Color of Light

From the instant the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, daylight is constantly shifting in color. While we may notice the particularly golden light of dawn or the inky blue light of twilight, our eyes and brain tend to neutralize the gradual color changes in between, making daylight appear colorless.

The color of daylight, however, has a profound effect on the atmosphere of a photograph, and knowing how it affects the emotional content of an image enables you to control the mood of your travel photos. A castle bathed in the cool blues and grays of twilight may seem mysterious or gloomy, even foreboding. The same castle splashed in the yellow and amber waves of early morning light appears to be safe or beckoning, summoning the reassuring memories of a favorite childhood fairy tale. Changes in daylight's color occur most rapidly—and are most dramatic—at the beginning and end of the day, so work quickly at these times if you want to capture a particular mood.

Tip: With zoom lenses you can get a novel special effect by changing focal lengths during an exposure. The result is a sharp central subject engulfed in a burst of light streaks.

Indoor Natural Light

Because much of our vacation time is spent indoors in hotel rooms, restaurants and museums, it's important to know how to shoot in these situations. You can usually get away with just using a flash, but the indiscriminate blast of flash destroys the intimate mood of existing light, whether it's daylight or artificial lighting. By using a fast ISO setting, a fast lens (f/2.8 or faster), and a tripod (or some combination of those three things), you can shoot nice pictures even in the most dim ambient illumination, and without resorting to flash.

Museum and other interiors lit by daylight are often bright enough so that you can work at handheld shutter speeds and still get a natural color balance. Window light also has a soft and even quality good for casual portraits; be sure, however, to position yourself to shoot with rather than into the light, or it will fool your meter into underexposing your subject's face.

When shooting pictures indoors using artificial light, you will have to make a decision about which white balance setting to use. Because all artificial light sources produce light of a different and specific color, it's important that you try to match the white balance to the existing light, or the scenes may have an incorrect overall color cast. If you know the source of most of the lighting (tungsten lamps, for example), you can simply choose the white balance setting that matches the lighting. Things get trickier when a scene contains unknown sources (in a hotel lobby, for example) or when there are several different light sources. In those situations, try to make your best guess about the main light source. If you guess wrong, or if you're combating multiple sources, you can easily correct the color balance during editing.

Often when shooting indoors, you'll work with a mix of natural and artificial lighting, and the results can be evocative. In taking an informal portrait by a window in a pub, for instance, you might have daylight from a window, a lamp on a nearby wall, and a candle at the table. The color balance will be natural in the areas lit by daylight but have a warm glow in areas lit by the lamp and candles.

Lights in Motion

Taking long exposures of lights in motion is a night-photography special effect that often appears in travel-magazine photos and is easy to mimic. Because your camera has the unique ability to record the paths of moving lights, it can reveal patterns and designs of light that are entirely invisible to the eye. Unfortunately, you can use the technique only if your camera has a shutter that you can lock open or that lets you set very long exposure times (10 seconds or longer).

An example of light streaking is the swirling trails of automobile head—and taillights. It is a great way to brighten up city street scenes, especially when you shoot from a high enough vantage point to reveal an elaborate traffic pattern or when you include a landmark, such as the Arc de Triomphe, as a focal point. One curious aspect of this technique is that while the film perfectly records the glow of headlights and taillights, the cars are moving too fast to be recorded, so they disappear. Taking an exposure reading for traffic lights is all but impossible, so your best bet is simply to set a small aperture (f/11 or smaller) to give you adequate depth of field, then keep the shutter open long enough for the lights to move all the way through the frame.

You can use the same technique to photograph carnival or amusement-park rides in motion. Ferris wheels and other spinning rides are especially attractive, because their colorful light displays form dramatic swirls of light. To get the complete-circle effect, you have to be sure to shoot at least one revolution of the ride. A good way to do this is to pick a spot on the wheel, wait until it hits the twelve-o'clock point, then keep the shutter open until it passes that point again.

Remember, these are experimental techniques, so it's a good idea to shoot lots of photos and bracket widely.

Fill-In Flash

Although making dark places brighter is the primary use of flash, the next-best place to use it, surprisingly, is outdoors in bright sunlight. One of the problems of taking pictures—especially individual or group portraits—using midday sun is that the harsh lighting creates deep, distracting shadows. In people pictures, this usually means dark eye sockets and unattractive shadows under the nose and lips. Fill-in flash lightens these shadows to create more attractive portraits.

Fill-in flash looks most natural when it's about a stop darker than the main light. When the flash-to-daylight ratio is too even, or when flash overpowers the existing light, the balance looks false and draws attention to the fact that you used flash. Until the advent of built-in and dedicated accessory flash, calculating for fill-in flash was like doing the math for sending a rocket into another galaxy. It was easier (and quicker) to wait for a hazy day.

Today, most built-in and dedicated flash units have a special mode just for fill-in flash. Basically, all you do is point and shoot. The camera reads the ambient lighting and then kicks out just enough flash to fill shadows but leaves the picture natural-looking. Many dedicated accessory flash units even let you set a specific flash-to-daylight ratio, so you can make the fill more or less bright. Because a dedicated flash's output is mated to the autofocusing system, the camera even knows how far away your subject is.

Fill-in flash shouldn't be limited to taking pictures of people. I frequently use it to open up the deep shadows in close-ups of flowers or architectural details.

Using Your Light Meter

If built-in exposure meters are as sophisticated as camera manufacturers claim, why do people still get poorly exposed pictures? The truth is that while most built-in meters are fabulously accurate, they can be fooled. Fortunately, there are ways to wrestle difficult subjects into submission, provided you can recognize a difficult situation.

Light meters are calibrated to give you good exposure for subjects of average brightness; fortunately, most outdoor subjects are of average brightness. Problems pop up when you want to photograph subjects that are much lighter or darker than average. Rather than recording such scenes as you see them, the camera will see—and record—them as a medium tone. Instead of pristine white snow, you'll get a drab gray winter wonderland; instead of an inky-black horse, you'll get a gray nag.

If your subject is nearby, or very large, the simplest solution is to take a close-up reading and then adjust the exposure using your exposure-compensation dial (or manually) by a stop or two. To photograph this swan, for example, the photographer took a direct reading of the swan and then added 1 1/2 stops of exposure. This recorded the swan as white and still cast the water into blackness. To photograph a black bull in a meadow, take a reading from the animal and subtract one to two exposure stops to keep it black.

The problem gets tedious when you are photographing a relatively small average-toned subject against a very dark or light background—a friend lying on a bright sandy beach, for instance. The best recourse here is to use your spot-metering mode and take a reading of just the subject. This way, your main subject will be correctly exposed, even if, because of the contrast, you lose some detail in the background. Yet another solution is to scout the scene for something of average brightness—green foliage is good—and set your exposure for that.

Lights at Night

Nighttime is loaded with bright and colorful subjects to photograph—neon lights, theatrically lighted landmarks and monuments, carnival rides, fireworks, etc.

The stripes and squiggles of neon lights and signs are colorful and provide good results over a wide range of exposures. Sometimes the lights are bright enough that you can take handheld exposures with the camera set to a moderately fast ISO speed of 400 or 800. Sometimes individual signs work as a whole, but more often you'll create stronger images by moving in close to isolate patterns or abstract designs within a sign—a colorful slice of pizza in a restaurant sign, for example. In neon-heavy locales like Las Vegas or Times Square, use a telephoto lens to compress space and squeeze a number of lights into a brilliant abstract composition.

Carnival and amusement parks abound with night lights. You can get a bird's-eye-view by climbing aboard the Ferris wheel. Lighting will be fairly dim, so use a very fast ISO setting of 1000 to 1600 for sharp handheld photos, or use a tripod and long shutter speeds at ground level to capture the motion of the rides.

Bridges, fountains, and monuments are often more interesting to photograph at night, when they are theatrically lighted and the darkness hides distracting or unattractive surroundings. Use a tripod to steady the camera, and make long exposures so you can use small apertures for maximum depth of field. Exposure isn't critical; move in close, take readings of just the lighted areas (or use your spot-meter mode if your digital camera has one), and bracket exposures a stop or two in both directions using your exposure-bracketing feature. Don't fret about getting a correct color balance as most night scenes include a variety of light types and there really is no way to balance them all in one shot.

Using the Flash on Your Camera

Fast ISO speeds and fast lenses make it easy to work in all but the most dim lighting conditions, but there are times when turning to electronic flash is a better and more predictable alternative. For example, because the duration of flash is so brief (often measured in thousandths of a second), you can use it to get sharp pictures of moving subjects in very dark surroundings, like dancers in the ballroom of a cruise ship. The drawback of flash is that it produces a comparatively harsh and obtrusive light.

Most point-and-shoot and many DSLR cameras have a built-in flash that is capable of producing good results over a modest distance range, typically from about three to 15 feet with an ISO 100 film. Accessory flash units for DSLRs are considerably more powerful and sophisticated than built-ins, frequently providing a maximum shooting range of 100 feet or more.

Most accessory flash units these days are "dedicated," meaning that they're designed for use with specific brands and models of cameras and use incredibly sophisticated circuitry to communicate between camera and flash. The flash automatically knows, for example, the ISO setting of the camera and sets its output accordingly. In addition, virtually all digital cameras use "TTL" (through-the-lens) light metering, so that the camera measures the reflected flash at the sensor plane and shuts off the unit when enough light has been supplied. Flash exposure in general is very accurate.

A problem peculiar to taking portraits with any type of electronic flash is the phenomenon known affectionately as "red eye," the somewhat satanic red glint in subjects' pupils often seen in photos. The effect occurs as the flash reflects off the rear surface of the retina. Many flash units, both built-in and accessory, have a red-eye-reduction feature that uses a series of brief preflashes to constrict the pupil, thereby eliminating the effect. This is a feature worth paying extra for if you photograph people often.

Dramatic Lighting

One of the great thrills of travel photography is coming unexpectedly upon a sudden and dramatic light phenomenon—when the light's direction, color, or intensity stops you in your tracks.

As a traveler, you don't often have the luxury of waiting by a scene for a spectacular bit of lighting, but if you know when such light is likely to occur, you can be on the lookout for it. Among the best times to expect dramatic lighting are just before or after a storm. Storms often end with dozens of brilliant rays of sun bursting through a bank of clouds. Similar displays occur on almost any sunny day inside many cathedrals, when the sun pierces the highest windows and a thousand rays gleam down on the altar. Another way to increase your odds of capturing these moments is to rise before the sun and linger until long after it has set. In addition to the theatrics of sunset and sunrise, the low-angle light of these times often brings high drama.

Silhouettes

In photography, the simplest and most effective way to reveal a shape is by creating a silhouette. You can use silhouettes in your travel pictures to dramatize subjects whenever shape is more important than form or texture, or just to jazz up your slide shows.

To create silhouettes, simply put an opaque object in front of a bright background and expose for the background. Any brightly colored surface will work: a glittering gold sea at sunset, a cheerful colored wall, or even the illuminated glass wall of an aquarium. Alas, intriguing subjects and colorful backgrounds don't just appear when you want them to. You'll have to use your artistic eye to spot the potential of a bright background and then hunt around until you match it with a suitable foreground subject.

Look for subjects that have a bold and simple shape. It's important, too, that the subject be entirely surrounded by the bright background. A fisherman on the beach at sunrise will produce a clearly identifiable shape, but fishing boats lined up too closely in a row may merge into a dark clump.

Exposing for silhouettes is fairly simple; as with sunsets, a variety of exposures will produce good results. If your camera has an averaging meter (as do most point-and-shoots), be sure to skew the viewfinder toward the brighter area and then use your exposure-lock feature to hold that exposure. If you have a DSLR with a spot-metering feature, take a reading of just the bright area and then bracket in half- or full-stop increments toward overexposure.

Light Quality

Hard light blasts its way across the landscape, zapping subjects with brilliant highlights and creating jet-black shadow areas. Soft light awakens worlds of subtle hue and gradation and provides a gentle but pleasant modeling in both landscapes and portraits. Because you can't alter the quality of light (other than by waiting for it to change), the key is to match it to a compatible subject: hard light to accent the graphic lines of an industrial landscape, or soft light for a group portrait.

Moonlight

Opportunities for shooting a landscape by moonlight only occur a few nights a month as the moon waxes into and then wanes out of its full phase. When these moments occur, it's nice to know how to capture them. You can photograph two types of moonscapes: those that feature the moon itself (both full moons and crescent moons are nice) in the frame and those that are simply landscape exposed by the light of the moon. Shooting the latter requires a very bright cooperative moon and a relatively high ISO (probably 800 or higher).

The best time to shoot landscapes that include the moon is shortly after the sun has set, just as the moon is beginning to rise: The moon appears largest at this time because of the visual land reference of the horizon and the refraction of the earth's atmosphere. As lighting is predominantly from the twilight sky, you'll still get a sufficient amount of foreground detail. Look for simple scenes you can compose with a telephoto lens of 300mm or longer; remember that the longer the lens, the larger the moon will appear. Exposure can be based on meter readings of the foreground, but be careful to avoid exposure of more than a few seconds or the moon's shape will become elongated.

If your camera allows you to make exposures of several seconds or longer, landscapes illuminated exclusively by the full moon but not including the moon can make eerie, ethereal pictures. The technique works best with snowscapes or beaches, because light reflected from snow or sand brightens the entire scene. Exposures will still be quite long: even with the ISO set to 800 or 1000, start with exposures of two seconds at f/2.8 and them make several additional exposures, doubling the time for each successive shot (if you have a manual-exposure mode) or adding extra light with your exposure compensation feature. You'll need a tripod.

If you want to be really creative, consider taking two exposures: one of the moon with a very long lens (300mm or longer) and then a landscape with a normal lens and combine the two shots in editing. The moon will appear huge in the landscape.

Direction of Lighting

The direction from which light strikes a scene, relative to the camera position, has a significant effect on color, form, texture, and depth in the resulting photo. Frontlighting spills over your shoulder and falls squarely on the front of your subject. Because frontlighting is very even, auto-exposure systems handle it well. It produces bold, saturated colors, but when too strong it can actually wash out some colors. The downside is that, because all the shadows are falling behind the subject and away from the camera, frontlit scenes lack a sense of depth or three-dimensionality.

Sidelighting comes from the left or right of a subject. Because the light is scraping across from side to side, it catches every surface blip and imperfection, leaving a trail of large and small shadows and exaggerating surface textures. It is ideal for landscapes, like desert badlands or beaches, where you want to convey the tactile qualities of a subject. Sidelight also imparts form and three-dimensionality to objects, giving a pumpkin its full roundness or a tree trunk its volume. Gentle sidelighting, especially from slightly above, works well for portraits because it creates a delicate modeling of facial features.

Backlighting can produce theatrical effects, particularly with landscapes. Shadows coming toward the camera exaggerate depth and distance and help lead the eye into the scene. When backlighting is used behind partially translucent subjects, like leaves or human hair, it creates a bright fringe called rim lighting that helps separate subjects from their surroundings. In backlit portraits, however, you may need to increase exposure by 1 to 1 1/2 stops over the metered value to keep faces from being lost in shadow. An alternate solution is to use flash fill. Keep the sun itself out of the frame or it will trick the meter into severe underexposure.

With many subjects, you can change the apparent direction of lighting by changing your shooting position—by taking a short walk if you're shooting a close-up of a barn or a horse, or a drive if you're shooting a landscape.