Kinds of Light in Street Photography
I have a dark street photography secret: I do not exactly go out looking for light. It is not that I don’t think about light. Actually, it is always in top-of-mind awareness, but I am actively looking for other things like interesting characters, facial expressions, and gestures. Light comes as an afterthought. How much light is there? How even is it? I don’t find light as much as I manage it.
My new Ricoh camera has changed that a little, with the help of its photographer champion, Eric Kim, who put me onto the idea. The Ricoh has a one-of-a-kind exposure setting, highlight weighted metering. It will prevent the blowout of highlights no matter how dark the shadows get. I used this setting for one whole day in NYC, which is an extravagant use of the precious resource of being in the city. It was informative and fun. I do have to say that it will take a whole lot more practice to get a quality picture using this technique. The real plus was it got me to thinking about light which is how I came to write this blog. It is a little primer on the kinds of natural light that is used in street photography.
Highlight weighted metering was used to get this in the Dallas Love Field airport.
Shade or Diffused Light
This is really my favorite lighting. It is readily available in cities because buildings cast shadows. It is also the available light on cloudy or rainy days. When I am photographing people I have a preference for the even lighting that is the characteristic of diffused light. This kind of light generally requires the use of a higher ISO. I am willing to give up some of the loss of color that is associated with using higher ISOs in order to get this even lighting.
Back Light
Backlighting occurs when the primary light source is behind your subject. Your subject is going to be in varying degrees of shade. If the backlight is very bright and you expose for the light, your subject will be a silhouette or partial silhouette.
If your backlight is low, for example because the sun is low in the sky, you can get a halo of light around your subject. This is called rim lighting. It can create a very dynamic photo.
The man and women at the top of the pictures are partially outlined with rim lighting.
Bright Sunlight
Bright sunlight creates strong contrast and harsh shadows. Photographers in many genres avoid it entirely. It is why landscape photographers get up early or go out in the late afternoon. Street photographers, however, can benefit from the dramatic effect of harsh light.
You can get a sunburst by using a relatively small aperture, in this case f/8 and hiding the light source partially behind your subject.
Golden Hour Light
During the golden hour, the sun is at a low angle in the sky, which creates long shadows and light which is warmer and softer.
Night Light
The first issue of shooting at night is to find a source of light.
Windows are an opportunity. If you stand with your back to them, they will illuminate, to some degree, what is in front of them. If you shoot into the light of a window you will have the opportunity of backlighting.
Street lights, like sunlight at noon, have to potential to create a relatively moody harsh light.
Light from mobile devices can an interesting light that acts somewhat like studio lighting.
In situations where there is not much light, it is more important than ever to expose correctly. Increasing the exposure during post processing brings out the worst in high ISO pictures. There is no point in post processing so that it looks like daytime.
As street photographers, we are fortunate that our photos do not have to be perfectly sharp. Some noise that results from shooting at a high ISO is also acceptable. Shooting at night with a hand held camera can produce great street photography.
Reflected Light
As I see it, there are two parts to shooting reflected light.
First, is to actually shoot a reflection. In some cases color reflected can be dull.
Second, you can use reflected light to help light a scene.
Now for a little color theory.
Value
Value, is the second property of color. It describes how light or dark a color is. As a technical issue, the value of a color is judged on how light or dark it is relative to a similarly lit white area. Value is considered to be an attribute of the color because if the level of illumination is varied, how light or dark the color is relative to the similarly illuminated white is perceived as the same.
In science, value refers to the amount of light reflected. In pigments, shades are the dark values that arise because black pigment has been added to a pure pigment. Tints are the light values that arise because white pigment has been added.
Color palettes that have colors with identical values or values only a few steps away from each other tend to be visually pleasing. Think of a nice mix of pastels. But those palettes do not convert well to b&w because they will produce the same tones and, thus, there will be very little contrast.