Lighting Matters

I often get asked how much altering I do to my photos within Photoshop due to the high contrast and saturated colors in my photos. I’m somewhat of a purist when it comes to the editing of photos so I do very little to my photos in Photoshop aside from slight adjustments to contrast, saturation and sharpening – all things that were commonly done within film darkrooms. The keys to the nice colors and contrast within photos really boil down to two things: lighting and the use of a polarizing filter to reduce glare. I’m not going to address polarizing filters in this post but wanted to leave a quick note about lighting.

Landscape lighting is best in the soft light of morning or evening. Light at those times has a warmer glow to it (technically it is a cooler temperature light but I’ll save that for a future post) and lights objects from the side, exposing textures and increasing meaningful contrast. As I have worked to improve my photography I have become somewhat of a lighting bigot and don’t even think it worth shooting if I can’t get good lighting and dramatic skies in my photos. Of course, that means I take fewer photos but I’m okay with that. Waiting for the right lighting is more than worth it.

A great example of a photographer who utilizes dramatic lighting in his photos is David Noton. The lighting makes the photo.