As photographers, we learn fast that harsh Sunny light is… hard!
But ultra flat light can be hard too so if you had to choose, which would you pick?
The perspective we have of “beautiful” light is often too narrow; soft sunsets or giant glowing softboxes from the heavens. Those are amazing. But to really master light I think we need to learn to value every type of light and find the unique beauty we can shape from it.
Flat light can be hard with landscapes and environmental scenes and if I’m struggling with that I’ll often try longer exposures to add interest and then do a bit of burn and dodge in post to bring out more subtle contrast points. With portraits, flat light is usually nice. But too flat light is reiterating and feels dull. Remember there’s always a direction with light, so you can use that on the face for a nice soft portrait. But if you need some extra pop juts add little artificial fill light in on the same side as the natural light, adding a bit more lighting ratio on your subject.
In this video, we go out and find some flat light, take some images and then head back to finish up with some post-production to see what we can do with it.
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