it but dropping tips, tricks and thoughts about photography along the way : )

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Ken Buslay

Teacher

I have been working with cameras for twenty years with a focus on portrait and documentary photography. After years of commercial work being the center of my practice, I shifted to the creation of artistic work over the past ten years. Together with that transition, came the rediscovery of film photography, experimentations with all kinds of formats, darkroom work and the hybrid workflow.  

I would love to inspire you to find what you truly care about and help you to bring that care to your photography work.

For more info on me and my work, visit my website but make sure to come back so we can get started with bringing your awareness to what really matters when taking photos. 



 

See full profile

Level: Intermediate

Class Ratings

Expectations Met?
    Exceeded!
  • 0%
  • Yes
  • 0%
  • Somewhat
  • 0%
  • Not really
  • 0%

Why Join Skillshare?

Take award-winning Skillshare Original Classes

Each class has short lessons, hands-on projects

Your membership supports Skillshare teachers

Learn From Anywhere

Take classes on the go with the Skillshare app. Stream or download to watch on the plane, the subway, or wherever you learn best.

Transcripts

1. How the light behaves Intro: How the light behaves. Hi, I'm Ken. I've been a photographer for 20 years and I love working with natural light. Shooting film for ten years taught me to pay close attention to the light in each moment instead of trying to fix things in post. In this course, I want to inspire you to seeing the world with different, with more aware eyes to what the light does and how you can use it in your photography. I don't just want to show you set ups to copy and paste though. Instead, I want to take you on a journey from daytime to the night. We will explore different kinds of shade, direct and indirect light. And play with a balance of different light sources and colors. Oftentimes just a few centimeters will make or break an image. And finding that sweet spot is the magic that we're going to explore today. This pretty harsh sunlight. The shadow that is now in her face, it comes from this leave. As you can see, this leave that's about 30, 40 centimeters away from her face. The edge that it throws, it's much more defined what we've seen before from the tree that's six, 7 meters away. This is like calling for composition. I love this. It is important for me to help you understand the principles of what the light does. You can apply it to whatever situation you find yourself in with your camera. I believe learning to be aware of the light you're working with is essential as you grow your understanding of it. Your photography will make a leap and you will feel much more confident in your creative process. Whatever kind of photography it is that you're doing, there's a lot to explore and it's going to be fun. Let's go. 2. Valuable info before we get started: I'm happy you want to learn about the light with me today. I want to say a few words about the gear that I'm using and how I treated the image files afterwards. Just for you as a reference, I'm using Fuji cameras with APSC sensors and lens equivalents of 35.50 millimeter on a full frame. The color profile that I'm using is classic chrome, which is also available on older Fuji cameras. This profile does bring in some contrast, but it doesn't have any crazy color shifts. Port 400 preset or something similar You may buy and possibly tweak for 5 minutes will give you a similar result. Then in capture, run my raw converter software, I corrected some minor white balance, misreads, added sharpness and a little bit of grain. That's it. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't necessarily be happy with the images as they are. It's just so you see the real thing. The exposure settings do not really play a role here, but when they do, I will mention it during the course. Generally, I'm trying to be at 125th of a second or faster F stop of two to 2.8 and I'm using whatever ISO is necessary to get there. I will be taking images that are not necessarily good for different reasons, although there are some. This course is not to show you how to take great portrays, but it's about seeing the light. I believe it's important to not cut out the process of getting to those results that I would consider good ones. Otherwise, you wouldn't learn anything. When you are in a portray session, it's completely normal to be going through that search for the light that you prefer. Last but not least, a couple of words about the way that I interact with Irina, the friend that I will be photographing today. Because I will be explaining a lot of things to the camera. I'm losing the connection to her all the time during the session. I also move around and let her wait a bit as if she's a puppet and not a human being with the feelings. This is not how I would usually interact with someone. When I'm taking portrays, I would be trying to build trust and establish a safe space. In this case though, she knew what she was getting into and we have a good level of trust and friendship built that allows me to work the way that I do with her today. To learn more about how I take portrays of people and what it takes to create that safe space. See my course on portway photography, but today's course is all about the light. Let's go ahead and jump in and explore the first light situation. 3. Reflecting light: Antonio who's filming us is sitting on a stone. And the stone is been hit by sunlight, Direct sunlight. Everything that's been hit by direct sunlight, it reflects the light. Not sure we can see it now, but I'll show you. If there's this reflecting surface, then there's just not this vibrant light in her face. We're now about a mere and a half away from this stone. I'm going to take a photo of the situation as it is now. Now what I want to do is slowly, slowly ask arena to come towards the stone and keep facing, facing the stone, Antonio. Please keep looking at her face as she goes closer, another step. You can probably already see how this light gets more intense now that we moved the step further. We also have the sunlight hitting her hair directly. It's actually a bit strong, would be nicer if it was a bit less. But what I'm trying to say is we're using two light sources. We're having the actual sun directly hitting her hair from the back. And we have the stone that is not just as bright hitting her face. Now let's move closer and closer. Oh, now the sun is getting a bit softer. Okay. And let's move closer to the sun, maybe down here. Can you go on the on the side Yes. That you like, Goll? Yes, Yes, yes, yes. And bring your face after a little bit. What we're having here right now is that there is no direct sun on her. It's a little bit misty, but it's direct sun. The light that comes from the stone is not as strong as the light that directly from the sun. I do this in many situations. I think it's important. Basic fact, know or to consider is to ask the light. What are you trying to tell me or like if I am in a situation, what is the most favorable light situation? So I don't know if it's going to look good, but the light is kind of asking me to try expose for the sun side of her face and not anymore the shade side of her face. Let's go back a little bit further to the stone but so that the sunlight still hits the other Yes. Side of your face. So other than before where I exposed for this side, the side that's been lit by the stone, I'm now going to expose for, for the sun. I can see that her eye, it's in the shade. It doesn't have lights. If you now move up a little bit and a little bit towards the sun and a bit more up when I expose for the sun, we could now see that this side falls off a lot. It's always not just about the light that we use to expose, but it's also about the contrast to everything else. When I go in direct sunlight, it means in this case where there is not dark jungle, but it's just way far away from the amount of light that hits her face. That means everything else just falls off into darkness very quickly. It's an element of composition that you should always consider. And we're going to see a few other examples of this. Let me check something else. Okay, hold on, keep rolling. I'll get something. My white towel. So let's see what we can do if we don't use a dark stone as a reflector. A white tower. You look at her face, Antonio. While I'm putting in the tower, we can see in her eyes. Now there is a huge white space that's reflecting into her eyes. Again, it brings this beautiful spark in here that it was there before in this situation before, but it wasn't as strong. And we see that now the light that reflects back into her face is so strong, Is it as strong? It's almost as strong as the sunlight that hit her face directly. It makes a huge difference what surface you're using to reflect light off of. Now, until you look at her face and you keep looking there, I want to do the magic and pull away the tower. And you keep looking at her face. This was the exact same photo taken, same settings, nothing changed. All I changed was the surface that the light reflect off of. It makes a huge difference. Remember, we can do that again further away. Maybe this makes it more clear than before. Again, if you can move away slowly from the towel, make a step away as same setting. Still you can already see the amount of light that gets to her face already decreases a lot. Look at me, just keep the head where it was. Just the eyes, same settings. And make another step. And now I'm using the same settings and she's really dark. So I'll just the exposure a little bit and take the exact same photo. Again, the relationship of these different light sources and the relationship of the light that's in her face to the brightness of the background, that changed significantly within the space of what is this, not even a meter, it's subtle. And we're going to have other situations where we're going to see how a five centimeter move can make a great photo from a photo that just doesn't work. At least in my eyes. As always, people take the greatest photos in the worst light situations. A red shirt. It's not just brightness of surface, it's also the color of the surface already you can see. Now let's do that again. I'll put it there. You keep looking. You see how that brings a red color in her face just by putting a red shirt in the sun. We'll take a photo on this. Let's move slowly. So yes, yes, it's questionable. Coming made it better. Again, it's a matter of play between the two light sources. Means the sun coming from here and the sun reflecting off of the red shirt. Yeah, but I wanted to show it to you. Go to a reflecting light source, the more effect it's going to have, let's pull it away again. You look at the shirt. Much more of a colorful light. A bit greenish because there's lots of green. There was some green leaves here that have been hit by the light. Yes, that was our first setting on our journey today. Simple. There is a light source that is being the direct sun. And there is a light source that is a stone added with a white towel once to make the reflection brighter, and then added a red red shirt to give it a color. Then we had variations of how close we are to the stone. Then I wanted to show you these two images side by side, as in this moment, we took away the sunlight that was hitting her face and changed the exposure a little bit. Yeah, we can just see here how going from two light sources that hit the face, the stone with a towel and the sunlight, to going to just one light source, the stone with a towel. How that makes the whole image appear differently. And that was a very small movement that we did there, but it changed quite a lot. Of course, if you're working in the studio, you can do the same, take away one of the flashes or bring in the strength of one of the flashes down a lot. That's what we get in quite a short movement. 4. Checking the space / The lightmeter: Now we're moving to the next situation. What I do there and what I do every time I go photograph somewhere is I'm checking the space, whether that's a portray situation where I'm there is this side of the room and there is this window and maybe there is another window and yeah, it may be just one place. Or if I'm in a documentary situation, then it's something that I need to do again and again and again and again because the setting changes all the time. And I need to be very, very quick because I can't stop the situation. And so I need to understand the light first. I, I need to have it like right away. I need to get into the room or the situation and understand it already. Think about where are possibly good places to stand in and take photos in different angles and maybe what could change, what happens if they decide to turn this light down or, I don't know, close the windows or what happens if a cloud comes? Maybe there is an open space in which I'm photographing. And it's super harsh sunlight and it's difficult and it's not favorable for what I want to do, but it's a cloudy day. Sometimes a cloud comes through a place that is a space that may be difficult to photograph, suddenly may have super soft light and is super good when you come into any situation checking these things and being aware of these things. That's your joker that makes you so quick and it gives you the ability to take photos that you otherwise couldn't. Because you already have an understanding of the light situation and the possibilities, how it may change. Whenever you go into a situation, even without your camera, whatever, sitting in the bus or something, look around, understand the light, helps you a lot. Now for the next space we go to, I want to show you the light meter. This is my light meter. Very basic thing. It measures the light through here. It does that, or I use it by holding it towards the light source that is blighting my subject or object. I press the button on the side and it measures the light that comes in. Now, there are three things to find on this light meter. There is the time. This is something that I can change on this light meter. There is the ISO, this is also something I can change. There is an F stop, this is something that I cannot change. This is the variable that the light meter has. It gave me a reading of 1,600 ISO, That's what I previously said, and I said 125th of a second, and the reading that it gave me is 2.8 0.7 which is a bit of a weird number, right? Like you don't find that really 2.8 0.7 Like it doesn't say that anywhere on your camera, what the light meter does, it says there are ten steps between 2.8 Where is it here? Ten steps between two point 8.4 It's saying the exact amount would be to be at 2.8 and 710. Now you can make the decision. Some older lenses, maybe they only have full and a half stops, so you can only go 2.82 point 8.5 and four newer lenses in cameras, they have steps of thirds or maybe even quarters of stops. You can now decide where you want to go. If you're using a digital camera, you would rather want to under expose because it's easier in the raw file to pull the darks up again, but your highlights can burn out very quickly on a film camera, it's the other way around. It's easier to pull down the highlights on a film, but it's more difficult to pull up the dark areas on the film. Yeah, what I can do, bar is it here? I can change the, SO I can say, let's say I don't have an ISO 1,600 film, I only have a 400 film. Then it says, if you're still using the same shutter speed, 125th of a second, your F stop should be 1.4 0.7 close to two. There is a good chance you may not have such a fast lens. What you would have to do is change the shutter speed to 60th of a second. One, stop slower the shutter speed. And then you would have two point 0.7 almost 2.8 If I change it to a 30th, then I'm to four. And this is how light meter works. Very basic tool, my Hustle blood doesn't have any electronics. It's completely mechanical. Which is, this is why I'm using the light meter in this course. I'm using it just to visualize when I say, oh, look how the background falls off and how it gets darker. With this, I can put a number to it and say, look, it's two stops less because the light meter is telling me this is how the light meter works. Now we're going to go and continue in the next situation. Enjoy. 5. Open shade / Diferent contrasts: We went to another playground. The restaurant. This is a very interesting space. It's an open shade and we're going to be in different open shade situations. Light situations that I like very much and like working in. Actually, we've been here before. In another video taking portraits of Atada. We're here to a bit more in detail. Show you what light is going on in this place. Again, bring your awareness to things. The sun is about there and it's 04:00 slowly, it's going down a little bit. It's nowhere near sunset, But this is where the sun shines on the parking spot, this is where it shines on the trees. Generally, this is a open space. What will be interesting for us also is that it's shining here on the ground, and we'll be playing with this in a minute. But before we do that, I want to bring your attention also to this side which is also somewhat open. The sun is not shining directly on these plants, it's not like a very open space. The trees are rather close to the place where we are in. And the roof there is the back, which doesn't have any light except a little bit of light that falls on it and reflects back, but that's not very much here. Again, trees and plants that are also pretty close to the roof space that we're in, but the sun is shining on it. No light from the, from some light from here. Coming from the reflection of the green trees and a space that is more open. And where the light shining on trees, shining on the parking down there and shining on here. Now I want to move around this space with arena and keep looking at her face and eyes closely and show you how things change. Yeah, it's a very simple set up, but we'll see that there is lots of change here depending on where you are. What I first want to do is start in the back. I'll take a photo of her just to see where we start. It's a very even light. It's very soft. It doesn't create a lot of contrast again, this can be something that you want, it can be something that you don't want. I'm just here to bring your attention at what is and why this is. You can see that on this side of her face, there is a little bit more light than on the other side. It's only a slight little bit, but that's because on this side there is the sun shining on the trees. On this side there is another kitchen roof and not so much light, but that's very subtle. What we can also see, maybe I'll take a photo that's a bit closer for that look up straight, we can see in her eyes stripe of light that we're facing. How that reflects in her eye. Yeah, This is just always something to keep in mind. The reflection in someone's eyes is always, depending on where they're looking, that can make an eye really stand out and make it alive. Or if you don't have anything reflecting, it can just become like a dark spot. Now what I want to do is let's also, just for the fun, make a bit of a light measurement just to see at once. It says at any of 800 it's 125th of a second and almost exactly 2.8 Now what I want to do is slowly walk towards the light and see what happens in Rena's face. Okay, now we walked about 4 meters. Let's do this one again. Were 12,052.88 that means almost 12054. We almost gained an entire stop of exposure by walking these 4 meters. That's just the amount of light that changes as we go closer to the light source. Let's keep going. Here's coming more. Here's yes, see what's coming. Stop again. This was another half a stop that we gained here. But you see in this, maybe that was a meter and a half, two meter. How the light just got way more vibrant and alive as we moved closer to the light source. Let's take a photo at this point again. See what are you seeing her face, Antonio. Actually, this is what I wanted to show. Can you go on the side a little bit? I want to move in and out, keep on her face. And now I step in and you see how that changes the light on her face. So always need to be aware of where I am. Also, how am I influencing the situation I'm photographing? If I place myself in the light source, I'm taking away light, again, that can be a good thing. Can be a bad thing. Just again, something to bring your attention to. Okay. Now, let's keep walking. Okay. And stop here. Okay. So now we're pretty close to the edge of the space. I found a penny. Um, yeah. So the light in our face is more vibrant. It is more colorful. It's just overall a bit more exciting. Um, yeah, a light that I like working. A light that I like working with very much the light is shining on this floor. It's a wooden floor, it's a brownish color. I want you to look at her face. What happens when we go down there? Didn't take a photo in this spot. Okay. So she's going with that, she's getting to the light source which is a mix of the general open space that we have, but particularly in particular the floor that the light is reflecting off. Now taking the same photo that I did before, if I would use the same settings, it would be way over exposed. If I now expose for her face, the background falls off and gets much darker. It's always, not just the light on your subject, but it's always a matter of composition of different surfaces. Their color and their brightness in the space that really make an image. This is why it's important to pay attention to all of this. It makes sense when you think of it. And we just did this process of how much light is back there. We can for fun light meter show you like in numbers, what actually happened there. We're now at 125th and eight. When we started it was 125th and 2.845 0.68 There's three stops of light that we gained from walking back from the wall to the front and then bringing her down closer to the light source. Which consequently means that when we expose for her face, now the space where we started will be three stops under exposed. Through that you can separate your subject, Rena, from the background. Because the background falls off. Yeah, it's not just open the F stop. There's so much more to composition and that's one of the aspects that's really important to know that you're able to play with it and use it. Yeah, what I want to do now is turn around with you a little bit and see what happens if we use this side as a light source or this side or the side that doesn't have any light. Because that's what I see a lot of people doing is that they see a situation and they just go, oh, that's beautiful. I want to photograph that. But not take into consideration kind if the light allows you, if the light says okay, proved, you can actually take this photo here. Classic situation is on people on the beach standing in an open shade. A beach, or in other situations by a river or something under a tree, where they want the ocean or the river to be in the background and be beautiful. But not considering that the light on the ocean is like 456 stops brighter than the subject, therefore it doesn't work or you flash the person in the foreground. Nowadays, basically, phones do everything to try to make you not learn anything and just use whatever situation and be like, yeah, the software is just going to HDR fix everything, you can do that, and then maybe you can recognize the person. But from a maybe, let's say artistic photography point of view, it's boring thing to just flatten everything, whatever. Yeah, let's see, let's see the light again. The light got much weaker already as we, as we moved up and away from the floor. Let's go down on the knees again. Again, straight down with not moving so much. Again, the contrast between these two sides as we see on these two photos, it changed a lot because the light coming from the ground is stronger here and the other side falls off much more when we're down here than it did when we were standing up there. Again, matter of contrast. Let's move a bit more into the space and away from the light source. Yeah, a little further back. Let's go further in. We're moving away from the sunny side of the space and we're moving back into the space and having a contrast between between the side that's more lit and the side that's less lit as we move, as you can see on the images. And we make another step. Now we are like a meter away from the wall where we started. You can still see that this side has more light and is lit. You can see how the light reflects of her skin, but the contrast between those sides is way less than it was when we were at the light source on the way away from it. Yeah, we're in a more evenly lit space here. There's still a difference, but it's more evenly lit. Now we're having some of the bamboo on the left. We're having some of that white wood on the right. Generally, it's not as bright as the surface that we had there before. The entire situation just becomes more. Which again, you can like that or not like that, but it's good to know. Now, what I explained before, I want to show you what happens when you want to photograph something with nice scenery in the back. Can you move over there a little bit? Um, and you'll just see the scenery and be like, oh, this is so nice. A looks beautiful and there is beautiful jungle. Let's take a photo of it. And you would take this photo and you're not going to get both. Let me expose for the jungle ones. That's 2.82 thousand of a second. Arena just becomes a black space because there's just no light coming from here which we can do. That's a lot of scrawling is do this expose on her face. I'm exposing on her face which doesn't really have a lot of light in it there, specifically the stripe of light. But everything else is way overexposed. That can be quite beautiful to work with. What you can see though, this sparkle in her eyes is not there because she doesn't have a light source that could reflect out of her eye. Yeah, that's a way to go. Maybe I would use a bit more space as. Oh yeah. Something you can do. But like I said, what is difficult to do is to get both of those things. Either do some HDR thing or you make a choice. Or if you can, you can reflect, to try to reflect this light that comes in back into a face, even the background and the foreground, Somewhat similar to what we did with the stone. Before we can give that a try, actually, let's give that a try. Again, we see there's generally light coming from here. There's some direct sunlight hitting here, there. And there is something of the light coming off the floor. And her right side is to the jungle that is not hit by the light. What we can try to do is, yeah, maybe you can just hold it. Bring this to here. We can see this is no reflector. Where is it here? I can bring it in. This is the right side of the reflector. If I go to the silver side, that's pretty harsh, but it's a lot of sunlight also outside. So maybe this is not the prettiest light now with the silver light from the bottom. But I want to take this photo just to show you how I'm trying to even the amount of light that's in her face with the amount of light that's in the, in the jungle background. So we'll put the, let me adjust it first. Oh, here. Can you hold it here? Out here. Okay. Still the background is somewhat brighter. But just for demonstration purposes, this is with the silver reflector is with the light ref. The white reflector is here. You can see it's already I have to bring the exposure up and already the background is overexposing a lot more. And then when I take it away completely, I have to expose even more. Yeah, that we're back with a similar situation as we had before where there is a rather flat light on her face and it's not too contrasty, but there is a huge contrast between her face and the outside that is completely overexposed. 6. Direct sun / Shadows: Okay. We went into our next stop where we want to look at sunlight. Wait, something I want to show you. Before that haven't I haven't done like shown you to the camera, but it's something I do all the time is when I don't have someone with me. Or let's say maybe I have someone with me, but I don't want to move that person around all around the space to see what the light is like. I'm using a tool that is built into my body. It's called a hand and it's very handy. So just hold it into the space that you're thinking that you want to check the light. And I move it around and I see what does the light do. For example, here, I see that there is direct sunlight on my hand. And when I move it down just a little bit, I see how it's in the shade. The shade is coming from leaves, though It's a bit like spotty, as you can see. It varies a lot. Let's move around here a little bit. Move the hand because there's space in between my fingers, You can see how the shadow folds differently. I can make these fine adjustments and just use this hand as my light checker. When it does this to my hand, what does the light do to my face? Very handy tool. If you're lucky, you have two of them, so you have a lot of stuff to work with. Just something I do all the time and it's just so handy. Yeah, little tip. What I want to show you also with this hand, is something about shadow. Let's see where you see how the edges of my hand are, my entire shadow. But let's just focus on the hand for now. How the shadow of my hand is a rather blurry line. There is a certain distance to the sun, seven light minutes away from our planet, that doesn't really change. And then there is a distance between my hand and the surface that the hand is throwing the shadow on. Now, what happens when I bring this hand closer to the spot it throws the shadow on? One thing is it changes its shape, its angle. But what I want to point out here now, I'm pretty close, it's the edge of the shadow is getting much more defined. It's much more of the sharp edge. You see my hand here, shadow of my hand. Very defined edges. The further I bring it away from the surface, it's throwing the light on. The more blowy this edge becomes. Now I'm like 2.5 metres away from the spot where the shadow is. In this situation where we're in now and where I'm sweating like crazy because my body is not made for this temperature. Humidity, the sun is, when I'm here, the sun is falling through the leaves, actually first one tree and then there's a second bamboo set of bamboo here that the sun is falling through. Let's move around a little bit, just straight, somewhat towards the light. Let's just move slowly, slowly, very slowly. You can see now there is direct sun and now she moves on, that's stop here for a moment. The movement we now saw that was a movement of like 20 maximum 30 centimeters. And you saw the things that happened in her face going from this rather rather shady and here there's rather direct light. I want to see if we can find a spot maybe. Let's let me take a photo here just once. I'm taking so many photos today explaining a lot of stuff. And look over to the light again? Yes. Already just going from one side to the other. I have this side that had more sun and I had the other side that has more of a Shade but with little light spots. Like I said, the leaves that the sun is falling through and throwing the shadow on Helena's face. Those trees are, the main tree is like 67 metres away and then the bumble is like two metres away. So it's not a very defined shadow, but yeah, it's rather soft. Let's see, Let's move around a little bit and see if we can find like a bit of a more define spot. Ah, at this, at this point she's in a place where it's not fully, but it's a rather even shade. This pretty direct, harsh sunlight. The shadow that is now in her face, it comes from this leave. And as you can see, this leave that's about 30, 40 centimeters away from her face. The edge that it throws, it's much more defined what we've seen before from the tree that's 67 metres away. As the shadow from the tree comes the different leaves. This is one solid leave that throws one specific shade into a face. And the line is much more defined because it's closer. Move a little bit more towards the leave way. Just right. Yes, Yes. In this situation, I can play with this like before as we, and on the image that we had before, one side had a bit more light, the other was a bit sprinkled with shade. Now I have this very direct line that I can use as a composition tool. Maybe I can bring my body in also. Yeah. So this is how you play with shadows. Well, maybe just mention that. I don't know if I said it generally. Of course, maybe I thought it's obvious anyways. Um, direct sunlight is very harsh. It throws hard shadows. Now the sun is on its way down, so it's easier like the shadow in her face now in the direct light. Okay, here we see it. Well, the shade is up there over her eye, but her eye still gets some light. Can you hold this leave Just here. Take a photo. At this point, shadows in her face are super harsh because direct sunlight is the shadow of her nose. And actually move your head a little bit to the back, a bit more into the light. Very hard shadows can be beautiful to work with. Also something we've seen in the sha, before where we photographed. But here, extreme the contrast between her face that I'm exposing on and the background falling off drastically. We can, let's do the checking. Where is my light meter? Here it is. Just to put some numbers on it. Let's go to 0200. That will still be a lot direct sunlight. It's telling me 125 to 8.2 Now if I go to the shade that arena is throwing, it's 125 And almost four, four to four, let's say 82 stops of difference. The plants in the background will have even more. I want to see, this is a bit subtle. But we can see here now that I'm just throwing a shadow on her face with this leave. But because the leave is green, it gives it a green color. So similar concept as we had before with the red shirt reflecting the light into her face and giving it a red tint. Now it's getting a green tint because it's a green banana leaf. And if the leaf wasn't as thick, this effect would be even stronger. Think of F draws. So we see on the image how the right side has a bit more light and how the color is slightly different. It's only so slight here how it gives it a color tint. And generally to expose, to expose her face, right? Maybe I also do it with a bit more wide angle to expose her face, right? I have to bring the exposure up a lot, which means that it gets closer to the brightness of the background. Again, there is something I want to bring your attention to in this image. It's something we touched on before, but in a different context. That is, the direct sunlight in this image here is shining on Rena's dark brown hair. And it's shining directly on her shirt and a little bit of her skin. As you can see, the part skin and the shirt part are very overexposed, while the part where it's shining on in the dark brown hair is a tiny little bit overexposed, but it's very close to a good exposure. And we can see the structure in the hair very well still. That is because the hair is darker. We had that before when we were using the reflection of the stone. Then we were using the reflection of a white towel that we put on the stone that reflected more light into Ren's face. That is just good to know. When you have a scene where you have very bright and very dark surfaces, you're running the risk of over or under exposing either of those. You may want to try to find a middle ground between these two so that you can afterwards either save the highlights or save the lows. That's good to know. It's also good to know if you are working with a analog camera or with an SLR camera where you're not seeing a life view through the view finder that the light meter of the camera, or the classic light meter is going to measure the exposure for a neutral gray. Neutral gray, That's this part here. That's pretty much a neutral gray. That's what it measures for. If you measure a black surface with the light meter, the light meter is going to try to make that black surface neutral gray. It's going to make it lighter than you would actually want it to be, and vice versa. If you're holding it in front of a white surface, it will try to make a neutral gray and that is darker than the actual white surface. You should always take that into consideration if you're working either on film with an SLR. Yeah, that's very good to know. If you're enjoying the course so far, I would really appreciate if you would leave a positive review. That helps me a lot as a creator here on Skchair. If you have any questions, then feel free to post them in the comments below. And I'll be happy to get to you if you want to show us your experimentations, what you are playing with, with the light. You're also welcome to post them under the class. Let's keep going just for fun. Just fun we have in This is green. At really subtle, really not a lot. I take the green banana leaves away and see what happens if I put a red shirt. Whatever color you're using to reflect something off of or what color you use to let the sun shine through to take away a little bit of light a second. So coming, he's got some hill climbing skills. Whatever color we're using to let the sun shine through. Or maybe the light source, if you're working with flashes or what color we used to have it reflect off of, that makes quite a difference. This is beautiful example. Now's a good time to work with direct lights around this time where the sun is. Is going to set in like an hour and a half or something. It's going lower as harsh anymore. It's still not easy. But it's easy for Una to look into the light and maybe that's just for a couple of seconds. But you can do very interesting composition with this contrast of direct light. This actually, this is calling for composition. I love this. Let's have a quick look again at those photos that we took here with some shades coming from the leaves that were quite far away. And that made a bit of a structure in the shade where there is tiny movements that, yeah, bring the shade or the light between the shade in certain spots. Then we moved on and went into the direct sunlight that is throwing hard shadows and that can be an element of composition to play with. We can see that shade that is thrown by her eyebrows. Yeah, the shade thrown by the leaves. And that has very defined edges. We can generally also see how the image is warm, like sunlight is very warm. It's a very warm scenery. Again, the contrast between the face that is directly lit and the background is quite a sharp contrast. And this image was a bit of an outlier in this scene. And this is why it's good to look at it again because we saw how quickly when we move Reina from being in the direct sun behind the leaf that is throwing a proper full on shadow. How we need to expose for the face and bring the exposure up. And that equalizes the foreground and the background. There is a harsh contrast in this line that you see where the sun is because that is now extremely over exposed. You can also see it down on her shirt where the direct sun is. That is the light we were exposing for before when it was right in her face, as you can see now is extremely overexposed. Yeah. No heart shadows anymore? Much softer. It's equalized with the background. Yeah. Also the tonality like the colors and the white balance that the camera is going to read, that changes a lot. What's interesting about this is just to see that, yeah, very quickly, you can change the entire appearance of a scene by moving into a shade. Yeah. Without changing the exposure. Also, that was quite a drastic one. The red shirt, which I liked very much because that was a subtle color tint and it made there was a beautiful kind of shade. You could still see that there was hard light involved in it, but it's not in the scene anymore. Yeah. Bought this really nice red color tint. I really like that. Yeah, Direct sunlight, It may be hard to work with, but you find your way to work with it. You can create beautiful images, especially it's something it cannot do this. You cannot tell your eye to expose for the face and have everything else fall back. Fall off so quickly. Yeah. Can lead to very interesting photos. As I promised you, we're going through the process every time we go to a new space of finding the light and experimenting and seeing what there is. A lot of these photos, like I said, are not very good ones either because the light is just not very good. Also because I'm so busy talking to the camera, that I'm leaving Irina on the sideline. And there's not so much space for the magic to happen, but sometimes it does. Sometimes we find the light. And sometimes there is this moment of magic between Irina and the camera, besides lots of photos that I would push off the table. There are some that I really, really like at the end of the course, We're going to have a look at those together and maybe edit a couple also. 7. 06 Light spots / Open shade / Being attentive: We walked up here on the way up, I noticed this thing over there. I don't know what it, if it's a Solar or something. The light hits this thing and then it throws its light over here. This is what I'm talking about when I say awareness, when I get in into the tunnel I'm photographing, I'm in this tunnel, I'm looking for these things. I'm super sharp depending on the situation. Also aware of other things, of space, of people, of lots of things, but light, and this is what we're talking about today, is super important. Oftentimes, this is what decides what image I'm taking. What does the light tell me? Where does the light say? Here is something for you? This is one of those situations before it goes because the sun is moving and this reflection will not stay very long before it goes. I want to just take a couple of photos with it. So I asked Irina to go and move around until the reflection from this thing is the strongest. Now, it already moved, so you'll have to search again. I guess we saw a little point in her eyes that was the reflection of this thing. But also while, while we were like preparing filming this, because I walked up and we set it up and then I explained things about it. The situation already went. The sun moved. It's only been like like 5 minutes or something. The sun had moved. It moved to another spot. It wasn't as strong anymore, I'm not sure. The effect is very clearly visible. Now, I just want to bring your attention to these little things that happen everywhere. And if you bring your attention to it, you can see it and work with it and be painting with light. I want to show you what an open shade is. I think up there, there's no direct sunlight coming here. There could also be a roof over us, like it was there. But what an open shade means is that you're in the shade somewhere and there is an open space that gives you a light source. It's not a direct sun, it's just a space that is open or rather open. Now, this situation is not very open. It's not like we're under a tree and there is the ocean. That would be the ultimate open space kind of situation. There are trees going here, but there is a, a clear path of blue sky that brings soft light to Elena's face again. We can see also that there, again, it's not direct light, but the sun is coming more from this side. So we can see this is a bit more light then on the right, very soft. Maybe we can make it a bit more clear if you look up a little bit. Yes, this is good. Yes, very good. Maybe a little more down. Yes. Your eyes keep your eyes up a bit more here. Yes. Yeah. Because the light source of the open space, it's open shade. When I ask her to look up, this is the most even light, also the background, it falls off a little bit. It's rather even as she was looking up, we could see in her eyes the reflection. We can see the light source. And as you mentioned before, in the Shala, it was a rather like a stripe kind of light and now it's a different kind of shape. Our light source. Yes, and maybe there's, That's fine because I'm seeing a. Let's move around a little bit here. See this one? Very gently? Oh, yes. Yes, a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. See that we just talked about it when we were in the in the sunlight about, about the sun falling through the leaves. And here we have this. We can see this is where it's getting darker. Getting darker. But here, there is an area that has light and it's very subtle. But if we're going move a little bit, Yes. Now look up a bit more towards, this is what I talked about, the light situation Just says look at this. It says there is light here around this. It's rather dark compared to the open shade shot that we had in this direction that was evenly lit. This is now a specific spot that tells us, look, there's light here because the leaves are further away. It's a rather soft transition and the background falls off much more. You take another one with more background. I move already. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah, let's go up a little. Yeah, it's a changed. This means three, 4 minutes. The sun is moving down, means the spot of the sun and her face is moving up. Within those 3 minutes, the whole light situation changed. Boom. See something? Be quick. Whenever I see an image and maybe there's voice in me that's like, I'm tired. I'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow is, it's not just light. There's many factors, but light is one of them. When you see something, do it, don't come back. Or maybe you're curious about the place, about the situation. And I know a friend of mine working with a large format camera. And he took this photo off a bridge. And he went to this bridge like 20 times because he wanted to see Ana, actually did. She did a video project with her boyfriend going back to the same tree like five times during an hour hike to get there. Because they wanted the specific light on this tree and they just needed to do this hike to see where is the light like the way we want it. Yeah, If you see something and it's amazing, take the photograph, do it. But of course, if you're more of a slow, you know, you're working with a latch form a camera, you're working on a video project like like they did and you just have a specific idea. Go back to the same place, the same place on the next day, There'll be a cloud on the next day, something will happen. And like you saw here, within 3 minutes, the light changed. Yeah, light just changes in temperature. How soft or how hard it is from the morning midday to the evening to the night. Um, it changes a lot and it can change your image in a drastic way. I haven't taken a photo of Antonio yet. This is Antonio Firming us. Okay. Now we're going to go upstairs and do a little bit of indoor or something. 8. 07 Mysterious / Coorperate light: Are you were just on their way up? I can't stop seeing things. We walked up here and it's not like a light situation. I work a lot in or favor a lot, but I think many people do. I just thought, now is the last chance we can show this. Maybe we'll show this. Sun's coming towards us, falling through a little bit of leaves, but it's not a, there is two tree branches, there is not so much coming from this side. I just wanted to have a look at what we can do here. One thing would be to on the lighter side of her face over expose the sun completely. This is just about the spot where the sun is not in her face anymore, just on the side and is lighting up her hair a little bit. Can you go back a little bit? Oh, this is actually a situation that sometimes I see other people's photos and I'm like, oh, why am I not doing this? I have, I have a tendency to want the face to be like to, you can see it well. But sometimes I feel like I'm looking at other people's photos and I'm thinking, I kind of like the fact that they make it a bit more secretive and they're sort of not showing me something like I'm not having like the eye well lit. But it's more of a it's not really a silhouette shot. But it's encouraging. It's encouraging more to stay where you are. Lena. Stay, stay as you are. Okay. Can you go back to how you stood? Yeah. How do I explain this is imperfect in a way that the light doesn't really fall into her eye very much. It's falling off. It's what you would learn, like in a Portways Studio or something, family coming in. You want to see their face as well, but yeah, it's a imperfection that it can be beautiful and interesting in a different way. Yeah, I guess how I started photography in a corporate context where it was about job, job deliver the job and make the customer happy. There were just some things that I learned to do or not to do, a process of learning. Now try to try to do things that I once learned I should not be doing. And one of those things would be have the subjects face lit well. It's very subtle now how the sun is getting softer anyways. And it's like hitting this part, but it's not really hitting her face fully. Yeah, we win this in between zone. This is not like a fully lit, direct sunlight scene. This is purely in the shade scene. Moved a tiny little bit into the sun. It's very subtle changes of a few centimeters here and there. And the sun just becoming more and more gentle with us now not being so harsh anymore since we just spoke about it. Let's quickly point out the difference between rather, let's say, artistic or mysterious portway to a portway light that I would use in a rather corporate situation. Just by changing our angle to Rena by 90 degrees, we go from having half of her face dark to an image where the whole face is evenly lit and we have a spark of light in her eyes. Since we just took both of these photos within the span of just a couple of minutes, I thought it'd be good to just put them side by side and point it out. 9. 08 Last sunlight / Surface brightness / Muddy light: Okay, Yalla. Now, finally let's go up. Can you can you grab the reflector and the shirt? Don. Thank you. So, we walk back up to the bungalow that I'm actually staying in. Um and the sun is still there. You can see here in my face probably the sun. Yeah. But there are a little spots here where it's coming to us. You can see light on her face here when she moves over there. It's really oh, stay there. A and bring your eye to me. In this photo, I had her face exposed for the sun in her face, which it's getting softer. It's getting more red. So it changes the color of the light. And in the background of the shot, I have a dark wood and you can see how the background really falls off because it's a big contrast. Move over here, you stay where you are. Move over here a little bit there in the background, I get the jungle. The jungle is getting direct sunlight and some shady parts. Again, just like a little move from here, having the background dark, to moving over here a little bit. Getting this light in the background makes a huge difference. Now move over a little bit into here a little bit, a little bit here. There's no direct sun in her face anymore. Now the background is overexposed. Again, it's a matter of contrast between where my subject is and what the background does. Let's move a back, see what happens. Yes, a little more. Oh, you can see here. That was just a little move. That's too much. Stop here. There is like the least, the least amount of light coming directly to her face. It's a bit of a muddy light in her face. Again, of course there's not light coming from here, the dark wood. It's just a little bit of reflection coming back in here, but it's really not a lot. The light source is from the right and it's rather soft. Now if I move to the light source, I'm not having this contrast anymore. Of the sides of the faces as you can now also see. You can actually see the wood of the house and also the trees in the background. This is all more even, again, moving from this little spot in the sun over here makes a huge difference in contrast of the overall image. Let's have a little recap of that scene where what we've seen before, we had a direct sunlight spot on her face. And we had dark wood that didn't have any direct sunlight and it was dark in the background. Again, a super stark contrast. Then when we turned around a little bit, we got the jungle in which didn't have direct sunlight, but it was much more an open space than the balcony that we're in. It is brighter than the dark wood. The space is brighter and it is an element of composition. Then as we moved out of the very direct sunlight into the space where there was still a little bit of sun like it's on the edge. First we can see how the color changes in her face. It's not as darkish, yellowish, reddish anymore. It still is, but not as extreme anymore. But we can also again see the background and see how it got much brighter. Not because it got brighter, but because we are still exposing for Rena's face. Therefore, we have to bring it up. Yeah, the background gets brighter because of that. Then we moved into this spot where there was even less light, where the darkest spot on our balcony was there. We can see even more of the fall off in color like it's red, less vibrant. Yeah, just less saturated in general. Then when we move to the last image in that scene where there was no more direct sunlight and we turn to the side a little bit again and suddenly we can see the dark wood. It didn't get brighter in the last 5 minutes. It's just because it doesn't have any, there's no direct sunlight involved in the scene anymore. And her face, as well as the wood, a bit of a darker corner of the jungle, they're similar. We still have composition when it comes to to color. But yeah, the amount of light that reaches each of those is pretty similar. Let's keep going. Now, I want to go to you to the dark corner. The kitchen, which isn't actually a kitchen, like it doesn't have a stove or anything, as you can already see. Bless you. With me, do you see like we're in a closed space? Actually, there's a window open. Let's see if something changes. When I close that, probably yes. Does it now, I took away even more light. It's super dark. Let's see here on 816 1,650 of a second, at 0.2 What looks as a light situation when we came in here and it dark, it doesn't look very interesting when setting the camera to this and exposing it properly, which is now I'm at the 30th of a second at ISO 1,602 It's actually quite beautiful. It's really so a little bit more on this side of the face coming from there, because this is where the house is. It's a little bit open again. This is the concept of the open shade just now, much more subtle because the light that comes from the open space is just softer. And it's less. Oh, we'll see there. Yeah. Something to work with. This was a tunnel, we would go back. This light would also become more directed. What I want to do now is go inside with you because now we've worked a lot with direct sunlight and reflection of spaces and open shades, situations that have light and like you can bring vibrant light. Now, this place, my bungalow here, it doesn't get direct sunlight ever. Yeah, probably situations you will find yourself quite often because unfortunately there's always a beautiful light source. It is very good and I think easier, especially for beginner to understand what I'm talking about when I'm working with direct light. But I want to go in and work with some really soft and subtle in there. And show you this. Let's go. 10. 09 Indoor / Directed light: A big place behind the camera. Now there is the balcony that we've just been been standing on with the mosquito nets and that's bringing in a bit of light. There is a rather open space behind arena at the window. There is a window here. Let's open that window. Maybe have a look at the space. What happens when I open that window? You can see it on the bed, we think. You can see that this is quite well lit because it has direct light from there and how it falls off towards this, this side of the bed. Now, if we open this, suddenly this has a lot more light. I can close this door. I can close this window. We can play with this a little bit. Let's keep the mosquitoes out, because it's mosquito hour. What I want to start with just an image of Lena on the chair. Can you have a seat then, Antonio? You can come around to me. First thing I notice is this side of the face that is lit by the window, it's rather soft. What we can also see, there is a white wall behind. But this wall doesn't really get much light from anywhere. It falls off into a gray. Again, we have a bit of a contrast here. If I expose for the light, for the side of a face that is in the light. Now I would like you to. Can you move as far as you can to the table? Yes. So now I'm going from 125th, let me take away that cable. I'm going from 125th of a second on the previous portrait to two hundredths of a second. Again to expose for the light on the side. Yes, Yes. Stay there on the side of her face. The background falls off even more there. We see in our eyes again, we see the space outside reflecting in her eye. Now as she turned her face in. We also don't not so much of a contrast anymore between the two sides of the face. Move your head a little bit Slowly, slowly. To me. Yes. Let's have you sit there on the bed. And then I want to work with the window and the door already. You can see in her face. Now you need to be careful not to stand in the light source. She moves back now a meter from the table to the bed. The amount of light that reaches her face a decreased a lot. The setting I used before in the previous images. Right by the window. Let me check. I'm moving down like about two stops. I'm moving down to expose right for her face. By moving a meter back from where she was in this satellite, this fall off of the light. It happens quite quickly. We can kind of see here also. Can you where you are, can you move down from there like this, Kind of Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. Stop. Wow, so on the previous image, we've seen that her shirt was quite light and it's because of the angle that the light comes in there is. There's like forest there. The light is, the open sky part is rather further up. The light falls on here. It doesn't fall straight in but it falls down. When she was sitting on the bed, her face was just it wasn't really where the light is reaching properly. As she moved, she moved into the angle where the light is actually coming in, coming in a beautiful angle and it's very soft. Yeah. Beautiful to work with. Now, I want to just keep the same situation and I want to see what happens when I close the door and the window. That's the door of the balcony that we just stood on and we go back to the same situation. Wow, yes, Yeah, what they did, it, it's still a soft light input, but because I closed these two sides, I took away some of the light that actually lit more of the surrounding. So that makes it focus. Oh, stay there. Yeah. Very beautiful. Soft shadows? Yeah, one light source. Because we're in a room and because it's directed through a window, that makes it a direct light rather than being in an open shade where there was also passive. There's more light, there's less light. But this is a pretty straightforward, simple one window, no direct light like the sun is probably has gone down by now. Just light that is in the, that is in the sky. Let's have a look at those again. First, we're by the window and it is a rather soft light that we're getting there in terms of it's not direct sunlight or anything, but it does appear quite harsh in that situation, it's a very directed light. And the other light sources, the open window and the door, they don't bring much into this in comparison to the light from the window, but especially because she's with the side to the light source, the side of the face that is not facing the window, it falls off a lot. This is why it appears contrast like. It has a lot of contrast this light. But actually when you look at the shades, like down on her neck for example, you can see that they're not very harsh shadows. It's more because, yeah, she's turn with the side to the light source. We could also see in those images how turning the person to the light source can bring this light spot in the eyes that otherwise wouldn't be there. But what I found really significant here was the scene on the bed where we had the first scene with the window and the door open. It brings light into the back of the scene, also because she's not as close to the window as she was in the first photos, but she moved rather back again. It's this concept of equalizing the light sources. But what was really interesting to me was she was going down and she was getting into a space where the light folds in more directly that just made a beautiful light. That again, allowed me to have the background fall off much more and have more of a separation between her and the background. I love, you can see there are shades under her eyebrows and from her chin it's throwing a shade, it is directional, I think where you see at the best. What I mean when I say it's a soft light. Um, it does throw a shade, but it's throwing a soft shade, really beautiful. And then again, when closing the door and the window, the background folds off even more. Yeah. Let's keep going. Okay. Stand in the entrance. So I closed both windows inside. Oh, wait, wait. Say that. Oh, that's okay. Okay. Let's turn around. No, already in the ten, 15 minutes we've been inside, the light changed again. It's it's even softer than before. It's very warm evening light. Now, what I want to do is slowly, slowly walk in with you and see how the light changes as we go in and enter like a dark space. Yeah. So you can take a step up and go in? Yes. Do you see that? One step one thing is she moved up a little bit and because there was a roof. Um, again, talking about angle of light. Yeah. This is making a difference. And that's not even like that's going back 10 centimeters and going up 15 centimeters. That's what made the difference. Now, if we start moving in slowly, slowly, okay, stop there. First of all, more and more, we notice how just the light goes, but also there's not much coming from the sides anymore. Again, it's becoming, it's becoming more directed. I need to do some acrobatics now to photograph somehow. I need 3,200 Yeah, directed light again. Let's, let's make another step all the way to the bed. I think I need to be careful now also to stand in the little bit of light source that I have because when I do, it's having an effect. Now I have this little surface there in the back that gets a little bit of light from the door. I can use that as a light spot. You can see there's not much coming from the right. If I go to the other side here somewhere, the background is darker. Just for fun, you stay there. I'm going to open the window again in the back. By adding another light source in the back, it makes the background brighter. But it's also an element of composition to play with, To have basically a white surface. It appears on the image because the outside is much brighter than in here. Again, for fun, opening the other, the other window. Now we have two elements to play with. The whole space appears lighter. We have more than one light source, so it's not only this directed light. Yeah. So whether you do that with flashes or you do that in a room. Yeah. Of every light source even if it's just the end of the day and there's not much light coming. As we saw the distance to the light source, you could see that here. It makes a huge difference. Again, how close are you, what does that mean for the contrast of the foreground and the background? Yeah. All things to consider. Yeah. Now we're going to leave the house, maybe have a slice of watermelon again, and go to the outside where the sun has now set. And yeah, we're going to say bye bye today. Bye bye to the light, see what we do with what's left. 11. 10 Last light of the day: You're rolling? You're rolling? We're rolling in the studio. The source, the sun has set and different shades of blue are in the sky. Sub soft light. Yeah. It's a matter of half an hour, 45 minutes until it's going to be fully dark cloud. I really love this light. So you can come out here a little bit and we can see, we can generally see in her face, the light is very soft. Again, we're in an shade this time, it's just an open space. Now, it's because of sunset. It may just be a cloudy day, this could be the situation. Let's have a look at this in a picture. How soft light is affecting our image as she's standing now. Can still see there is, there is a side that is facing the light and there is a side that is yeah, no light. If we would be doing the same thing in a more, with more sun, again, this would be reflecting, it would change the contrast. But now there's not really coming much reflection anymore. Yeah, nice composition. Here again, we have these elements of a brighter surface, a darker side of the face, a lighter side of the face, and then darker nature in the background. So we have like a light. Just a little thing that I noticed now. Again, play with surfaces. Be aware of how light they are. Then of course, we're not even talking about color today. That's a whole other thing. Now, when we turn to the light, Yeah. We have a very evenly lit face. Very soft colors. Colors are very soft. Yeah. As soon as the sunlight, there was a boost to color contrast to vibrance subtle. Now, let's move into the studio. A ball down, and stop there. Now she's still by the open space. Can you take this leg down a little bit by the open space, but the light falls off in the background. This is beautiful. It's similar to what we've done in the bungalow before. Yeah. In a bit more spacious setting. Now in this image, you can also see that color comes in that she skinned light and then there is a soft green because there's no more direct sunlight, the entire light situation of the world right now. Even out more. Yes, I can bring more elements that if I would be here in the same situation, like two, 3 hours before and there would be full sun here. I couldn't be working with the same elements or I could work with them, but they would have a completely different relation to each other during the day. Yeah, the strength of the light changes, the angle of the light changes. It affects our whole ability to composition with different elements in the space. By the way, light has different colors as you noticed, and those light colors are measured in Kelvin. A candle has a color of 1,500 Kelvin. These light bulbs that you see behind me have a temperature of 2,700 Kelvin. This light in front of me has a temperature of 3,800 Kelvin in a day. It can range anywhere from 5,000 Kelvin in the morning, then the daytime, somewhere between 5,600 which is considered the standard daylight temperature. But it has a bigger range depending on if it's cloudy, if it's the blue hour, what time of the day it is. You can look those up really easily. It's not something that I have in my head all the time and that I'm thinking about constantly when I'm taking photos. But it's just something I wanted to at least mention once in the course. The light that is so not very strong is now softened even more by this, I guess it's bamboo mutt. Can you turn your face a bit more to it? Turn, yes. Bring your eyes to me. Let's move just a tiny little bit away from it. This again goes into this direction of, I've kind of been told not to do this and not to work with something like this. That, that is maybe a bit more mysterious or not clear. Like I cannot see her eyes very well. But that can be part of the magic to, to have more communicated through a body posture, for example. Then through actually seeing a face and what the face is expressing. Something I want to encourage myself to do, to dare to do that. Okay. If you follow me, we can actually also see in my face, like now I'm nicely lit somewhere here. Okay. We want to go down slowly to the restaurant where we've been before and switch on some artificial lights. Yeah, see if we stumble on anything on the waiver. That's the plan. And then we finished for today. 12. 11 Artificial light: We left the open space that we've been in, 10 meters up from here, like right where the open sky is, we went down here and now as you can see there's trees and behind that is the sky. But it doesn't have much strength anymore to bring significant light here. Yeah, when we see in our face look into her face, we can see that her eyes are all rather dark. There was a little bit of light coming there still, But yeah, depending on what you want. I would say this again, this is what you're looking for and if you find a specific style that just works in this light, you may be creating beautiful body of work for the Portway photography we're talking about. Now, this is getting a bit more tricky and so well lit if you want to say that. But I saw something on the way down as we go down with her, you can see in her face, so how there is some light coming in. Now, Let's stop here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's this little lamp on the side of the path. It's not a red light, but it's pretty dark orange. And that folds on to her. And if I go down, oh, can we see this? Can we see this is arena without the light. Then if I move to the side, this is when the light comes in. If I turn around and bring, trying to hide the studio, bring in a bit of the surrounding light in there. Yeah, you can see this nice contrast of this really warm light coming from there. Um, and the light of the sky that gets cold. Let's move to the light, let's go again, like a meter and a half moving from over there to the light. It's, it's becoming much stronger. It's an interesting time to work with this mixture of artificial light sources and the rest of the light that the space provides. Here, what we talked about in the beginning with the stone. Now we have this bright concrete path leading up there. Beautiful the blue sky that is slowly going in, getting darker. It's reflect this blue rather cold light onto the path. And then we have a contrast of this warm light hitting arena. Yeah. Special time, special time of day to mix this cold or rather cold light from the space and artificial light. Beautiful. Let's get really close to the light for once. Yeah. Go down with your face. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's a lot in a way similar to a situation that we had up in the bungalow now where there is pretty much one light source we're working with, but the light source is like 30, 40 centimeters away from her face. Pretty hard light source and everything. Everything else. Fw before we took a photo where she was, she was further away from the lights. So we could bring in the environment. If I now go over to the place where The path would come in. You can see that it's not coming in anymore because again, in contrast to our light source, it's not strong enough. That was fun last stop, I promise. So we're back in the restaurant where we were before when there was sun coming in. Yeah, there was some sun on the floor. Sort of an open shade situation. But now as the sun is setting, we came back and turned on these beautiful warm lights that we have here. Pretty quite soft light. I just want to take a couple of photos, because now the amount of light that comes from these lamps and what is outside is somewhat similar. I would say the lamps are a bit brighter than what's outside, but yeah. Oh, see there. But this beautiful contrast of the warm artificial light and the rather cold light outside. Oh, yeah. Can you look up again? Yes. What she's doing now is very favorable because the problem that you have a lot when when being inside with artificial light, a problem that you have a lot is that the light comes from the top. And the area where the eyes are just fall into the dark. Again, this can be an interesting element for a photo to actually not show someone's eyes, but show lines on the face that are being lit. But keep the eyes in a kind of a mysterious spot. So what she did before to look up like that can be a thing to do to bring the face to the light. Or maybe you can move the light and bring it down. Or there is a light that is just more on the height of the person you're photographing. So it doesn't throw that shadow. Yes. And I think that's it. Maybe let's go somewhere where we have nice light. How's that? Yes. Yeah, Also something we can do. Move away a little bit to have a better angle on the light. Thank you very much for joining us. That was a to different light situations to play with different times. Not only for portrait photography, but if you learn and master this skill of looking and understanding the light that you're working in, this is a big step in your photography, whatever it is that you're doing. Thanks very much to Antonio. Filming to Dan assisting. And yeah, I hope you've learned a lot and I hope you're having fun taking photos. Okay. 13. 12 Favorites / Editing / Outro: Let's have a quick look at my favorite photos of the day. There were a few. Like I said, it's always a journey to find the magic in the light. Also, like I said, so much explaining to the camera. I left no on the sideline, there was not so much space to create a space that is actually suitable for taking portways and for having a connection between me as a photographer and Reina is the person I photographed. But every now and then all the magic came together. We're going to jump into capture one. My converter software. Yeah, have a look at my favorite photos and edit a couple of those. Just a little bit. Let's go. This photo is my first favorite of the day. That was actually quite a while in our session are just took us a while to get into the groove. Me and Antonio, the cameraman, and Rena, and the light of course, I think here is where it came. It all came together for the first time. I'm really liking that is the image is surrounded by these dark areas all around here. Then there is blight in the center on the leave. And her face, the shirt and the pants. I also like this color combination of the green, brownish colors. And then, yeah, leaning into the red, almost the pants. Now, what would I maybe do with this image? I would like to try to equalize more the face and the shirt. As you can see here, I had already brought exposure up in the image that you saw. That is, this is how I took the image. I didn't want to take it here because as you can see here was seven point something. The shirt is already going close to being overexposed. This is why in the situation I exposed the photo rather down here. Now I could either go and brighten up the leaf and her face. Let's try the middle thing to be, the 70 exposure. And then here, bring the highlights down a little bit. As you can see that mainly has an effect on the shirt. I'll bring it down just a bit and then make an extra layer to make this a little bigger da mask on the shirt area. I think that's good. Another at 100% opacity, which is why I'm doing it twice. Then I can only, in this area, bring the highlights down as you can see a bit more. I go to the general exposure as well, then maybe let's make another layer a little bit smaller then draw another mask onto her face. And bring that up a little bit. Yeah, I think somewhere around here I would land at Sea Vignette does anything. Let's not do that now. This is how I would leave it. We can have a look at the white balance, but I think I would be happy with this as it is. Let's not mess with that. Nice. Okay, let's keep going to the next one. This one, I really, really liked such a chaotic, weird background. Yeah, I really like that. I don't think I would do too much to it. Make it a little bit? Yeah. Possibly even Et, but just ever so slightly. Yeah. I think that's it. Maybe bring the highlights. Let's see, on her neck. That's where it should have the most effect. Yes, bring down the highlights. Yeah. But again, I wouldn't do too much to it, which is a good sign. That means that we paid attention to the light and the scene in situation in the moment. Yeah. It's not a bad sign to be happy with your images as they are. This one I really, really liked. That was the moment when we had closed the door and the window area, the background is falling off into the darkness quite a lot. I was actually explaining something to the camera in that moment and then noticed on the side that A got into this posture. I got her in a situation that she naturally got herself into that and I found it quite a good posture. Let's do a little bit with that. I think the light is a bit cold. You remember the sun had gone down? It's a little cold. I would make it a little bit warmer. Maybe bring the highlights down a little bit. Has most effect on the bed. I'm looking at a face now. Then again, I would make a second layer in light room. If you're using light room, you can do the same thing. They work in a slightly different way. This is not about showing you a software anyways, just using basic functions of the software. Then let's make this a little big, maybe a little bit of a harder edge then I would see if I can this bed down a little bit, especially down here on the edge. I think this is where it's the lightest. Again, I'm not working on 100% opacity. I'd rather go over it twice and having a bit more smooth then I can take away some of that mask that I just make a harder edge for that to take away some of that mask that I drew onto the shirt because I don't really want it there. I want it on the bed. Then I would pull this down a little bit. Yeah. Make her stand out even more Because the bed is white again. It reflects more light and it pops out more than I would Maybe you want it to? Yeah, let's see, the green tint. I'm in the wrong layer now. Let's go back. Want to go to the main layer? Yeah. Yeah, run about there. Maybe it's a bit too much. A little bit too much of the green? Yeah, Again, not too much. I think mainly bringing a little bit of warmth in there because the light was a bit cold at that time of day. That will be my next one interesting. I found that quite some of the images that were more mysterious and where you're not seeing the eyes very well, they tend to be up in my favorites of this day. This is one of them really mysterious. I like that. One thing I did with this, I'll show you. There was this one light here in the background that I took away. What I also did is that I brought the exposure up a it's something with this Fuji camera that when I photograph with it in the dark, it makes the image in the viewfinder appear lighter than it actually is. It's something that I just don't always think about. I forget about it. Underexposed images that, in a rather dark setting. But it's a raw file and digital raw file that I have quite some, some room to bring it up afterwards. And you can see here, I already brought it up about 1.5 stops. What I also did in this one was a white balance adjustment because, yeah, this is the original scene that I got. I found that to be very cold, Much colder than it appeared in the moment. That's what I mean with a white balance. Misread that. The camera doesn't always exactly know, especially when it goes to these situations where it's dark and there's artificial light, natural light in a mixture. That's where can get a bit confused sometimes. But again, it's aphile and it's not the end of the world. I'm bringing it up again a little bit, little bit into the green. Somewhere here. Yeah. These are the adjustments that I did and that you've seen in the course that I had to do for the reasons that I just explained. Apart from this, again, just I'm happy with it as it is my last favorite of the day. I'm really liking the warm to cold contrast which comes from the artificial light and the light outside. Again, an image where you cannot see the eyes very well. Yeah, this is also an image, I don't know why there was a one contrast. That's odd. Yeah, One where I brought it up a tiny little bit as you see, but apart from this I would leave it as it is. Yeah, So those are my favorites. I took. I'm not sure how many exactly 130 or something photos in the day. Considering that I was actually explaining things to the camera and all the lacking connection with Lena, I'm quite happy that we ended up with, or I ended up with five photos that I would be very happy to show them to the world. That was it for our journey. Exploring the light, experimenting and playing with it. I really hope you enjoy it, and that you feel that you took something from it. But the next step has to be that you go out in the world and you explore and experiment yourself. And try and fail to find the light that holds the magic in your eyes. Doing so is also a great factor when it comes to consistency in your work. May that be just one photo series? Or generally, if you keep finding the things, the light, the topics that you want to work with, the specific camera you want to work with. All of these things contribute to making your work recognizable as your work. Think about that next time you're out with your camera. For now, if you have any questions, you're very welcome to post them below the class. I'll be happy to get back to you. I would really appreciate if you would leave a positive review for this course because that helps me a lot as a creator here on Skill Chair, I have a beautiful website that I put a lot of work and love in and social channels that you're very welcome to follow Of course, if you want to talk about your own work and you want a second set of eyes to look at it and get feedback and maybe inspiration for where could be a next step for you to go. You're welcome to get in touch about this as well. For now, I wish you a beautiful rest of the day. I'll see you one day. Bye bye.