I participate a lot in online photography communities. These communities are full of photographers of all skill levels. People often ask how they can elevate their image making. My answer always seems to be; invest in and learn how to use artificial lighting.
There seems to be a prevalent marketing technique of image makers that brand themselves as “Natural Light Only Photographers”. I don’t see anything inherently wrong with shooting in available light; and I have seen stunning images made in such conditions. I frequently shoot in natural light, without any augmentation but I have never referred to myself as a “Natural Light Only Photographer”.
To me this sort of branding strongly implies a superior way to work, free of a trickery, artificial flavors and colors or fluff. However; it also strikes me as the same sort of marketing jargon that industrial food manufacturers will slap on the labels of frozen food. “100% All Natural” on the package of factory farmed chicken entices the consumer with promises of purity and cleanliness, but if you dig deeper you’ll find that there are literally no regulations that govern these mega-corporations’ use of the term “Natural” in their marketing. Even the term “Organic” which IS regulated has become more and more diluted over the years. However this isn’t a blog about clean eating.
Moreover; the pros of “natural light photography” are often cited as not need needing to invest in expensive lighting setups or have to lug around more gear (I have a tool box on wheels that I can put the majority of my equipment in).
That said I believe that the cons of only shooting in available light far outweigh the pros. Limitations include, having to contend with constantly changing lighting conditions. What do you do if it starts raining the day of a shoot and you have to move indoors and have no strobes to work with? What do you do if the sun is quickly setting during golden hour and clouds are rolling in and out? What happens if your scene requires you to shoot in open shade?
I frequently encounter when “natural light photographers” share their work is that in reality, they are shooting family portraits, engagements, weddings and events and they are producing; sub par photographs for their clients. This dilutes the craft as a lot times these clients aren’t aware that better results could be had if they worked with a photographer that had a little more dedication to craftsmanship.
What’s often problematic in these photographs, is that the photographer will be working in high contrast scenarios in harsh lighting conditions with their subjects backlit by the sun and faces in shadow. If the photographer then meters to preserve detail in their subject’s faces they will completely clip highlights leading to flat pure white skies with no detail. No beautiful sunsets or pretty blue skies with clouds. No depth; no dimension. Alternatively if the photographer attempts to meter to preserve detail in the sky, their subjects faces will be completely underexposed loosing detail.
The antidote to this in my experience is investing in strobes and learning how to balance ambient light with artificial light.
Researching and learning how to use strobes and speedlights can be helpful in creating images that have more command over contrast and allow you to make creative decisions that present in a more elevated level image making.
While the above image is by no means perfect, it does demonstrate what is achievable with an understanding of how to balance ambient and artificial light. To produce this equilibrium I’ve metered the ambient using my camera’s on board evaluative metering capabilities. I’ve relied on the Sunny 16 rule as a starting point. Sunny 16 directs us to use f/16 @ ISO100 and then setting a shutter speed that is at least 1 over the ISO in this case 1/100th of a second rule as a basis. I stopped my aperture down f/8.0 and bumped my shutter speed up to 1/160 of a second to compensate. This has given me a pleasing backdrop of a sunrise sky. I can then augment the available light by placing strobes on the subject.
Shutter speed is the key to controlling exposure over the ambient. If at 1/160th of a second I started to clip highlights, I would then move to a faster shutter speed to bring that exposure under control. If I begin to exceed flash sync I might consider moving to High Speed Sync if available or playing with my ISO. I may run out of headroom as most cameras natively bottom out at ISO100. You can also make exposure decisions with aperture but you will have to adjust strobe power to match and you may have to make some compromises on depth of field. More on that in a bit. Neutral Density filters may come into play here but I still need to invest in a good set of these. I’ll reserve comment as my experience with ND filters is extremely limited.
Once shutter speed and aperture is settled upon, we then bring our strobes into the mix. In this case I used two strobes with softboxes; one as a key light and one as a fill light, as well as a speedlight for a hairlight and to create some separation of the subject from the background. It is important to remember that while we control ambient exposure through shutterspeed, we control strobe exposure through aperture. In this image I used an external light meter with a flash setting to measure the output of our strobes. I set the ISO and Shutterspeed on the meter and then pop the keylight strobe, adjusting it’s power until it reads f/8.0 on the meter. Remember that this was the initially settled upon aperture when setting up this image. If we decide that we need more or less depth of field, we will have to readjust power on the strobes and re-meter them until we match new aperture settings.
This is a portrait like setup in which we have a key light and a fill light. This is a short lit lighting style in which the shadow side of the face is towards the camera. Without a fill light we may see too much contrast on the shadow side so we use a fill light to control that contrast. In this instance I adjusted the power output of the fill light and metered it one stop down to achieve 3:1 lighting ratio.
Technically this is underexposing the fill light; which is actually what I want. If I metered the fill exactly the same as the key light I would have a 1:1 ratio. While there is no rule that states you can’t do this, I find this ratio (or lack thereof) to have a flat feel. To achieve depth and dimension I prefer 3:1. If I were to meter the fill light to 1.5 stops underexposed, the result would be a 5:1 ratio. I find this style to be more effective in studio scenarios with a low key light backdrop that creates a more moody and dramatic feel.
This rant is by no means meant to disparage “Natural Light Photographers”. Available light photography is an art form and like all art forms it requires a dedication to craftsmanship and consistent practice to the produce effective images. Landscape and Wildlife Photographers are well adept at working in these conditions, but rarely would they refer to themselves as “Natural Light Photographers”
What I found is that very few people who refer to themselves as “Natural Light Photographers” have actually mastered this craft. What is more truthful in this assertion is that “Natural Light Photographers” are those lacking in the resources and skills to work with artificial light. Perhaps it’s too daunting of a task to overcome or is outside of their comfort zone. In my opinion, this comfort zone is far more limiting than I care to exist and breaking out of that box is freeing. Breakthroughs rarely come inside of comfort zones.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasures you seek” ~Joseph Campbell