How do I choose the best time of day to take photos at? Q&A
How do I choose the best time of day to take photos at?
I look at the light. No seriously, I just make mental note of when the light is best and I take photos then!
Which raises the question, how do I know when the lighting is best?
I once read that it would take about two years to become familiar/comfortable with lighting, and it did.
Early on, I did a lot of experimenting with lighting and I would beg my siblings to let me take their photos so that I could practice lighting. I would make them turn in circles so that I could watch how the lighting changed when they faced different directions. Eventually, they got sick of this so I succumbed to photographing stuffed animals or dolls in different lighting situations. . . that sounds weird now that I write it. . . but I would take those photos and download them to my computer and try to identify what I did wrong or what I did right.
I also checked out practically every photography book at my library, and I read them all cover to cover and practiced everything that I was learning. Can't recommend this enough! Free education for the win (just be sure to return them on time!).
One of the best tips I read was to watch the light throughout the day - watch how it looks in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. Walk around your house and watch how the light comes through the windows and if you have time, take pictures of it. Do that every day. After doing this for approximately 4 years I feel like I can identify good light from bad light.
I prefer to shoot an hour or two after sunrise *yawn*, or an hour or two before sunset. Since I'm not usually up with the sun (ever) I typically plan on taking photos around sunset. I google the sunset time for my location and then go back two hours, easy peasy. Most often I backlight my subject and use a natural reflector, like a sidewalk, or a handheld reflector to bounce the light back into my subject - this helps to balance the light and fill in shadows. I love photographing during sunset because the light is very soft and has a warm tone to it!
Long story short, how do I choose the best time of day to take photos?
I do a lot of planning, a lot of research, a lot of staring out my window to see when the light will be best, and whenever I notice that the sunshine looks particularly nice I write down the time and plan my photoshoots around that time.
Obviously, this isn't always possible, because in the case of photographing a wedding you don't get to pick the schedule and sometimes wedding portraits have to be taken when the sun is still high in the sky, and you just have to roll with it. That's when I think back to my old "stuffed animal" photography days and put what I learned into practice. (The weird looks that I got from my neighbors for carrying a teddy bear and a camera around my practice paid off ;))
(The three photos below were taken during the middle of the day.)
It took me years to understand the behavior of light, I can't stress this enough. And while I feel like I have a pretty good handle on things now, I'm still constantly messing up, and failing miserably, but it's important to remember that the sun will come out tomorrow and no matter how terribly my experimental lighting goes I can always try again!
I'm definitely not an expert, but if you have any questions on lighting be sure to drop a comment or send me a message at hello@carleymarie.com and I'll do my best to answer!
Stay lovely,
Carley