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Alley Cat's tips to great photography

ABOVE: My sister Paige is my model everywhere we go. When we were at the State Fair I pulled Paige to a patch of sunlight and asked her to flip her hair and turn around until I got this picture.
BOTTOM: Another picture of my beloved model. we were sitting outside and a care headlight was directly pointed at Paige so I told her not to move, I set the camera for the headlight and I knew it would shine around her.

Follow this column for photography techniques and advice from Alison Watkins.

COLUMN
By ALISON WATKINS
fhspress.com Editor-in-Chief
Posted November 13, 2017

Chapter 10: Light PART TWO

Light Is actually a pretty heavy subject. There are many factors when taking a photo and the biggest factor is light.

Natural light is entirely different from artificial light, like strobes and flashes. The glory of setting your camera yourself is to not need a flash in some instances, such as photographing food or highly reflective surfaces, like glass or metal.

The flash can certainly be used with a word of caution; make sure not to cause flash-burn. Flash-burn is when the flash is too bright or too close and causes blown out areas on the image. An easy fix is to set the camera for what the flash will overexpose and let the flash fill everything else with light. I will discuss more in flashes in an upcoming article.

I love backlighting! Backlighting is when your light source is behind your subject. In some cases the light shines through or around the edges of your subject. Since the light is behind the subject you have to set the camera for the subject to be exposed properly. Check out the images I’ve included. I explain the lighting in the captions.

Light can create mood for a photo. Mood is more of an element of an artistic photograph versus a journalistic photo and is different from emotion evoked in a photo. Mood is more of internal that can make someone feel spooked, enlightened, ect.

After the fall break I will be continually moving forward to more advanced topics. Next advancment is very specific to shooting in diffrent file formats.

Check back at the same Alley Cat time, same Alley Cat channel!

alison.watkins@fhspress.com

Alley Cat's
Photo Tips

CHAPTERS

  1 Start shooting
  2 Cameras
  3 Composition
  4 Sunrises and Sunsets
  5 Black and White
  6 Portraits
  7 Landscapes
  8 Long Exposure
  9 Light PART ONE
10 Light PART TWO
11 Shoot in RAW
12 Contests
13 Back Button Focusing
14 The Challenges of
      Sports Photography
15 Studio Photography
16 Lenses
17 FX and DX
18 Street Photography
19 Painting with Light
20 Filters
21 Bokeh vs. Blurry
22 Tripods and Mounts
23 File Naming and
      Organizing

UP NEXT

-Printing and Resolution

COMING SOON
-Flashes
-Paid Gigs
-Gadgets and Gizmos
-HDR
-Film Photography

FOOTHILL HIGH SCHOOL fhspress.com SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA