Category Archives: Light

How to light

How to Photograph People using Direct Sunlight

By Paul Kerins | Published: March 2, 2012

How to use direct sunlight to make your portrait photographs beautiful. Ambient light, studio light, available light and the most important light of all, star light. That gigantic mass of hydrogen and helium we call the sun that produces 386 billion billion ( not a typo ) mega-Watts of energy, that is created by so [...]

Ambient High-key Beauty Lighting

By Paul Kerins | Published: March 2, 2012

How to do ambient high-key beauty lighting using only one light source. The most beautiful light is often the simplest, coming only from a single light source. In this beauty photograph of Emma that light source was a large bay window that was behind her, and the light was simple indirect ambient sunlight being channelled [...]

Incident-light meters, what are they, do you need one, and how to use them.

By Paul Kerins | Published: August 28, 2011

How to use hand-held incident-light meters with electronic studio flash and in mixed lighting situations. Which photographers need them and why. Incident-light meters and electronic flash go together like peanut butter and chocolate, not as gooey, but it can be just as tasty. They are not as common place as they use to be, but [...]

How to use ambient sunlight when photographing people.

By Paul Kerins | Published: August 15, 2011

Understanding and using ambient sunlight. Indirect sunlight can also be called available light, or ambient light. The source is of course the sun , just not directly. Instead it is light that is bouncing around on earth or from the open sky. There is artificial ambient light, but that is another topic. Learning to use [...]