Exercise 32 Variety with low sun

The low sun has a number of advantages in terms of warmth and colour as well as the angle of the incident light which can create a great modelling effect, especially with subjects that have a pronounced surface texture.  I have had several attempts at this exercise, firstly using the dreaded gnome and secondly using a loaf of bread which was a potential subject for the final assessment images that my tutor had suggested, so it was definitely worth including here to see how the images worked out.  The loaf images appear first as I thought that these were far better as the bread had such a strong and obvious texture, also different on the inside and the outside, with which to work.

The shot with the low sun directly behind me fully lit the loaf and gave a good contrast to the features of both the side and the cut surface of the front.  The orange light of the low sun also helped to enhance the existing colouration of the bread.  The side lit shot obviously lit the side and threw the front surface of the loaf into shadow and lost some of its finely modelled details as well.  The edge, or rim, lighting worked quite well as I placed the loaf where the sun was directly behind, but the edge of the bread was viewed against a dark background.  The front was clearly going to be in shadow but the edge lit up well due to the rough edge and texture of the surface catching the light – this was far better than the gnome which has quite a smooth edge and surface coupled with a finely textured surface.  The back lit shot robbed the front of the loaf of any real texture or definition (although this could be addressed later) and the image looked dull as all directional light was incident from behind.

Front lit

Side lit

Edge lit

Back lit

The same conclusions were generally applicable to the gnome (see comment above) although by the time these images were shot the sun was lower and the photograph taken with the sun directly behind the subject threw it into a partial silhouette.

Front lit

Side lit

Edge lit

Back lit

This exercise again illustrated to me the value of side light in defining surface texture or roughness and also of utilising the late afternoon light (or morning if that was when I had taken the images) to highlight detail and have the opportunity to use the warm light tones available.