The Reality and Myth of the Natural Light Photography

I know so many so called “Natural Light Photographers” are gonna get their feathers in a ruffle but the truth is Natural Light Photography has its place in some areas like shooting landscapes and doing outdoor scenic photography but if you come across a portrait or wedding photographer or even a product photographer and he or she only offers natural light photography it only means they haven’t mastered lighting.

Imagine you are getting married at 4pm then off to rest a bit or maybe go right to the formal wedding pics before taking a break and hitting the reception for the cocktail hour which by now you really need, the sun might be going down and its starting to get dark.  What does that so called Natural light photographer do?

No flash versus Flash at your wedding

Natural Light Photography! Whats it good for?

Whether you are indoors or outdoors a Wedding Photographer who has mastered lighting as he should to be called a professional will be using some flash to make sure the skin tones and colors are correct and actually a professional would be adjusting the color temperatures on the camera all through the day and night as conditions change.

Most Photographers who haven’t mastered lighting but want to use a flash to fill in shadows that the sun may choose to just stick a flash on the camera without adjusting color temperature.

The reality is that lighting conditions change all day during a wedding or any outdoor photoshoot that may be going on and a “photographer” needs to be aware of those changes and adjust constantly to assure perfect skintones coming out of the camera.

When I studied photography and cinema back in the 70’s you were taught the 5 basic rules of photography as well as temperature of lighting and the Color Rendering Index but if you want to know more technical details Mike Moon from Lit Weddings talks about it in depth on Lit Weddings by Mike Moon.

Here what I wanted you to understand as a client is that shooting a wedding, model, product with only natural light will not give you true color quality and skin tones will be off.  Today in the digital Age photographers and even cinematographers are accustomed to saying “we will fix it in post”  Today we fell into that photoshop age where everyone in the digital media industry uses photoshop to fix their mistakes out of camera.

When Mike Moon and myself way before Mike learned is that when you are shooting Film, every shot counts, every photo costs money to produce and the more carefull we were in creating the image in the camera the better the photo out of the camera.

You couldn’t fix it in Post although there was “airbrushing” but if your photo was so bad or the makeup sucked that it needed airbrushing your client was not gonna be happy with the cost.

Mike and I have always loved the result of off camera lighting which means that a flash is not mounted on the camera or at least even if there is we use an off camera more potent flash to fill shadows and create dramatic effects without photoshoping.

Here is an example from Mike and just imagine this same picture with no flashes.

Atlanta Wedding Photographer Mike Moon

Don’t take my word for it whether you are looking for a wedding photographer, model portfolio photographer, portrait photographer or a photographer for corporate headshots you can count on us and at a very fair price.

Kevin Houston, Texas
E-mail: kevinstolzphotography@gmail.com
Call or Send a WhatsApp: +1 346 432 5150

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