Finding Your Light

One of the hardest things photographers (when I say photographers, I mean anyone who takes pictures!) struggle with has to be finding the perfect lighting. I remember when I was younger and didn't really understand photography I thought the perfect lighting was when the sun was out and the sky was blue I mean it only makes sense right, anyone would say that would be the perfect day, so why wouldn't it be the perfect lighting for a picture? Obviously as I have gotten a better understanding of how camera and picture taking works, I have learned that sunny and 75 (ha cracked myself up there throwing in a country song title!) isn't usually the best for photos. What's the best then? I actually think that is debatable....for me, I would say the best lighting is overcast when the sun isn't just beating down in one spot. Overcast allows for a more even lighting and makes editing a lot easier!!

Who cares right? The only reason this has been on my mind is because on Sunday my parents and I were sitting around the Christmas tree when one of our dogs (currently we have 4....yes, we know we are insane!) Gracie, was sitting on the couch and then all of a sudden, she fell asleep. The way Gracie was laying had to be one of the most picture perfect things I have ever seen! So, I ran upstairs grabbed my camera and prayed that Gracie didn't move. Lucky for me, Grace was sound asleep and didn't even realize I had left the room.

In my head when I pictured how the picture of Grace was going to turn out, I pictured the most perfect lighting and all details would stand out....but when I started snapping away, I realized that the lighting I was working with was really low and well...it sucked. However, that is one of the best things about DSLR cameras, you can manipulate all the settings including aperture to give you the best photo with great lighting. The smaller the aperture a camera has, the more time the camera needs in order to get enough light for the picture to have detail and depth. I must have taken 100+ photos before I got one that had the perfect light. After a little editing thanks to my friend Adobe Photo shop, we ended up with a great photo we decided to use for our Christmas card this year.

*Wanted to show a couple photos of Grace here with different lighting's, but I realized that all the photos were still in RAW format instead of JPEG and RAW format doesn't like to upload on blogger! Next post I'll try and save them as JPEG before hand!*

Taken with my Nikon D3100 for
5 seconds