I am about to get real with y’all. I havent been manipulating light correctly recently. Ive noticed it in my work, and it pretty much just makes me angry. Ive been so focused on trying to create a certain kind of look with light, that I forgot something important that I learned. So, for Liz and Adam’s wedding, I made sure I paid attention. I still noticed it in a couple image sets, but it vastly improved.
What was I doing? Instead of using the natural reflectors to cast glowy light on my subjects faces, I have been placing them right on the edge of the reflector, trying to create hazy backlight. Yuck. Dumb. Irritating. Do you know what that looks like? When you try to create backlight in conditions that are not right? You get a completely white background, and dull subjects.
So, as I said, for Liz and Adam’s wedding I made myself very aware of what I had been thinking/doing subconsciously and tried to correct it.
Here I am correcting it. Do you see the natural reflector? I could have placed Adam and Liz up against the pillar in the background and told them to face the tree in the lower right hand corner. In fact this is the sort of thing I have been doing recently. What would that have done? Well, if you look at the lower right corner… there is no light. Its dark. Adam and Liz would have been dark, while the rest of the image washed out. If you look towards the pillar in the background… there is light. Yummy light. So I placed them on the bench, facing the light, and all that lovely concrete bounced the light right onto their faces. Its a great thing to find shade during a shoot, but you CANT forget about what direction the light is coming from.
How did I create this habit without realizing it? I had been shooting for 10 weeks straight, working too many hours, and not really resting. I wrote about Rest recently, and I truly believe as an artist, or whatever you feel comfortable calling yourself, you need a break to build up the creative juices again. I let myself get slack and started doing something with the light in my images that was completely wrong.
Never stop examining yourself and your work. Never stop taking small breaks to keep your creative eye sharp and strong. And as cliche as it is, never stop relearning learning.
Thanks for the picture Karen!
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You are so right Lauren. When we overextend ourselves it’s so easy to fall back into bad habits or just to what’s easy. Thanks for your honesty!
What a great and humbling reminder! I still find myself getting caught focusing on location over light, and I need to continue to break that habit!!
Thanks so much for the spot-on reminder! And, your honesty about the ebbs and flows of work, and the need for rest, is really refreshing.
I HATE it when I catch myself making stupid mistakes, but it’s in catching myself that I learn the most. Thanks for posting this, girl!
this is really helpful and i appreciate your honesty. thanks for being real!