Jason Tag Photography

In my last post I touched on this a little so I decided to delve into it a little deeper…

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between shooting with artificial light versus natural/avaible light.  Normally, I shoot with natural light but since January I’ve had the opportunity to do a few shoots indoors under artificial light.  It’s was interesting to do it and see just how different it really is.  As I’ve been talking to friends and models about this, what I’ve found is that there is something magical about natural light.

Natural light changes.  It moves.  Clouds cover the sun and then uncover it again very quickly.  You have to be on your toes and be able to change your game in the blink of an eye.   You have to keep a constant eye on the light and really see what it’s doing and understand what it’s going to do at any given moment.

I find myself watching the sky quite a bit now.  looking for the indicators of just what the light is going to do and building a catalog of situations so that I can select the right exposure for each and every shot that I take.  This kind of shooting is my preferred method.  It is because of the attention to detail that it commands of me.  It forces me to make the best of less-than-ideal situations.  And it allows me to hike to quite remote places because I don’t need to carry a lot of gear to make good images.

When I did shoot indoors under artificial light I found myself in a very different world.  The light didn’t change.  It remained constant.  I could move it where I wanted and make it do what I wanted it to do.  Too much light?  Turn it down.  Not enough?  Turn it up.  Move it left, right, up, down, bounce, no bounce.  You can do so many different things with it it would make your head spin.  I’m not going to say that one or the other is bad or good but just simply a different way of shooting depending which you choose to use.  I personally didn’t like using artificial light.  It was fun, and I got some fantastic shots but I missed the wind.  I longed for the trees.  I wanted to lay on the ground and feel the earth beneath me.

As I’ve been thinking about all of this and talking to friends about my images, I’ve started to see that shooting under natural or available light is why I’m able to get the kind of images I get.  I’ve also started to realize that many photographers are shooting with lights.  Even in the great outdoors, they’re using lights!  It finally dawned on me that some do it because they like the look they get with lights.  Which is fine with me.  But what bugs me is that there are others who don’t know how to shoot any other way.

Because of all of this, I’ve started to think about my strategy for shooting outdoors under available light.  And trying to understand why I select the exposure settings I select.  Why I position my models where I do, when I do.  I’ve been trying to figure out all of the things that happen in my mind that have now become automatic.  How do I explain what I’m doing in the time between I look through the lens and the time I push the button to capture the image.  For me this is completely automatic.  I don’t think about it anymore. I simply act and react based on what nature gives me.

I hope that someday I might be able to teach this to people who might want to learn how to shoot under natural light.  But for now I’m content to just shoot and try to figure it all out…