Chasing the Light: Improving Your Photography with Available Light

Combining Elements

Each of these visual draws—brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness, and pattern—can be used in conjunction with each other to produce a successful photograph. Not every image has to possess all these qualities, but you should assess a subject or scene for these qualities whenever you raise the camera to your eye.

I build my compositions based on these qualities. Because I know exactly where I want my viewer to begin experiencing my images, I use the brightness and contrast of the light to determine how I can render color or pattern. By choosing my point of focus and controlling depth of field, I can control how much of the image appears sharp or soft. It’s this control over everything that’s happening in my frame that ...