Light is a photograph's key ingredient—it's literally the only reason an image can exist.

What Is Natural Light in Photography?
Natural light photography uses the sun as a light source both indoors and out. Photographers with an understanding of the four main elements of natural light (Color, Intensity, Direction and Quality) can use the suns light to help tell stories/narratives through photographs. By paying attention to certain factors such as how the sun behaves throughout the day and in different weather conditions, you will learn to see light better, maximize its potential, and apply the basic techniques in any genre of photography.
What Are the Benefits of Photographing With Natural Light?
Natural light photography offers the following benefits to professional and amateur photographers alike:
  • It’s affordable. There’s no need to purchase expensive artificial light sources.
  • It offers variety. Natural light photos vary depending on the time of day that they are shot. A photo taken during the golden hour will look markedly different from one taken in the middle of a sunny day, which in turn will look different from a photo at dusk, or even at night (with a very long shutter speed).
  • It can be used for landscapes and portraits alike. Many people associate natural lighting with country side landscape images, but it is also used for portrait photography. By managing your white balance and experimenting with different exposures and camera settings, a natural light photographer can create outdoor portraits that are just as compelling as something shot in an indoor studio.
  • It works indoors as well as outdoors. Natural light enters buildings through windows and doors, and it can be exploited for photography. For instance, window photography combines the natural lighting of the sun with interior decor. This form of ambient lighting can be easier to work with than direct sunlight since window light comes from a fixed direction.
Color
​Color temperature changes throughout the day, depending on the time and the amount of clouds in the sky. The soft light of dawn and dusk is dominated by oranges and yellows(this is what photographers refer to as the golden hour or magic light. Midday sun contains more blue light. 

Intensity
​The intensity of light is a measure of its harshness or brightness and determines how much light is present in a scene. Intensity is sometimes referred to as “quantity of light.”
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You can estimate how intense light is based on the balance between shadows (the darker areas of your image) and highlights (the lighter areas of your image). This distinction between highlights and shadows is known as contrast.

Hi Contrast Light - Annie Berlin
Low Contrast Light - Raphael Angelo
Direction
Depending on the time of day, the direction of light changes due to the sun’s movement.
Given that the the sun is below the horizon at dawn and twilight, almost horizontal at sunrise, and is highest and nearly vertical midday, photographing at these different times of day produces largely different images.

​Embrace side lighting. One way to harness sunlight is to limit its direction. By placing your subject indoors, beside a window with an open shade, you can control the flow of light and prevent undesirable backlighting or washouts.
Picture
45 - 90 degree
Picture
Back Lighting
Picture
Light From Above
Picture
Front Lighting
Quality
Quality encompasses the other characteristics and can either be classified as hard/direct or soft/diffused.
The smaller the light source is compared to a subject, the harder the quality, and as the light spreads and becomes bigger, the quality also becomes softer.

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Hard/Direct Light

Soft/Diffused​ Light

Dappled light

Reflected light
Tips for Using Natural Light in Your Photography.
  1. Use a reflector. If you’ve ever seen a film crew working outside, you’ve probably seen someone holding a large, floppy, silver-coated screen. This is a reflector. It bounces sunlight toward the camera’s subject and makes sure they’re always more lit from the front than from the back. This is what allows photographers to produced detailed, high contrast photos of their subjects.
THE ASSIGNMENT
For this assignment, you will be demonstrating your understanding of natural light by submitting 5 photographs using different natural light techniques from the list below. You will be submitting a google slide similar to the example provided  You will also submit your favorite natural lighting example to a class discussion board.
  1. Choose 5 natural lighting techniques from the list below
    1. ​low contrast light
    2. high contrast light
    3. soft light
    4. hard light
    5. Taking a photo during sunrise (Not of the sunrise)
    6. Taking a photo during sunset / golden hour (Not of the sunset)
    7. Taking a photo Around High Noon
    8. 45-90 degree light (sidelight)
    9. Backlit
    10. Front Lit
    11. Reflected light (no. 2 on link)
    12. Dappled Light
  2. You Personally Take Original photos demonstrating the 5 techniques that you chose from the list
  3. Edit and crop as necessary using the skills you have learned in previous classes and assignments to enhance each photo to the best of your abilities
  4. Create a google slide with the following
    1. title page with
      1. name of assignment (Natural Light)
      2. Your Name
      3. Hour
      4. Class (photo A)
      5. Year 
    2. Each slide should have 2 edited photos labeled with which lighting technique you are demonstrating.
  5. Submit your favorite EDITED Photo (or 2)from the assignment to the class discussion board

Jimmy Chin

Teff Theory

Alex Cannova
References and Resources