USING LIGHT IN LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY - VIDEO

Light is the raw material of photography and “good light” is something all landscape photographers seek.  

In this video I take a look at the quality of light at different times of day and in different weather conditions, focusing on the golden hour, the blue hour and overcast light.  The golden hour is the period just after sunrise or just before sunset when the sun is low on the horizon casting warm beams of light almost horizontally across the landscape.  The blue hour is the time just before sunrise or just after sunset when the sun is below the horizon and the light is much more even and less contrast-y.  The whole of the sky reflects indirect light onto the scene, and the bottom of any clouds picking up colour from the distant sun.  Finally overcast light is when thick clouds descend giving us dull, flat light with very little contrast or colour.

Each of these different qualities of light affects the mood and feel of images and calls for a different approach to landscape photography.  In this video I look at the process I go through in my own work when trying to match the light of a scene to its mood.