Composition: From Snapshots to Great Shots, Second Edition

4. Light

ISO 100 • 1/90 sec. • f/11 • 55mm

Light Is the Key Element in Photography

“Light glorifies everything. It transforms and ennobles the most commonplace and ordinary subjects. The object is nothing, light is everything.”

—Leonard Missone

Without light, there would be no photographs. In fact, the word “photography” means painting with light. Light has quality, quantity, color, and direction, which provide shape, texture, and character to your images. There is a reason that I get up at o’dark thirty while most of the world is still tucked snugly in their warm beds. I drive in the predawn hours to arrive at a location that is cloaked in ...