Shot of the Day: Working with hard(er) light

I’ve been so looking forward to finally posting some pics from this shoot! I haven’t finished processing them all, but I couldn’t wait – so I thought I’d look at a couple of the pics for the Shot of the Day. When I’m finished processing the full shoot I’ll be sure and put up another post with more pics.

These pics come from a shoot I did for good friends of mine: Hannes and Clarien. Hannes, amongst a myriad of other things, is a sculptor and the pieces I shot for him are all the most incredible totems made from collected animal bones and wood. When I do the full post I’ll be sure and add some contact details for Hannes.

We decided to head down to the beach to do the shoot – the particular part of the beach that I suggested was Lagoon Beach in Milnerton, which has fantastic light, almost irrespective of what time of day it is. We went in the lateish afternoon, about an hour or two before golden hour. As I was shooting a press photographer (who’d just come back from assignment in Afghanistan) came by to watch what we were doing. Actually, a lot of people came by to watch what we were doing – Hannes’s work has that kind of effect on people. Anywho. The press photographer stood watching for a while and then asked me why I wasn’t waiting till golden hour to shoot because surely that’s always going to give you the best light? Well, interestingly, it’s only going to give you the best light if the light you’re after is soft and evenly spread. For Hannes’s work – which has a lot of fine, craggy detail, the soft light woudl’ve hidden all of that. Harder, more directional light will bring up all the dents and crags in the subject – great for a piece of sculpture, but not great for a portrait of someone who wants to look their best!

So, I guess this post is a bit of a reminder (to myself as well) that the best light is the light that best suits your purposes. Golden hour will provide soft, golden wrap around light that is fantastic for photographing people or certain landscapes, but it isn’t going to be ideal for every single thing that you shoot. In this instance having a harder, more directional light source helped to show the textured surface of the totems, as well as creating some drama with the more dramatic differences that this light creates between light and dark.

Here are my shoot settings. The first shot was at 1/400s, the second at 1/320s.

Shooting Mode    Manual Exposure
Tv( Shutter Speed )    1/ 400 and 1/320
Av( Aperture Value )    4.0
Metering Mode    Spot Metering
ISO Speed    50
Lens    EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Focal Length    24.0mm
Image Size    4368×2912
Image Quality    RAW
Flash    Off
White Balance Mode    Auto
AF Mode    AI Focus AF
Picture Style    Standard
Sharpness    5
Contrast    1
Saturation    1
Color tone    0
Color Space    sRGB