In photography, light and color are arguably the most important considerations to a photographer. In fact, any photograph, whether taken in natural light or through the warm radiance of an incandescent light, always captures the effect of light on objects. When light falls on an object, the object absorbs a given proportion of the color spectrum and ultimately reflects back the remaining colors. The portion of the color spectrum that fails to be absorbed but is reflected back is usually the color of the object as it appears to the human eye. Surprisingly, both the artificial incandescent and the natural light appear white to our naked eye, however, with a spectrum of light shining through the prism, the white color is split into a rainbow of colors (Warren,2012,p.221). In this essay, I will discuss the various ways that light and color relates to photography and how these two variables can used efficiently to capture and convey different messages as the photographer intends.
Natural light color in photography
The type of lighting that one captures is a vital and can make a big difference on how the resultant photograph would turn out. Therefore, it is essential for photographers to deeply familiarize themselves with these two types of lighting; the natural and artificial modes of lighting. When considering the natural light color in photography, different shades of color spectrum fluctuate depending on the time of the day. During Sunset and sunrise, we get a type of light referred to as the warm light. This period of the day emphasizes on the red or orange color portion in the spectrum. During this time, the light has low color temperatures of below 3000kelvin (Hirsch, 2012, p21). This range of color spectrum imparts a relaxed, soft and romantic feeling to the photographs. The warm light type of lighting is particularly very popular for landscape photographs. On the other hand during midday, the blue potion in the color spectrum is largely revealed. This type of lighting is referred to as the cool light. It works well in relatively high color temperatures of above 5000kelvins. The cool light can be used by the photographer to give a photo a cold, melancholy and an isolated feeling. The cool light adds a blue tint to the photographs. It is worth noting that the cool light of midday produces the sharpest and clearest color photographs due to the bright cool light.
Artificial light in photography
The intensity and color spectrum from artificial lighting in photography solely depends on the type of bulbs used. Normally, a warm incandescent light will produce an effect that is dramatic as compared to a sharp, focused beam of light from the street lights. Photos that have been taken under incandescent lighting usually have a yellow tinge on them. This yellow tinge can be removed by the use of a blue filter that will offset the yellow tones in the photo. Another way this anomaly can be combated would be through the use of a Tungsten film especially when one is using a film camera instead of the digital camera (Warren, 2012, p.225). When a photographer uses fluorescent lights to illuminate a given object, the photographs also ends up with an unappealing greenish tinge. However, this problem is easily corrected through the use of a daytime filter.
Conclusion
Lighting and color comes out as the core variables in photography. In fact, without these two things, I doubt if photography would be in existence. The whole photography process revolves around lighting so as to enable the photographer to capture, clear and sharp images that would be appealing to the intended audience. Therefore I can conclude that, a photographer who clearly understands the color spectrum and the lighting behind it will be able to capitalize on the full use of light in photography to produce great and admirable photographs.
References
Debevec, P. (2008, August). Rendering synthetic objects into real scenes: Bridging traditional
and image-based graphics with global illumination and high dynamic range photography. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2008 classes (p. 32). ACM.
Hirsch, R. (2012). Light and lens: photography in the digital age. Focal Press.
Warren, B. (2012). Photography: The concise guide. Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage
Learning.
