Let The Light Be Your Salt Which Seasons Your Photos

Lighting is a critical ingredient in great photography - and does not have to be complex or difficult!
All photography is about light, but for most people, we don't actually understand what that means. How does light affect the way your photos look. How does it affect the way we see and make decisions about those photos? This video explores the basics of light and the reasons why understanding light is so important when it comes to capturing great photos.
Many photographers don't understand how light works. They take photos without understanding the composition of light, they get confused by technical terms, and they have a difficult time expressing why one photo is better than another. This can be really frustrating.
All photos are made from light, whether it be commercially or personally. The way you use light and portray it in your photographs can have a greater effect on how people see your photos and how they feel about them. I am excited to help you better understand light and begin using it more effectively in your own photography!
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:43 Look for light
01:32 Turn to the dark side
03:36 The moody blues
05:39 Break it down
08:43 Driver or passenger?
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🏫 For more in depth courses about improving your photography, plus image feedback and mentorship opportunities - tpe.teachable.com/
❤️ I hope you find my content useful and inspiring. If you do, consider joining the TPE Patreon community to get access to our members only group, monthly live feedback streams and more - / thephotographiceye
🔔 Subscribe for free photography tips and inspiration: kzbin.info...
📚 Book on the WHY of photography I recommend:
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The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers: Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Why People Photograph: Robert Adams
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Peter C. Bunnell | Peter C. Bunnell: Aperture Magazine Anthology: The Minor White Years, 1952-1976
geni.us/pmOBS
Photographers on Photography: How the Masters See, Think, and Shoot (History of Photography, Pocket Guide, Art History): Henry Carroll
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Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography: Roland Barthes
geni.us/BkdVZE
On Photography: Susan Sontag
geni.us/HkiEY
Letting Go of the Camera: Essays on Photography and the Creative Life: Brooks Jensen
geni.us/TWAu
Approaching Photography: 'A Seminal Work...Revised and Updated': Paul Hill
geni.us/9jM9t
John Berger: Understanding a Photograph: John Berger
geni.us/mNBR
Ways of Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series (Penguin Books for Art): John Berger
geni.us/B7plw2
Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite: Paul Arden
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Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative: Austin Kleon
geni.us/ddlRxQj
It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be: The world's best selling book: Paul Arden
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Life Library of Photography (Complete 17 Volume Set, Plus Index): Time-Life
geni.us/jeL2
The History of Photography: An Overview: Alma Davenport
✅ Recommended playlists:
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• Rediscover Your Passio...
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• Start Improving Your P...
Disclaimer: Some of these links go to one of my websites and some are affiliate links where I'll earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

[@ThePhotographicEye]

I think you might have a small idea I'm a big fan of Alex Webb :D Check out the video on him here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fGW2l5x9md6VndE

[@aljo.antony]

I really get excited when I see the light and shadow in a way that I like and it makes my day when I am sad.

[@andrewcroft2570]

Just love the fact that every time I watch one of your videos I learn something new, you now have your own folder in my KZbin library. 😂

[@davidbrighten2572]

This channel and your work just keeps getting better and better! Thanks for brightening my day.

[@pmbrig]

Galen Rowell once said that he first finds some light that is magical and then finds something to photograph in it.

[@bonedyone]

Paint with light. 😇

[@Damfotografia]

I find this video very illuminating. (the pun was stronger than me, sorry hahaha) Thanks for sharing it with us Alex :)

[@brkatimachor]

I too find it enlightening. (I'm not even sorry)

[@arcanics1971]

Great advice. I've had a few images transformed by just waiting a few minutes for the light to change, and I do like the demonstration here. It's exactly the perfect way to explain it to somebody like me- though on this occasion you were just confirming what I had already discovered. I wish you'd been around on KZbin when I first picked up a camera, Alex! Could have saved me a lot of time! :D On the subject of light, a lot of people seem to have fallen for this idea that you must have the fastest lenses possible. And yes, I admit, an f/1.4 lens is a great tool but so is a 3.5 or a 5.6 or even an 8.0! By all means, get yourself some fast lenses, but don't overlook great lenses that are a tad slower: they make great images too!

[@jack002tuber]

Many years ago I wanted to take a pic of my car and I didn't know anything about photography, I had a location picked out, went there and took it with the sun at my back, it was getting late in the evening, and without planning turned out to be the best time. The sun was really low. Looking at the shot years later showed me what light can do.

[@micheljoffres37]

Your videos are what I have been wanting to hear for a very long time. For me, they really touched at the essence of why we do photography. I love the photos and photographers you choose to illustrate your points. Thank you, I am sure you are making a huge difference in people's photography. In one of the pictures you use a picture of Ales Dusa; you tagged it though as Alex Dusa.

[@ecclesurfilm]

When I started shooting on film, I quickly learned about light. Its so fundamental. Been a great learning process. Thank you for the content!

[@SpainBoy2]

Your videos are absolutely inspiring to me! Thank you for your channel and your contribution to those of us who are "wannabes!" Keep up the good work!

[@kickstand11117]

As the previous poster commented, this is most illuminating; to be sure. I just wanted to add that, for me at least, it was enlightening as well. 😁 Thank you sir. 🙏🏻✌🏻

[@tedbrown7908]

2nd comment. Absolutely spot on. This is the one video photographers should listen to and learn from. Well done !

[@AK-hk2pd]

At last I see the light

[@tedbrown7908]

Photography only operates in the sphere of light. Contrast creates sharpness. After a lifetime of taking photo's, I finally learned this lesson just three years ago.

[@paulshew7930]

As a recent subscriber, I am thoroughly enjoying the wisdom I have heard through many of your videos, and it is giving me more confidence to trust my own eye and take more "risks" withmy photography. Thank you.

[@derricksansome236]

Excellent video Alex, great example of the way the direction of light changes the subject, a great lesson.

[@Rob.1340]

Thank you 👍📷😎

[@jack002tuber]

I always observe and think about the lighting you use on these videos on your face. Some strong light up and to the right, some soft over to the left. There's a balance of too much and too little and pleasing is in the middle. I must say that for photography as it relates to cooking, light is salt. Got to have some, and not too much, not too little, put some here and there, but not all over.

[@HarshDoshiTheHarsh]

I loved the third version of a dark back lit look more than any of these, and would very much love these videos to be that way for your cinematographer friends and subsribers!

[@lamouralice4533]

Thank you so much for all your amazing videos! I really love how you are looking so sharp and amazing in the video. Looking so real like you are just in front of me, What will the setting be like? Really love to learn from you! Please make a video about it!

[@aes53]

The great portrait photographer Phillipe Halsman describes a scene in his autobiography when he was photographing the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Apparently, Oppenheimer didn't think much of photographers and called Halsman, disparagingly, a "light monkey". I don't recall now what Halsman's direct response was but, he generated a classic portrait as you would expect a professional like Halsman to do.

[@nh-ss5pw]

👍👍

[@2012photograph]

Shadow enrich the photograph but very technical technique which must as photographer.

[@wreford07]

I wonder also whether we can think of "active/passive" in terms of light that is either, "drawing attention to itself, or remaining unobtrusive?"

[@warrend8362]

When you were learning about light and beginning to understand it …when was the first time you realized that that meter inside your camera was stuck at 18% gray and didn’t know what you wanted lol 😂

[@jockmcd68]

Hi Alex, I know you are a big fan of Alex Webb so I thought you may like to check out Edas Wong on Flickr, a Hong Kong based street photographer, I am more of a landscape guy myself but I love his work

[@barryobrien1890]

Is it light or contrast. I tend to think about contrast vs light when composing. I lump colours, luminance, patterns etc into contrast, but that's my simplistic mind. Really appreciate the advice about just moving the point of view. Thanks Alex

[@jack002tuber]

Is contrast in this context just the pairing of light and shadow? I know light straight on for a portrait is terrible, you want some shadows in there. If so, it is a discussion on light (IMHO) and what direction it comes from and how soft or how much. Shadows are part of the plan.

[@barryobrien1890]

@@jack002tuber fore it's all just contrast. A blank wall has no contrast, while 2 colours represent contrast. If the subject is lost in the background, how can I use contrast to bring it out, depth of field is contrast of focus vs blur, shadow is contrast, structure is contrast, leading lines are contrast. In composition where is the contrast between subject and background and how can I pull that out. Alex suggests moving or using changing light as tools. Also look to the familiar vs chaos like seeing a face in clouds. It for me is all just contrast as our minds are really good at pulling patterns out of light hitting our eyes. I try to see the possible patterns in any visualization and then work on the ones that contain a story or convey a message, or are a little disturbing to catch the attention. If you create a picture it's supposed to contain a message. Try capturing an image with no message and study it to see how your mind pulls something out of nothing, and then look at how you could have used contrast to pull that out better. I found this thinking helps me find something in the mundane.

[@ThePbird1]

So many other presentations deal with gear. Thank you for dealing with photography’s art instead. A master with a pinhole camera will outshine a fool with a Hasselblad.

[@2012photograph]

How about fireworks light?

[@ThePbird1]

26 Quotes By Photographer W Eugene Smith Photographers - Quotes 0 Comments 1 Here’s a selection of my favorite quotes by photographer W. Eugene Smith. “Available light is any damn light that is available!” - W. Eugene Smith “Negatives are the notebooks, the jottings, the false starts, the whims, the poor drafts, and the good draft but never the completed version of the work… The print and a proper one is the only completed photograph, whether it is specifically shaded for reproduction, or for a museum wall.” - W. Eugene Smith “[I crop ] for the benefit of the pictures. The world just does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera.” - W. Eugene Smith “Hardening of the categories causes art disease.” - W. Eugene Smith “Most photographers seem to operate with a pane of glass between themselves and their subjects. They just can’t get inside and know the subject.” - W. Eugene Smith “What uses having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling?” - W. Eugene Smith “Passion is in all great searches and is necessary to all creative endeavors.” - W. Eugene Smith “The purpose of all art is to cause a deep and emotion, also one that is entertaining or pleasing. Out of the depth and entertainment comes value.” - W. Eugene Smith “I’ve never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil.” - W. Eugene Smith “An artist must be ruthlessly selfish.” - W. Eugene Smith “In music I still prefer the minor key, and in printing I like the light coming from the dark. I like pictures that surmount the darkness, and many of my photographs are that way. It is the way I see photographically. For practical reasons, I think it looks better in print too.” - W. Eugene Smith “My pictures are complex and so am I.” - W. Eugene Smith

[@RS-Amsterdam]

Bringing up Ansel Adams (again) is probably not the most suited sample cause although his pictures create a certain mood, they are far from the reality and created in post !!