[rbxshot2 img="images/stories/carlgeers/3R6H9137.jpg"]CLICK FOR PIC[/rbxshot2]Ok... the most important thing to remember about photography is... come on.... you know it...  LIGHT.  That's right, light or the absence of it make an image. Some photographers spend all their time mastering light others master their camera technique and a third group masters the interaction between the model and the camera. It's rare to see someone that's new to photography get all three facets represented in their work but when they finally get it, like I did. It's pretty much the most exciting thing you can think of for a photographer. Seeing all those elements tangled up nicely in an image just seems like magic.

My progression went this way. First, I picked up the camera and started shooting film, lots of film. I had no idea what I was doing but I had an awareness about me to strive for better and better images. I'd say that most of my work back then was based on trial and error and pure luck. There was no instant preview so you had to meter like crazy and rely on you past experiences and seldom made notes of similar photography sessions to help guide you along. I read books and magazines, gleaning them for all the tricks the pros used but seldom found what I was looking for. Back then, there were "secrets" that only few shared. Sure you saw articles in magazines but mostly they were about getting better snapshots of your vacation and children and focused almost entirely on gear. The magazines were all about advertising gear for sale so that was what you got.

Luckily for me I was most often able to learn while getting paid. I pulled sheet after sheet of polaroid to get up to speed on a 4x5 all at my client's expense. It would have cost me a fortune in time and materials to learn what those 6 boxes of Polaroid taught me. Lighting, angles, depth of field, exposure and composition magically appeared as I worked my way through sheet after sheet of film. I'm not going to say I didn't have help as I was fortunate enough to work with some amazing staff photographers throughout my formative years. Just working near them was like being a dry sponge tossed in a sink of water. I remember having an argument with one of the senior photographers about the very subject of this article, light. I was convinced that fill flash could obliterate light falling on an object from the sun. If I could go back I'd stop myself from being an idiot but that's hind sight and we all know how that works. I was wrong in so many ways based on my ignorance of the subject of light, so, rather than be wrong I decided to make it my personal challenge to learn to work with anything that produced, reflected or modified light.

Light forms the visual shape of everything it comes into contact with. Hard light creates stark, strong images filled with harsh highlights and deep black shadows while diffuse light flows into the peaks and valleys of your subject much more evenly. I think of the quality of light like an artist might think of the quality of his brushes. Choosing the right light for your desired effect is what separates the hacks from the pros and being able to visualize a shot, to know how you want the light to fall on the subject is the key to getting through the crucial process of mastering light. Please don't get me wrong here, I'm not some uber shooter that knows it all, in fact I feel like i've barely started and I've been at this for over 25 years. I'm just a guy that strives to always improve, I guess it's my curse.

So how do you know what you want to do with light? How do you make that decision to go one way or the other in the way you choose to work with your subject and the photons that spill all over it? It's easy... open your eyes! forget about all the technical crap and quit fiddling with your camera for just a few moments and really look at the light and shadows. Think about how they are working with or against your subject and try to work with what is already there before modifying it into some sterile Key, Fill and Hair Light calculation.

Think about the kind of light that gets you interested. I know that sounds vague but trust me this will help. Think back to some of your favorite memories. One of mine is a bizarre image that just won't leave my mind. I can see it to this day in pixel perfect memory. It was a golden light that filtered through tobacco yellowed curtains into a pastel yellow tiled room. A bathroom in the old house I lived in in grade school. It gets even better. The subject, my younger brother, I think he was 4 at the time, was standing on the toilet in his pajamas and was going through the medicine cabinet like all curious kids do. He pulled out a bottle of golden yellow Vitalis and took a swig thinking it was the beer my father always seemed to have in his hands. It was incredible light. Warm, and slightly softened by the lace of the curtains and the bounce fill of the shiny tiles. It was a magical moment in my life. To this day I've been working to recreate that same light in my shots.

Now that you have an idea of what you might like about light try to put it to use. Try to find a situation that already has the light you love and shoot it. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the only way to master light is to actually SEE it. Don't read some book about lighting set ups or you'll be stuck using the same old stuff. Learn to see light, analyze it and take advantage of it and you'll be on top of the game.

I don't want to get into a long winded discussion about light modifiers until you've actually gone out and witnessed what happens in the real world as light falls on your subject and makes it's way, upside down, backwards and burned into your retina on it's journey to your creative mind. Witness how it bounces, reflects, interacts and flows across a subject. Light acts, interestingly, as both a particle and a wave and if you pay attention you'll start to see how it works without going out and blowing wads of cash on lighting gear someone recommends in a magazine article. I once knew a really impoverished, eccentric that used one light source, sometimes the sun alone and a series of mirrors to create images that I used a car load of gear to acheive. It's simpler than you can imagine. Find what you like and use it. I had a corrugated metal wall that was oxidized and positioned just right to act like a huge soft box. The images made near it were magical.

So before you go crazy blowing money, get out and look around. Check the same location throughout the day, from sunrise to sunset. Find the perfect place to take a model and make some great images with thought behind them.