The Beginner Photography Podcast

Light Made Simple: 4 Secrets to Instantly Improve Your Photos

• Raymond Hatfield

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#594 In this episode of The Beginner Photography Podcast, we explore the fundamental role that light plays in photography. 

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The learning objectives are clear: listeners should be able to identify and observe how light intensity, direction, color temperature (white balance), and the shape of light (hard vs. soft) influence the mood, feel, and technical quality of their images. Raymond emphasizes that no amount of gear or editing can substitute for a keen awareness of light. He encourages photographers to practice seeing and understanding light even without a camera, and to apply these lessons intentionally in their photography.

Key Topics Covered:

  1. Element 1 - Intensity of Light:
    Raymond explains how the brightness of light affects both exposure and the emotional impact of a photo. He gives examples of how harsh midday sun creates energetic, high-contrast scenes, while softer light (such as shade or overcast) leads to more intimate, flattering portraits.
  2. Element 2 - Direction of Light:
    The direction from which light hits a subject dramatically alters mood and visual interest. Through familiar analogies (like campfire stories with a flashlight), Raymond demonstrates how front, side, and back lighting can make images feel flat, dramatic, or mysterious.
  3. Element 3 - Color of Light:
    Color temperature (white balance) is covered in depth, with practical advice on using camera presets (cloudy, tungsten) for consistent results. Raymond illustrates how warm and cool lighting can change both the look and mood of a scene and why setting white balance in camera can simplify editing.
  4. Element 4 - Shape of Light (Hard vs. Soft):
    Using stories from daily life, Raymond helps listeners visualize the difference between small, harsh light sources and large, diffuse ones (like a cloudy sky or a softbox), stressing how soft light is generally more flattering for portraits.

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Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

The difference between a good photo and a great photo is often the lighting. You know, I've said moment matters most because it does. But moment oftentimes will only take you so far. Once you've got moment down, the next thing that you need to work on and master to take your photos to that next level is light. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Beginner Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield, and today we are talking about light. Yes, light. Light is one of the most important aspects of photography. And today we're going to talk about the four things that you need to notice about light that will, I'm telling you, instantly improve the quality of your photos. But first, the Beginner Photography Podcast is brought to you by cloudspot. Here's the thing about photography, right? You're listening to this podcast because you want to get better at photography. You want to be better at taking photos. Well, maybe you get to the point to where you want to sell your photos, maybe get to the point to where you want to start offering portraits or photographing families or doing weddings, and you're going to have to have a way to deliver those photos. And cloudspot is your answer to do just that. With cloudspot, you can create beautiful galleries in just seconds, so you don't have to worry about sending them through Google Drive and having this terrible experience where they have to swipe and wait for things to load and it just looks and feels clunky. They're going to get an email that just looks absolutely beautiful. It's going to feel like an experience more than just some files and photography. The business of photography is more about experience than the product itself. So therefore, why not try to deliver the best experience possible? In fact, I would even go as far as to say that like delivering a great experience is a non starter at this point. I guess the other way around, if you don't deliver a great experience, it's a non starter. That is what people expect. So even if you haven't even shot or delivered any photos before, I would still grab a free Cloudspot account by heading over to deliverphotos.com because when the time comes, you want to be ready to go and not having to try to figure out what do I need here, where do I do this? How does this thing work? You know that delivering photos is locked in and you're going to be able to deliver a fantastic experience for whoever you're delivering photos to. You can also set up a storefront in just minutes and start earning more from every shoot that you do. So Again, grab your free Forever account today over@deliverphotos.com now, here's the thing about photography, right? You can take a photo with your phone or whatever, and then you can also take a photo with a very expensive dedicated camera. And they will be, you know, essentially the same. And that is because the difference between something like a snapshot and something like, you know, an image that you create is its intention. Okay, intention in what intention? Meaning that you're making decisions based on your environment to create the best photo possible. And one of the biggest parts of that is light. Because without light, we would be taking no photos. We wouldn't exist, but we also wouldn't be taking any photos. Light is that paramount. You can take a photo without people. You can take a photo. You can take a photo without a lens. Honestly, you can take a photo without a lot of things. You can take a photo without editing it. But if you don't have light, you're not going to have a photo. So light is the one thing that I really want to focus on in this episode. And like I said, I'm going to share with you the four things that you need to notice about light that are going to instantly improve your images. And don't worry, I'm not going to be talking about, you know, Kelvin, I'm not going to be throwing out a bunch of technical jargon at you. Instead, what we're going to do is I'm just going to give you these four simple things that you can use to start noticing light with your eyes, you know, that are going to instantly improve your photos. In fact, if you practice any of these things that I talk about today, which you can do, you know, sitting at the kitchen table or just taking a walk outside in your backyard, backyard or your neighborhood, you don't even need a camera to get better at photography. In from today's episode. If you listen to today's episode, even while you're listening to it, you can go out and pay attention to the world and by the time you get back, pick up your camera, you are going to be a better photographer for it. But before we do get started, I just want to take a moment to say congratulations. Why am I congratulating you? Because, listen, I know as a, as a parent to young children, as somebody with a full time, very unpredictable schedule for a job, as somebody who has hobbies like lawn care and disc golf, and also spends my weekends with my daughter, you know, at softball tournaments and going plane spotting with my son, I understand how busy life can be and how it can be difficult at times to find time for the things that we love and that we want to use to make us better, right? And with photography, it's so easy for us to just, like, brush it off and say, I'll get to it later, I'll get to it later. Because it doesn't feel like there's this huge barrier to entry. You could just use your phone to take photos. But you have decided that you want to get better at this thing that we love, that is photography. You want to learn more about it. You have this insatiable lust for knowledge, and that is why you're here and you're taking the time. Maybe you're in your car, right? Maybe this is the only time of the day that you get. Maybe you're out on a walk with your dog and you only have 15, 20 minutes, right? But regardless, you're taking this time to better yourself. And that is commendable. But here's the thing. Listening to this episode is helpful, sure. But if you don't do anything about it, it's going to be all for nothing and it's going to be wasted. So do me a favor. You're already listening to this episode. Actually implement what it is that you hear today, because that's the only way that you're going to get better. All right, let's talk about element number one, that if you pay attention to this, your photos are going to get better. The first thing about light that you need to pay attention to is the intensity. What is intensity of light? This is the first thing that you notice. It is simply how strong the light is, right? This is the first thing that we notice, even as children. Oh, wow, a really bright day outside, or, oh, it's so dark in here, I can barely see anything. And if you spend a lot of time outdoors, or even if you're indoors a lot, it can be difficult to notice the transition from morning to afternoon to evening to nighttime because you're outside. And it happens very gradually. You don't realize the true intensity of the light until you have a quick change. So this might be. This is where I really first noticed it. As a child is going in to watch a movie, say in the afternoon, two, three o' clock, when you leave the movie theater as a kid, you know, it's super dark inside the movie theater. And you walk outside, Holy cow. Like, it feels like you are being blinded because the sun is so overbearing and bright. You immediately understand the intensity of light and you realize how fantastic our eyes are at adjusting to light. Because while you're in this dark theater, dark hallways, you can see just fine, right? But if you go out into that bright daylight, holy cow, Your eyes constrict. It's difficult to see. You're like squinting. But then very quickly your eyes adjust and you can go on like normal. However, if you were to go back into that movie theater, you wouldn't be able to see anything for like a minute or two again until your eyes adjusted. So your eyes are fantastic. And about recognizing and regulating the amount of light that is available for you to interpret. Our cameras, on the other hand, not so much. We are the camera's brain. We have to tell it how to control the amount of light, right? If you go outside with your camera, it doesn't automatically start changing everything so that it, you know, can capture a perfect exposure. It wants you to be able to tell it what settings it needs to be able to capture that perfect exposure. So just being able to recognize the intensity of light is really going to help you to be able to do that for your camera so that you can start capturing better photos more properly exposed. Now, here's the thing about intensity, is that it's not just about having too much or having too little light. The intensity affects more than just the amount. It also affects the feeling of the photo. Right? A photo where the light is very intense, right? Just for a very easy to understand idea here, think bright and airy type photos. That type of imagery feels. It feels energetic. It's high contrast, it feels very sharp. It feels like there's a lot going on in the photo. It feels lively. Okay? Now if you contrast that with photos with a low light intensity, more of a quote, unquote, dark and moody style photo, Dark and moody style, images feel more soft, they feel more personal, they feel more intimate. And even though, you know, you may be capturing the exact same thing, the same subject, the intensity of the light changes how the image feels. So when I'm photographing specifically people, right, that was my bread and butter for a long time. Weddings, engagements, portraits. What I would look for is softer, lower amount of light, right? I don't want it extremely intense because that is typically going to be more flattering to somebody. When we have very intense light on somebody, it can cause them to squint, which can cause their face to wrinkle a bit. And harsh light has its place. Honestly, I do love using harsh light when I can. But if I'm getting a traditional head and shoulders portrait or, you know, a photo of two People looking at each other, I'm going to want light with a lower amount of intensity so that their facial features are a little bit softer. They don't have to squint at each other. They look more like their natural selves. Right? That harsh light, it's bold, it's dynamic, it's fantastic in the right situations, but it's rarely forgiving. Oftentimes people think, you know, that shooting in the afternoon is the worst thing possible because it's so bright outside. And while that is true, it is so bright. That leads us into what the actual problem with shooting at high noon is, is the second thing that we need to think about, which is direction of light. So number one is the intensity of light, right? How much there is. And the second thing is direction of light or where is that light coming from? Because at high noon, guess what? The sun is high in the sky and it's coming straight down. If you are of a certain age. You know, I grew up, born in the 80s, grew up as a kid in the early 90s. And one of the shows that I watched a lot because it felt scary was the show on Nickelodeon, Are you afraid of the dark? And if you're not familiar, are you afraid of the dark? Was like this band of kids who would leave their

house. They would sneak out at, like, you know, 11:

30pm Meet in the woods. Yeah, this is crazy, now that I think about it. And then they. They formed this group called the Midnight Society. And they would tell scary stories. After the stories were over, then they'd, you know, go home. Well, one of the things that I remember most as a kid is that before they would tell a story, maybe they would have, like, a flashlight that would shine on the person who was telling the story. And the flashlight would be. So they'd be sitting on the log, right? They'd be holding the flashlight and it would be about in their lap, right? Or under their face, and it would be shining straight up at them from below. And what this did is it gave a very spooky, eerie, scary feel to the person telling the story. Why is that? Because that's not how we naturally see people. We almost never see people being lit from below. It is a very unnatural thing and therefore feels quite scary. But what is the difference, right? Like, what makes it scary? It's the direction of the light. It's not the intensity of the light. It's not the. It's not anything else about the light except for the direction it's coming up from the bottom and what it's doing is it's creating these. These weird shapes of shadow and light on the face that, again, does not look normal. So if you're ever watching a scary movie and you see the villain or monster or whatever it is, they're always in some sort of really weird directional light. It's never like soft, flattering lighting. It is very hard. There's a lot of intensity, and it comes from a very specific direction because that just reads to us as different, right? So to imagine this in your head, if you're having a hard time, I want you to imagine maybe that you're sitting in the audience of a. Of a stage play, okay? There's an actor who's up on the stage. And the. The actor, he's just standing there, right? He's looking at you. Maybe he's delivering a monologue. And there's. The house lights are on, right? All the lights in the theater are on. And what it looks like is a person, an actor, just standing on a stage. You see it all. It's. It's. It's very clear. However, the stage lights go off, right? And now there's a spotlight on the left that hits that actor directly from. From the side. That's a very different look, right? Imagine if that actor is. Is talking to you straight ahead in the audience and then looks that way to his left, and then is now just being, you know, flooded with this light. It's very dramatic. It's very moody. There's. There's this. There's this element of drama, like what is going on here that we instantly understand simply because the direction of light, the actor didn't change the location, didn't change the words, didn't change, just the direction of light. And now we've completely changed how we are seeing and reading what. What it is that we see visually. Right? Now imagine again that the light from the side, right, from the left, hard left, now turns off. And suddenly a spotlight from behind hits the actor. And now you don't see them at all. They're just this shadowy silhouette. You don'. Their face, but you see this outline of them, and they're kind of walking slowly close to you. And what that does is, again, that's even more moodier, it's more dramatic, because now we don't even see who the person is, and they're moving around. And everything in our brain says, hold on alert. There's some. There's somebody or something there that you need to know more about. And the silhouette plays into that drama that we just naturally you know, create in our head again. It. It's mysterious, it's moody, it's interesting. Who is that person? Nothing changed. The actor did not change. The location did not change. The only thing that changed was the light, specifically the direction of the light. Assuming that the intensity from all of the lights that we just talked about right there, the three lights were all the same. The only thing that changed was the direction. So I want to give you a little bit of an experiment right here that you can try out for yourself. Go ahead and grab a swivel chair. Maybe it's, you know, an office chair that you have. Maybe it's a bar stool that you have in your home. Whatever it is, what I want you to do is place it, you know, two feet in front of a window, whatever it is. And then I want you to hold up your hand towards the window, and I want you to look at the light on your hands. If your hand is towards the window, it's probably going to be pretty hard to see all of the details of your hand, right, because it is silhouetted. It's being backlit. Now slowly turn your chair 180 degrees until your hand is being lit fully by the. By the window and not facing the window. So now the back of your hand is facing the window instead of the front, but you're looking at the back of your hand the whole time. That's why you need the swivel chair, so that you can turn with your hand there. I wonder if that sounds cool, because I was moving my chair as well. Let me know if it did. If not, well, just imagine that it sounded cool. What you'll notice, though, is that when your hand is facing away from the window, your hand is going to look flat. The light is hitting your hand very evenly, very flatly. It's like a. Just like a flat blast of light. And then as you slowly rotate, right, so now you're your. Your palm is facing not towards the window, but not away from the window, but, you know, parallel with the window. Oh, now there's some. Oh, now I see some detail in, well, the details of my hand. The. The knuckles, the. The ten. I don't know, not pores, but whatever, like the surface of my skin. And then as I bring it closer to the window, it becomes more dramatic and more dramatic until again, it is silhouetted. And I see no detail in my hand, but I see this beautifully lit outline of my hand. You'll see at some point, it almost looks like your hand is sculpted. And it's just this absolute Thing of beauty, because now there's this drama there. That is what I love so much about light is that again, I'm not changing where I'm at, I'm not changing it. The only thing that is changing the intensity is not changing on my hand. It is just the direction of the light and I can change the look of my hand so much. Bonus points if you want some extra credit here. Right, Grab your camera, set it to manual mode so that you can lock in an exposure and then take a photo at all three spots. But don't, don't change your exposure. Just set it once and then take the photo at all three spots so that you can see the difference in the light's intensity at all three spots. How does this help us when we're out actually photographing? Well, if we know the direction of the light, we know where we want to face. If I know that, I don't want flat lighting, but I want something more dramatic, but I don't necessarily want a silhouette. When I'm out shooting, I'm going to be shooting because I'm in the northern hemisphere here. I'm going to be shooting either east or west. This is going to give us beautiful side light. If I'm photographing somebody where the camera's looking south, they're going to be more in, you know, shade. If I'm photographing them where the camera's looking north, they're going to be blasted with light because the sun is going to be hitting them. The direction of the light is so, so, so important and something that you can't underestimate when you look back through your photos. Maybe you've taken photos of your family in the kitchen, you know, and there's this, there's this overhead light can lights maybe that are lighting them and it doesn't look great. It doesn't look bad, but it doesn't look great. However, if you take a photo maybe close to a window where it's a much softer light source, you're like, oh, wow, that actually looks fantastic. Like, what's the difference? Part of it is the intensity. Yes, I get that right. A 60 watt light bulb is never going to be able to compete with the sun. But the bigger issue here is the direction of the light. So start paying attention to where the light is coming from. And the way that I do that, like when I'm out shooting, is that I'll always look for the shadow. Because if I know where the shadow is, I know where the sun is as well. If the sun is in front of my subject, then I'm sorry, if the shadow is in front of my subject, then the sun is behind them. And that's kind of my rule of thumb, is that if I'm photographing a person, I want their shadow to be in front of them. Maybe not directly in front of them, but I don't want it behind them and I don't want it fully off to the side. I want it to be somewhat in front of them so that I can guarantee that their face isn't being blasted, Meaning the intensity of the light from. From the sun. So the next thing to notice about light, and this one's a little bit more difficult, but I'm going to see if I can explain in a way that you're going to understand is, is color. Because to be honest, your camera has a hard time knowing what is white. And knowing what is white is how your camera determines the accuracy of all other colors. Like I mentioned in that first example, as far as intensity goes, our eyes are really, really good at seeing and understanding light to the point to where we don't even have to consciously think about it. It's truly phenomenal. Technology, on the other hand, has not quite reached the point of how good our eyes are. And therefore you have to tell your camera what color is white. This is with something called white balance. Now, white balance has to do with light, right? Because color is just different wavelengths of light. That's all that it is. Morning light right after the sun comes up is very golden. It's very warm. It feels reassuring. It feels like a hug. Okay. I don't know how to explain it. Open shade is very cool. It's very. It's more blue. Okay. The lamp in your living room is more orange. It's more of an orangey, warm tint. Okay. Think about light like paint. With light, you can essentially adjust the color of everything that you're photographing. I remember being in film school, and this was. This was one of the biggest lessons that we had to learn. Because when I was in film school, this was. This was right before digital really took off. So we were being taught a lot of the film fundamentals. And when it comes to film, there's no auto white balance. In fact, the film, whatever you were shooting was dependent on the type of film you had in your camera. There would be film, or there is film specifically, that is daylight balanced. So when you go out and photograph in the daytime, things look like the right color. And then there's indoor film or tungsten film is what they would Call it. And that would be made for when you're shooting inside, because the light is a very different color, even though to our eyes, it doesn't look any different. So when you would pick a film stock, you would either have to pick a daylight film stock or a tungsten film stock, again, depending on what it was that you were shooting. Well, I'm trying to wrap my head around all this, and I remember walking home from film school one evening. It was about a mile and a half. There's this big office building that I would walk by every day. And again, it's the evening time. People aren't in their office. But I see, you know, I can see into the. I can see into the offices because. Because the lights are on. And there were, like, three offices right next door to each other. And I kid you not like I needed this at the perfect time. All three of them had light bulbs that were a different color temperature. One looked very bright and clinical, what you would assume as, you know, white. Another one right next to it was a lot bluer. It was a lot cooler of a color temperature. And the last one was very warm, as if it was all just like lamps. And I could see them side by side. And I stopped and I thought to myself, if I looked at. At each one of those individually, I would say, that's white. Oh, that's a white color. Oh, no, that one's white. Oh, wait, actually, that one is white. But when you see all three of them side by side, you're like, oh, holy cow. Okay, I see how there is some variances in what is truly white, because I can imagine myself being in those rooms thinking to myself, this looks normal. I can imagine myself being in the. In the cooler blue room, thinking, everything here looks normal. So what gives? Like, what is. What is the point of that? Again, your camera needs to know. You need to tell it what color is white. So maybe you've been out shooting and you've seen that you can adjust your white balance. And when you go to adjust your white balance, there's options like daylight or fluorescent or indoors or shady things like that. Right? Those. All of those situations have different color temperatures. When you're outdoors, the light is more blue. It's a cooler color. So therefore, the camera has to add some warmth to it to make it look natural to our eyes. When we're indoors, the lights are very warm. So it has to add more blue to cut down on how orange it is so that, again, it looks more natural to our eyes. Maybe you've taken A photo outdoors and you've noticed, like, wow, this photo is extremely blue. Or you've taken a photo indoors and you thought, holy cow, why is this so orange? And that is exactly why. Because your white balance is off. Now, like I said, there's a lot of preset settings for white balance, but I don't mess with the majority of them. I pretty much stick to just two white balances. And it goes back to my film days. If I'm outdoors, you could choose sunny, but I choose cloudy. I choose a cloudy white balance because. Or shady, depending on your camera. Maybe it's shady, maybe it's cloudy. And the reason is, is because it's the same as daylight, but just a little bit warmer. So it just adds this nice little bit of warmth to my images. And then if I'm inside, I just use the tungsten or incandescent white balance, and that's it. Again, 90% of the time, that's what it is that I'm using. Very rarely, I'm in some sort of situation. Maybe it's heavy fluorescence, maybe it's just a lot of mixed lighting and I have to find. Find something that looks right. But again, 90% of the time, I'm in a cloudy or shady for daylight or I'm in tungsten or incandescent. That's it. Quick note here. I know that it may sound overwhelming, right, to have to pick your white balance every time you go out and shoot, but typically you're not going inside, outside, inside, outside, inside, outside. When shooting. It's. You spend some time outside. Okay, great. Set it to cloudy, and then you go inside. Okay, great. Set it to tungsten, and then that's it. You may be thinking, oh, well, what if I just set my white balance to auto white balance? Because I will be the first to say today's cameras are really good at measuring the white balance and then figuring out what should be right. Does it get it wrong sometimes? Yes, it does. But here's the bigger issue. Every time you take a photo, it. No, let me. Let me take a step back. Here's the issue. There's a. There's a. There's a measurement. There's a scale in. In white balance called Kelvin. Okay? It's a Kelvin scale. It goes from like 2,000 to, let's say, 10,000. So in between there, there are 8,000 options from super warm to super cool, right? All the way orange, all the way blue. Oompa Loompa or terminator. And there's 8,000 options in between them to Pick the right quote, unquote white balance for whatever it is that you're photographing. And you think to yourself, wow, that sounds great. There's 8,000 options for me to pick the perfect or for my camera to pick the perfect white balance. Yes. And it will for that photo. Now, if you turn your camera 5 degrees to the left or you zoom in a little bit more, or you take a number of steps back, guess what? It's going to choose a different white balance. And maybe it's just a hundred points off from before, which doesn't sound like a lot when the scale is a possible 8,000 options. But when you go to edit all those photos together, there's going to be such minor inconsistencies throughout all of the images that some of them are going to look warmer, some of them are going to look cooler, that it just doesn't look like it was from the same shoot. So choosing your white balance, if I'm outdoors, I'm picking cloudy. All of your images are going to have this visual consistency that is just, it's key. I mean, that is what will put, you know, that's what will take you from beginner to intermediate. Or if you're already feeling like you're intermediate, that will take you, that consistency will take you to that next level because it makes editing so much faster. Another thing is that if you are using flash, every single flash is daylight balanced. So if you use it outdoors and your white balance is already set to daylight, then it just is going to look like there's more light on your subject. But if you're indoors and you use a flash, you're going to have to change your white balance because it's going to look extremely blue compared to your surroundings. Right. If your white balance is incandescent because you're indoors and use a flash that is blasting daylight light, everything that the light hits is going to be extremely orange. So you set it to daylight whenever you use a flash. So why is this important? Again, like, it's important to see the color of light, not only to capture it accurately, but also you can use it to create a mood. If you want an image that feels warm and relaxed and romantic, you're not going to use cool colored lights. You're not going to set your white balance so that everything looks a little bit blue. You're going to set your white balance so that it's warm, so that it's inviting, so that it looks again, warm and romantic. Now, if you want something that is more calm, it is more serene, it is. It is a bit softer. Then that's when you use more blue light. Right? The blue light of. Of shade. And I'm not just talking about, like, in camera. I'm also talking about editing as well. Like when you're. When you're choosing between different white balances. Like, is it. Is. It doesn't need to be warmer? Does it need to be cooler? Think about the feel of your image, and then that should help guide you in what the correct white balance for your. For your image should be. And that brings us to the last element that you need to notice about light to be able to take fantastic photos. And that is the shape of light. I'm going to tell you a brief story real quick. Maybe you can imagine it in your head. I remember being in high school, and I was sitting in my car. It was a 1986 Golf, okay? This would have been one of the last few weeks of high school. I bought this thing for $500, and it ran. It ran perfectly. It needed an intake boot because there was a crack in it and it wouldn't pass smog in California. That sucked. But for a few weeks, I got to drive it before I had to donate it. It was a whole story anyway. I was sitting in a parking lot. I don't remember why I was there. That doesn't matter. I was sitting in this parking lot, and it was one of those days where, like, it was cloudy. Okay? There were clouds, but it was. It was very patchy cloud. So sometimes a cloud would go in front of the sun, and then it would by. And. And it was just one of those kinds of days. So I was sitting here in this parking lot, and I'm looking out, and I can see, like, the shadow on the ground from the cloud that was covering the sun. Moving, right? So. So the cloud was moving, and I could see the shadow on the ground. And I thought, wow, that's the coolest thing I ever saw. And as it comes close to me and passes me, what I see in the parking spot next to mine is now the shadow of my car. And I'm like, whoa, there's my car. Like, very well defined. How cool is that? I see my car. And then just moments later, another cloud goes to cover up the sun. And just like that, as I'm watching the. The and admiring the shadow of my car on the ground that I didn't see a moment ago. The cloud goes in front of the sun, and now the shadow is gone. What I saw was light's transition from hard to soft. Hard light, like a bare light source, like the sun not being blocked by clouds, will produce a very well defined shadow on the ground. Like if you're standing there and the sun is just out, you can hold up your hand and you can count the fingers on your shadow on the ground, right? Soft light, which is like the sun with a cloud in front of it, is more diffused, and therefore it will either completely eliminate the shadow or make the edge of the edges of the shadow extremely soft. Now how does it do this? Simply put, if you go outside, and I don't recommend looking at the sun, but if you, you can go outside and cover up the sun with just your thumb, right, you can close one eye and just cover the sun with your thumb. Meaning in the sky, the sun is very tiny. You're covering it up with your thumb, like all the way reached out. Like it's, it's, it's small, it's a very small light source and therefore it creates a very defined shadow. Now, if there's a cloud that covers up the sun, there still seems to be the same intensity, right? It's still a bright day, you can still see outside, but now the light is hitting the cloud. And instead of the sun being the light source, the cloud is now that light source. And you can't cover that cloud up with just your thumb. It takes up much, a much larger portion of the sky. The light source becomes much, much, much larger. So now, instead of a very defined point in the sky creating your shadow, and now there's light more to the left and more to the right or more ahead of you or more behind you, which then softens the shadows or removes them completely, depending on how thick that cloud is. And that's the same principle that we use in photography when we're working with light. Maybe you've seen people or maybe you do this yourself who use an umbrella or a softbox in front of their flash. Maybe you've seen photos of, you know, big Hollywood productions and they have this like 20 foot by 20 foot, 20 foot piece of white, like fabric. What that is is making the light source larger to make the light that is hitting the subject much softer. If we use the flash example, suddenly the light source in a flash is about the size of a grain of rice. It's tiny, but you put a softbox in front of it and now you've effectively increased the size of the light source by hundreds of times. And the larger the light source, the softer the light is. That's why photographers often love shooting in cloudy or overcast days because they know that the light is going to be soft, it's going to be beautiful, and there's still going to be enough intensity to capture a good exposure. Now, neither one is better than the other. You know, it's just about how they feel. Again, hard light can be. Light can be fantastic, it can be dramatic, it can be punchy, it can be sharp. But soft light is a little bit more gentle. I take that back. It's a lot more gentle. It's flattering. So it all depends on the type of photo that it is that you want to capture. Because sometimes you do want that gritty, industrial look of hard light. Sometimes you just want a really nice, soft, traditional, beautiful portrait. So those are the four things that you need to notice about light to be able to start to take incredible photos. Now, I want to walk you through how to use these together during a shoot, because ultimately, that's what this whole thing is for. If. If you are photographing people, you're photographing families, you're photographing weddings, engagements. I cannot stress how important it is for you to understand light, these four elements of light, because the difference between a good photo and a great photo is often the lighting. You know, I've said moment matters most because it does. But moment oftentimes will only take you so far. Once you've got moment down, the next thing that you need to work on and master to take your photos to that next level is light. One of the most common things to photograph as a new photographer is flowers. It's nature, right? And I understand it is hard to get the right moment when it comes to photographing a flower. So then think about it for a moment. What makes one photo of a flower stand out against another? It's going to be light. The direction of light, the intensity of light, the shape of light, the color of light. So if you want to learn more about light, you know, you really want to go deeper, to take control and start to capture these really incredibly compelling images through light. Then I want to invite you to take my very popular online video course called Flash in a Flash. Here's the thing. I get it. The name flash. Wait, what are we talking about here? It's not. Not just about flash. The course is about the fundamentals of light. And I do it through teaching you how to use flash. Controlling the intensity of light, controlling the shape of light, controlling the direction of light, and controlling the color of light, as well as working with natural light around you. So whether you have a flash or not, it's not important. This course is going to help you to see and use light like a professional. And the good news is, is that it is included in my Ultimate Photography Education bundle where I put together nine of my courses that are specifically designed with your input of course, over the, you know, last 10 years to take you from a confused beginner to a confident photographer, step by step. And the Ultimate Photography Education bundle is a one time payment. You get lifetime access, you get to go at your own speed, all with no subscription. So if you need some more help, some more hands on help, some more visual examples to learn photography, then check out the Ultimate Photography Education bundle by heading over to beginnerphotopod.com bundle again, that's beginnerphotopod.com bundle. Now here's a fun fact. Did you know that the word photography is actually a Greek word that means writing with light? Yeah, it's, it's literally that important. It's that important. So when we talk about using those four elements of light during a shoot, a common scenario may look like this, right? It may just be at a, at a local park, right? Portraits at a local park. That's a very common thing for new photographers to find themselves in. So the first thing that I pay attention to is, well, it's color, right? Because that's going to dictate how the, how the entire shoot looks, how every photo that I take looks. So if I'm outdoors, my white balance is set to shady. If I'm indoors, it's incandescent. Some people don't know this. If you shoot in raw, you can actually adjust the white balance later in editing, you don't even have to get it right in camera, you can just adjust it later. But I like to get it right in camera so that I can shoot more and edit less. So what I do is I just manually set the white balance and again it sets the color consistency for the entire shoot and it saves you so much time when editing. So just do yourself a favor, set the white balance in camera and then just know that later on you could change it if you need to. So I show up to, let's say this park. What I'm going to do after, of course, recognizing the color of light or telling my camera what is white is I'm going to recognize the intensity of light or how much light there is. If we're shooting in the early afternoon, say 2 or 3, there's going to be a lot of light and I'm going to have to look for areas where we can find Some shade so that my subject isn't squinty from how bright the sun is. If we're shooting at, like, you know, six or seven in the evening, then the intensity is going to be much less and I'll have more options for where I can shoot and what my background can be. Because background is extremely, extremely, extremely important and very underrated in photography. Next, I look for direction, meaning where is the sun at? So if it is early afternoon, when it's bright, the sun is high in the sky, I'm going to be looking for areas of shade so the light isn't. So are you afraid of the dark midnight society on my subject, giving them horrible raccoon eyes and, and shadows under the nose, like a little, you know, I don't know, a Hitler mustache. Like, nobody wants that look. That's a terrible, terrible look. If it's. If it's early in the evening, however, when the sun is lower in the sky, then I'm going to make sure that I'm shooting with my son or with the sun to my subjects back. Because that is what's going to give them this beautiful backlight, this hair light that is going to make it just feel so warm and like. Like summer. Because here's the thing that I think we often forget as photographers, right? There's a lot of rules. There's a lot of rules that it feels like we have to follow. But remember this, as a photographer, you get to pick where you point the camera. Yeah. You. You get to choose. So I'm not gonna choose to shoot facing north in open sun, because then the sun is gonna be blasting my subject in the face. Face, making them squint. And again, nobody wants that look. Now, if I'm in open shade, say I'm under a tree shadow of a building. If I'm under an awning or something like that, then, yeah, shoot in whatever direction you want because the light on your subject is nice and soft. Right? But if you're out, open, open sun, yeah, you get to choose where you want to shoot. And sometimes I found myself in this situation before where it's like, man, we can't look in that direction because the sun is going to be blasting in the face, but we'll be out shooting. Maybe we're like downtown and they say, hey, we really like this building. Can we get a photo in front of it? And I know that they're just going to be blasted by the sun and it's not going to look that great. And I'll make sure to say that like, yeah, absolutely. Let's see if we can find a different area so that we can, you know, capture this thing and you look your best in front of it as well. If we can't, I just let them know. Absolutely. I will grab this photo for you. And then that's it. You know, I take the photo because they asked for it. I'm not going to tell them, no, no, no, no. The direction of the light is not good right here. I'm just going to take the photo because they asked for it. It's up to them if they decide to use it or not. But if I'm creating the photos, I get to create or I get to choose what direction I shoot. And then lastly. Well, not lastly, because it all works together. The first two to dictate the shape of my light. So the first thing is we pick out color. The second thing is we look at the intensity of the light. The third thing is the direction of the light. And fourth here is the shape of the light. Now, when I'm photographing people, I want the light on them, specifically their face, to be nice and soft. Why their face? Because that's what it is that we look at. So knowing that I want the light to be soft on their face, that dictates what direction I can shoot in. Like I was just mentioning earlier, but I also said that if you're shooting in the evening, I want the sun to their back to give them a beautiful backlight. Right. So it's. It's directly hitting them. Well, that is because if the sun is hitting their back, it's not hitting their front, meaning it's not hitting them in the face. And therefore, if the sun is not directly hitting them in the face, their face is in shadow and shadow or shade is. Is soft and even light. So they look fantastic. If I'm just photographing a lamp, I not only think about the light on my subject, but I'm also thinking about the sky because, well, who cares how beautiful that field of flowers looks? If you're shooting towards the sun and the whole sky is just blown out. Nuclear white. Right. Nobody wants, nobody cares about that. So try to turn around so that the sun is directly hitting the field of flowers, causing your exposure to go up. And then you have to adjust your settings, and then that's going to control more of the light in the sky. That is going to make it more blue. Maybe not perfectly blue, but it's going to get a whole lot closer than if you were shooting directly towards the sky. Again, the softness of Light is not as important for, like, flowers and landscape. It is. But, like, for a portrait of some people, you really want them to look their best, and therefore, a softer light is typically going to do that. So, therefore, for portraits, I'm always looking for that soft light on their face. So that could mean that I'm putting them near a large window if we're inside. Actually, perfect example of this is at weddings. If we are inside, that's what I'll look for. I will look for a window to put my subjects near. I'll shoot parallel to the window so that that it's more side light. And then I will use a flash with a bare bulb. Right. No softbox or nothing on it. And I will use it behind them to hit them from behind, like, directly at the back of the head so that they will get that beautiful hard backlight that will make them stand out against the background. So there you go. Those are the four things to notice that are immediately going to level up your photos. The images that you take and I shared with you, exactly how to approach them while you go out on a shoot so that you can look for the light and use it effectively. So my challenge to you this week is just to take one of those things and focus on it. Every time you pick up your camera, maybe you go out and you hunt for shadows so that you can practice direction of light. Maybe you compare the color of light in different rooms. Try that. You know, maybe the light bulbs in your house, house are all different colors. Or maybe you just sit outside in the evening for 10, 15 minutes and just watch how the changing light changes the. The amount of shade and the intensity in your backyard. And then, hey, feel free to share your photo in the Beginner Photography podcast Facebook group. I would love to see what it is that you notice. If you're not part of the group already, you can join right now. It's free, and it's the friendliest place on the Internet for new photographers. So just head over to beginnerphotopod.com group again. That's beginnerphotopod.com group to join today. Because here's the thing. Once you start noticing light, you'll never be able to unsee it. And it's then and only then that photography really starts to click. I was gonna say stick, but right there at the last moment, I was like, oh, there's a. There's an option. Or there's a, yeah, an option here for a pun. And it really starts to click. I'm really proud of myself. For that. That was good. So there you go. That is all that I got for today. Remember, pay attention to the light. And the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Talk soon. Thank you for listening to the Beginner Photography podcast. Keep shooting and we'll see you next.