Lighting the way: Professional photographer Simon Keitch gives his top tips on using light to your advantage

Last week we let you know about Simon Keitch and his fascinating portrait shots of the cyclists at the finish line of a 24 hour mountain bike endurance race. Thanks for all your feedback and comments.  As promised, this week Simon has put together his top tips, focusing particular on lighting in photography.

Lighting:

‘Photography’ literally means ‘writing with light’, yet too few really give this any thought when raising a camera to their eye. I call it the ‘point-and-shoot ethic’; point camera at subject, push button and thanks to the incredible amount of technology crammed into even the smallest camera these days out comes a well exposed and focused digital image. But could it be better? Content is always king but the quality of light will absolutely make or break an image; and even if you don’t wish to invest in the equipment necessary for off-camera lighting, just a little thought will immediately give you consistently better photographs.

Admittedly, I’m kind of obsessive about light and often catch myself mentally noting the way a person’s face is being illuminated as we have a conversation; where and what’s the key light, the fill, maybe there’s a rim light… You don’t necessarily have to obsess over these things but you do need to think about them and make certain decisions, because ultimately a photograph is simply a series of decisions, and the ones you make will dictate how your photos will look.

Position of light:

Where is the light coming from? The main light source  (the ‘key’ light) should ideally be no lower then your subject’s eyes and preferably a little higher, but beware of the light source getting too high; this is the primary reason why taking photos in the middle of the day should be avoided if at all possible; the sun is directly overhead and creates dark shadows in the eye sockets (‘panda eyes’).  The ‘golden rule’ for the angle of the main light source is 45 degrees to the subject, but this can be varied according to taste so play around with the exact angle to see what works best for you and the subject.

Quality of light:

Many people hold the belief that clear blue skies and bright sunshine makes for great photographs, but I dread these conditions; bare sun is incredibly hard and ‘contrasty’ and therefore a generally unflattering key light. When the clouds roll in watch how the light softens and the tones even out; hard light may be desired for certain situations but when photographing people a softer light is usually preferred.

Image Courtesy of Simon Keitch

Fill light:

Look at the shadows; how dark are they? How dark do you want them to be? A reflector or even something as simple as a large piece of white card can be used to push light into the shadows to reduce contrast, or a black flag (black panel or sheet) can be used to subtract light and therefore increase the contrast on the subject.

Flash photography:

For a long time I hated flash photography. Until that is, I eventually realised it wasn’t flash photography I hated but bad flash photography, and now I love the broad palette that it gives me to work with, and the control that flash gives me over an environment. While there are exceptions it’s good to get in the mindset of ‘on camera = bad, off camera = good’ as the on camera flash is a very flat and directionless light, as well as being very hard and unflattering in the same way that the sun is. Off camera flash still has that hard quality but can be modified through the use of reflectors or softboxes etc which makes the effective size of the light much larger and softer. I’ve tried a few flashes over the years and really recommend the Nikon Creative Lighting System.

Shooting in the mid-day sun:

The reality of being a professional photographer is that you don’t necessarily get to choose the optimum conditions and I’ve often found myself creating portraits in the mid-day sun, but there are ways of negating the conditions ranging from overpowering the sun with high- powered flash, to the much simpler approach that I used when producing my 24 Hour Racer series of portraits. The 24 hour race ended on a sunny summer’s day at exactly 12 noon; the worst possible conditions for shooting portraits, but I already knew how I would shoot these images; put the subjects in the shade. Open shade provides beautiful soft wraparound light, and we created the simplest natural-light studio possible; a white panel held by an assistant. We grabbed each athlete as they crossed the finish line, turned them so their back was to the sun with the white panel directly behind them and there you have it; open shade and great light.

So what do you make of Simon’s tips on lighting? How do you tackle light in your shooting? If you have any suggestions of your own, we’d love to hear them.

Images courtesy of Simon Keitch