The colour of light always determines how I look at my environment and how I will take a photo.
The same scene will change at different times of day and even seasons because of this colour.
Personally, I love winter photography because this is the time when colours around us are muted and soft.
In summer photographers have to make use of the “golden hour”, the hour before and after sunrise and sunset, to get the same effects as winter photography.
The light during summer days is a bright white light, a sterile-type of light that is very useful for certain types of photography, like of high contrast and also in black and white photographs.
On my recent trip to Australia I learned that the light in each place on earth has a different colour.
The Australian winter days had blue light and the first thing I noticed back home was the orange African sun.
I think I became so used to this orange sun that I stopped appreciating it.
There are also different types of lighting inside a building that affects your photography, because lights with flourecent bulbs will make everything green and a candle will bring an orange or red tint to your photo.
The colour temperature is measured in a unit called Kelvin.
The three primary colours red, green and blue exist in varying proportions in a light source, depending in its colour temperature.
When this temperature is high, there is more blue than the other two colours in it and when the temperature is low there is more red.
When dealing with the temperature of light, we have to remember that each one’s eyes sees light subjectively, while the camera has the ability to caputre the true colour of its light source.
With our digital cameras we can tweak light temperature in many ways by changing the white balance settings or if you shoot in monocrome use the filters.
When dealing with light also besides the colour of light also consider the direction of the light, how harsh or how soft it is and how the light falls.
Yes, photography is about light and how the photographer uses it to create art.
Go outside and enjoy the winter sun’s rays and take beautiful photos?
A typical South African sunset I captured in the Karoo. It was taken on a summer evening.
