LET THERE BE LIGHT

Many of you have asked me for tips on how to take photos and more specifically, how I take my photos. This is such a broad question that it is impossible to cover in one post. There are so many aspects to consider when taking a photo–lighting, styling, location scouting, flattering positioning of the subject(s), editing, story telling, and so so soooooo much more. When taking photos of a toddler or a dog (or even BOTH, like I do!!) there are even more factors to consider and little tricks you can pull out of your hat to make things go (somewhat) more smoothly. I promise to eventually go over all of them (you can comment here if you would like to read about a particular topic more so than others).

I am by no means a photographer and I do not pretend to even be one! I have far too much respect for professional photographers and their knowledge of their craft to call myself one. What I can do, is just speak from personal experience on what worked and what didn’t. I also take all of my photos on my iPhone, so everything I am going over here is iPhone specific. And what I learned is that lighting is EVERYTHING.

Natural light is your best friend. I believe that everyone and everything look their best in natural light. With that being said, you want the right kind of sunlight depending on whether you’re inside or outside. When you’re inside, you want maximum sunlight. So if your home is always flooded with light, you’re golden. It’s also nice to know which part of your house gets the most sunlight throughout the day and take photos when you know that area will be at its brightest.

When taking photos outside, it is ironically the reverse! I realized that on those bright, sunny and perfectly blue sky days, taking a good photo is nearly impossible. People are always squinting, their skin looks too shiny, there are sharp and distracting shadows everywhere, and anything in white or subtle colors are completely lost or destroyed. So I found that my favorite days to take photos outside is on a warm, overcast or cloudy day, or even better, right before the sun settles for the day. They call this the “golden hour” for very good reason. The sun casts that perfectly soft golden hue everywhere and all photos just turn out magical and enchanting. It really is the best, best, best time to take photos outside.

Sometimes you can cheat the sun. If you can find a nice shaded area that can hug both photographer and subject, then you can sometimes soften the effects of the sunlight for a beautiful photo. Sometimes you can take advantage of the sun and take the photo to highlight the brightness of the surroundings. This works great when it’s just a landscape photo or if it is a plain and clean backdrop with no distracting shadows to cover your subject.

Other simple tips on lighting that I try to keep in mind are as follows:
-When outside, try to have the light shine on the subject rather than from behind (unless you are going for that artistic silhouette look).
-Avoid flash. Period. I personally cannot stand flash photography because everything comes out so artificial and forced. Again. Natural light is your best friend! Just tap on the subject you want lit up on your iphone screen and use the regular low light setting. (I will cover editing later to color correct low light photos with some of my favorite photo editing apps!) A good thing to note is that overexposed photos (and those taken with flash) are impossible to edit, whereas underexposed photos are very easy to edit and correct.
-Aside from the golden hour, early mornings are great for lighting too when taking photos outside.

With all this being said,–at the end of the day, what is most important is creating memories to last a lifetime. So if the sun isn’t perfectly positioned, or there is too much or too little light, who cares!! Take the photo anyways. The photo of me and my daughter in Charleston has awful lighting with distracting shadows everywhere and so does our family photo in Aspen below. But I LOVE them because some of my favorite photos aren’t perfect photos, but perfect captures of a favorite moment.