sunlight

How to Photograph Sun Rays in a Forest

The Speulderforest (“Het Speulderbos” in Dutch) is a beautiful and serene forest, and one of the best ways to capture its natural beauty is through photography. It’s one of the more popular forests when it comes to woodland photography in The Netherlands.

Blue Hour: The Photographer’s Guide

The period of time when the sun is just below the horizon is commonly referred to as “blue hour,” and comes directly before or after golden hour depending on the time of day. While most people know about golden hour’s benefits for photography, blue hour is often left out when thinking about optimal lighting conditions.

Golden Hour: When Sunlight is Warm and Photos are Magical

If you’ve been outside during a nice sunrise or sunset, chances are good you’ve heard the term “golden hour.” It’s one of the best times to do many types of photography and a beautiful time to be outside. This guide will help you understand golden hour, when it happens, and how to make the most of it through various types of photography.

How UV Photography Can Revolutionize the Fight Against Skin Cancer

UV photography has been used by dermatological laboratories since the era of film photography. This technique was then used by the R&D centers to show the protective properties of dermatological and cosmetic products against UV radiation from the Sun.

How to Build a Fake Sun That Looks Unbelievably Realistic

Want to shoot indoor "natural light" photos... at night? All you have to do is build yourself an artificial sun. That sounds wild, but it's actually neither too difficult nor too expensive -- this 24-minute tutorial by DIY Perks will teach you exactly how it can be done.

4 Steps Every Photographer Should Know To Balance Strobes and Sunlight

In this video and article, Chanda AM is going to help me illustrate how to balance ambient light with strobes. I love shooting in this situation with ambient light and strobe light. I want to be able to combine the ambient light here in this beautiful area with strobes.

How to Shoot Better Portraits in Harsh Sunlight

Wedding photographer and Nikon Ambassador Brett Florens recently gave this 9-minute workshop demo on how you can shoot better portraits in harsh sunlight.

Laws of Light: Shooting in Direct Sun

A lot of the times when you’re shooting in direct sun, it’s very harsh on your subject’s face. Many people try not to put themselves in this situation because of it. Sometimes you have no choice, or maybe you like the location a lot so you have to put up with the challenge. Without any equipment, the sun can create harsh shadows and an unflattering look on your talent.

5 Tips for Photographing in Harsh Midday Sunlight

You may have a favorite time of day to do an outdoor photo shoot, but sometimes you might not have the luxury of picking the perfect time and lighting conditions. Here's a 4-minute video from photographer Kayleigh June that details a number of ways you can cope with harsh light from a midday sun.

Shoot Better Golden Hour Portraits by Harnessing the Sun

The golden hour is popular amongst landscape photographers, but it is definitely worth utilising this for outdoor portraiture. By positioning the sun behind or in front of the subject, the lighting is changed dramatically. It's just like having a giant light on in the studio, but it is golden and delicious in the evening.

Photos of the Radiant Light of Greece

The word "photography" derives from Greek and literally means "drawing with light". It is a combination of the Greek words "photo-" (φως), meaning "light," and "-graphia" (γραφή), meaning "writing" or "drawing". The same goes for the word "cinematography".

These Photos Show the Sun Bouncing During 24-Hour Sunlight in Antarctica

If you ever visit Antarctica in the summer, you'll find yourself in a place where there's 24 hours of sunlight in a day. Instead of setting in the horizon and ushering in the night, the Sun "bounces" on the horizon and rises up again -- it's a bounce that can be captured in a series of photos captured through a day.

How to Shoot Golden Hour Portraits with No Sun (and a Powerful Flash)

What happens if your portrait clients request golden hour lighting... outside of golden hour? That's the situation photographer Pye Jirsa of Lin & Jirsa Photography found himself in recently while shooting a wedding. As you can see in the 4.5-minute video above, Jirsa was able to deliver by using creative lighting, a powerful flash, and a couple of colored gels.

A Time-Lapse of 24 Hours of Sunlight in Antarctica

In the summer time at Scott Base in Antarctica, there are 4 months in which the Sun never sets. From the latter part of October through the latter part of February, the Sun stays above the horizon line, giving each day 24 hours of sunlight.

New Zealand filmmaker Anthony Powell, the man behind the award-winning film Antarctica: A Year on Ice, created this 2-minute time-lapse video by pointing a camera at the Sun and tracking it over a full day of daylight.

Why Use Studio Lights When You Can Use the Sun?

My name is Jeremy Lebled, and I'm a fashion photographer. I recently just did a shoot to demo Leica's S Camera. My specialty is using just the sun to get a high-end studio look to photographs instead of using dozens of strobes.

This Image Shows Every Color of Visible Light Emitted by the Sun

If you paid attention in high-school physics, you know that white light contains within it the rainbow of colors of the visible light spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet (and if you're Isaac Newton you throw Indigo in there for good measure).

Photos of Beams of Sunlight Bouncing Around a Room

For his project "Trace Heavens," James Nizam found an abandoned property in Delta, Canada, and, with the government's permission, sliced gaps and holes into a couple of the rooms. He then allowed sunlight to stream into the space in the middle of the day, and then used small mirrors attached to ball joints in order to direct the light beam around the room in various patterns.

Photos of Sunlight Streaming Over Foggy Mountain Treetops

Polish photographer Boguslaw Strempel has a fantastic series of landscape photographs of mountains and valleys found in Poland and the Czech Republic. Strempel visits his photo spots early in the morning, when a blank of fog is hanging over the treetops. As the sun rises, the trees cast long shadows across the valley, turning the scene into a magical display of sunbeams.

Print Photos onto Fabric Using Sunlight With the Lumi Process

The Lumi Process is a new print process for transferring photographs onto textiles and natural materials. It's based around Inkodye, a light sensitive solution that uses sunlight to print images onto everything ranging from cotton to wood. Once fixed, the images are permanent and can go through washing machines without fading. Co-founder Jesse Gennet recently launched a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to bring the project to a new level, and ended up raising over $250,000 -- a good deal more than the stated goal of $50,000.

Photographer Makes “Chlorophyll Prints” Using Leaves and Sunlight

Photographer Binh Danh observed one summer that there was a difference in color between grass under a water hose and the grass directly exposed to sunlight. He then began to experiment with combining photography with photosynthesis, and came up with what he calls "chlorophyll prints" -- photographs printed onto leaves using the sun.