Dear Photographer,
Like so many, I am a natural light photographer. What exactly does that mean? And, what doesn’t mean?
I’ve seen it on so many photographer announcing, “I only shoot in the golden hours…” Guess what? Life doesn’t happen between the hours of just after the sun comes up to right before it goes down! YES, the light is often glorious at those times, but life goes on the rest of the day too, as do weddings, and parties, and so much more. You don’t want to miss those opportunities!
Natural light professional photographers are able to use whatever light they have to get a great image. I’m not saying a wedding in a monsoon is prime time for outdoor wedding party or bridal photos (oh, how I know that to be true!), or a newborn session scheduled for high noon with no shade around in mid-July shouldn’t be rescheduled, but I am saying that a pro should not be limited to those 90 minutes twice a day known as the golden hours to shoot. There’s pretty light all around, so keep shooting and learning how to shoot well no matter what time of day it is. Do make smart choices when scheduling your book, and do learn how to shoot in full sun and find the best light all around you no matter what time of day you’re out there. I scheduled a session for a very large group that had so many stipulations-due simply to the way life lines up sometimes- that I was sunk before I started light-wise, but I made the best of it. Is it perfect? No. But it’s beautiful and made several families very happy in the process. If I had no idea what to do with bright sun, limited space and no time, I would have been in big trouble!
There are a lot of circumstances where life will dictate the when and where of a particular photography session. I remember thinking I couldn’t, shouldn’t and therefore wouldn’t take on assignments that I couldn’t shoot HERE or THEN. However, I learned a lot on the baseball field about light, and time, and everything that my little camera needs to be directed to do in imperfect situations.
Likewise, bridal sessions for portraits can be tricky too. This one, in the middle of a drought-ridden summer was rescheduled 3 times due to, you guessed it, RAIN. The problem is there were several wedding day vendors’ schedules at stake with each re-schedule: flowers, hair and the photographer-me. We decided to go ahead on this particular day even though it again called for rain. Keeping the location close enough to the salon that we could squeeze it in from hair done to photos done in no time if the skies were uncooperative again, was a great decision. I left my house as the rain started hoping to drive OUT of it, to no avail.
The bride looked stunning, the skies looked threatening, and the walk in stilettos from parking to posing looked scary. But we did it anyway. I found a place that we could work. Covered the ground where it was wet so her gown stayed clean and dry. Placed her there and directed through an entire 10 minutes of shooting. Had the rain started to pour, there would be no way to make it back to the cars without ruining her wedding dress. So not only was finding the light important, but time was of the essence! We were three nervous-nellies that day! Lord, please don’t let the rains fall, yet!
It was dark and gloomy. It rained before, it sprinkled during and it poured as soon as the car door was quickly slammed shut.
And, it was a good session!
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