The marvel of dawn

As previously discussed, “The absence of superfluous light” gracefully applied can have a tremendous impact on your photography. Plus almost no post-processing is necessary if the light is just right as in this photo. This unobtrusive building came to life around dawn when most people would tuck their camera away. During daytime you’d walk right past it, to tell the truth it looks rather ugly in plain daylight. A well trained eye recognizes the pots of gold at the end of the light beam.

Click photo to enlarge
Now how do you become a successful Leprechaun? Well that goes beyond a simple blog article. I could tell you that your location on the globe, the season, the climate zone, all affect the result. The closer to the equatorial line, the shorter your time frame but shadows protrude more dramatically. And we all know that the path of the sun above the horizon changes with the seasons (some locations reveal their beauty only once a year). A hot summer might account for high humidity and haze, which may be desirable or not at all. Some photographers go to such lengths as to calculate the position of the sun and the incidence angle before they go hunting. Did I start out following these intricate details? Not really.

Practice simplicity

If this is all new to you, forget what I just said. Basic rule: Keep it simple. Generally speaking, the weather the conditions of the sky, and with that the intensity of the sunlight are paramount. Cloudy weather can work in your favor, as it evenly disperses the light. Practice at home with a dimmed light bulb and a few objects until you get a feel for it. Outdoor photography in low light needs a lot of experience and patience.

Time is up

Always know your time frame before you leave the house. A summer’s evening in Europe lasts for hours, while here in Japan we only have a time frame of 30 minutes when it darkens. The light situation changes every minute and one has to work real quick. Quite a challenge for long exposure shots. The lighting is up to nature alone and you never get the same result twice. Imagine you’re a studio photographer and your lighting assistant is a bioluminescent squid gone nuts. See it as a challenge and try to make the best of it. And always leave room for the unexpected.

Polarize!

If that doesn’t make you tingle, I’ll add one on top: Be daring and use a polarizing filter at dawn. Yes that’s right, apply a polarizer in low light situations (my inner squid told me). It accentuates fine details and tunes down brightly lit areas. As we work with extreme luminance levels, going for HDR to catch the tiniest details seems tempting, but that’s the exact opposite of the idea. Apart from my aversion against pop-colored kitsch as recently seen in HDR, accumulating as much light and colors is contradictory to the absence of light which I favor. The antagonism between light and darkness makes a scenery dramatic in the first place. In the next post I’ll explain why in some cases I do use HDR.