How to find natural lights sources for photography

Each time of day has different characteristics of the light; the white balance, the colours, and the direction of the sun. The best kind of light photography can be found in type of photography you want.

For blue natural light- go for Dusk, dawn, and twilight time

This is the time before sunrise or after sunset when the sun is below the horizon, and there’s only ambience light. This light is usually low and diffused with a blue tinge, creating a calm tone for images.

Golden hour, sunrise, and sunset for Colours: Yellow, Orange and Red

The golden hours (the hours before sunset and after sunrise) are photographers’ favourites. As the sun direction is near horizontal, the light during this gives a warm glow and low contrast, which make for flattering and evocative portraits.

Morning and evening Colours: Warm yellow

Midday and afternoon: Colours: White

Natural light photography techniques for golden hour

Front lighting – position your subject to face the sun, and the sun will light them perfectly. So effortless, with a beautiful result

Backlighting – put the sun behind your subject to get the soft, glowy look. This looks incredibly stunning and flattering for portraits

Rim lighting – when the subject is placed in a backlit condition, the soft outline glow is what’s called the rim. It is often used to bring the focus on to your subject

Natural light photography tips for shooting in the afternoon

Hard natural light photography

Hard light occurs when the light source is small and the light is direct. This condition creates a significant contrast between the brightest and darkest parts of an image, with the shadows having hard edges around them, like the afternoon sun during a clear day.

How to use hard light

Create black and white images – Hard light is characterised by high contrast, which doesn’t work very well in colour photographs. However, it’s very effective in black and white pictures, since high contrast is important to make sure that all the details can be picked out in the image.

Use a reflector – When you need to use artificial light, it will often be too hard when shone directly onto the subject. Instead, beam the light onto a reflector, so that when it shines on the subject it is far softer.

Use a flash – When the subject is in front of a light source, this leads to a silhouette effect. To counter this, place a flash in front of the subject in order to reduce the contrast.

Soft natural light photography

The light that you get on a cloudy day, or when you’re in shade, is considered soft light. When shooting indoors, the light that comes through a curtain can also be considered as soft light.

Using natural light indoors

Shooting indoors with natural light can create a high contrast, where the lit part is usually a lot brighter than the other parts of the room. As with other hard light shots, to tackle this problem, you can place a reflector to bounce off the light from the window to the other parts that you desire.

Natural light and shadow photography

Use shadows to create a dark mood – the presence of shadows often set a dark mood, so why not do it deliberately? In portraits, it can be used to highlight the ‘hardness’ of a character or add a mystery, while in architecture or landscape photography, you can use it to add a story to the place you’re photographing

Use it to add a sense of realism – shadows and lights add more 3D effects to a picture, so play with it to add depth and dimension to your images

Use shadows to capture unique patterns and highlight textures – whether it’s the dappled light through the leaves on a model or unusual geometric patterns cast by the shadows of a building, you can be creative and use it to create extraordinary images