With my many years of teaching I have come to see thousands of photos from students and my own. I have to tell you that more then three quarters of all these photos are just not that good. Most images we take are shot during the middle of the day and a lot of times with overcast skies or with nothing but shadow. My instructor once told me that out of one hundred
photos that we take, maybe 10 of them would be worth painting the way they stand. Most images you take need some kind of adjustments. Even when you are plein-air painting the light changes so much and can many times screw up your paintings light and dark pattern. This is why creating a good value sketch is so important a step in creating a good painting with a good value pattern of light.
Without lighting you have pure darkness and there is nothing to see. Add a light
and suddenly you see objects. With strong sunlight you also get strong shadows, which makes it easier to compose a good value pattern. Unlike overcast where you have to search more for the local color of objects to design a good value pattern.
Then there is the morning and evening lighting which casts great long shadows, making it easier to create good value patterns.
The reason I bring this up in this week's newsletter is that I went through many of my photos
from recent workshop trips and I realized how many of those images will have to be changed if I want them to be good and interesting compositions and value patterns. It also made me think about how I need to spend more time setting up a photo and when possible, try getting up earlier or wait until the evening to get those beautiful mood lighting shots. Be aware of the lighting before taking the shot, try to create a good value pattern while looking at the scene through your
camera.
A nice thing about digital cameras is that you can take loads of photos without a high cost but sometimes this makes us not take the time to set up the scene more, but instead shoot loads of pictures and hope for a good shot. This is something I do a lot but I need to slow down and really set up the shot more before shooting away.
A nice thing about the coming winter months is that the shadows always are long no matter what time
of day it is. Nights shots also give you good lighting and mood, but make sure you have a tripod with you or stay as steady as possible when shooting at night.
The images below of the Notre Dame are shown with many different kinds of light. Check out how the ones with strong light seem so much more interesting then the ones with overcast defused light.
I'm not saying that every painting you do has to be of strong lighting, I just want you to be aware that if you use overcast
lighting then you will have to work a little harder to get a good strong value pattern.
