Using natural light in your photography to enhance the mood.
Following on from the excerpt from the “Click! How to take gorgeous photos of your kids” I published, I want to give a good example of how the light can add mood to a photo, especialy with a photo of a child.
Natural low sunlight will add a lovely warm glow
This is a photo I took of my son toasting a marshmallow on the chimnea in the garden.
I wanted to capture the whole mood of the moment naturally, this meant taking the shot without getting his attention away from his marshmallow he’s toasting, and using the warm light from the low sun just starting to set. His position in relation to the sun was just perfect as the light just brushed over him and warmly lit his face up, it’s almost as if the warmth from the chimnea is lighting him up as he’s tosting his marshmallow.
Use the low sun to warm up the shot
When the sun is low in the sky like this it gives a wonderful warm glow to just about everything and can be used to enhance or create a mood in an otherwise ordinary photo.
This was shot on my FujiFinepix S9500 @ f/3.5 1/160 with an ISO-80.
These setting work well because:
The low ISO setting of 80 will help colour saturation and produce no grain, keeping the mood warm and soft.
The aperture setting of f/3.5 is quite wide and lets in lots of light to enable a fast shutter speed of 1/160 sec. This shutter speed keeps the shot sharp, even with the light being low.
Please leave your thoughts, comments – and click the like or recommend if you found this helpful.
