Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers

138 Using Light

Overcast Lighting

Overcast Lighting

Outdoors, colors are often saturated and dramatic (be-

cause of higher than normal water content in the air on

overcast days). The color temperature of overcast light

is considerably warmer than direct sunlight, so photos

taken in this light often have very attractive color to

-

n

ality. The trick to great overcast lighting photos is to

take advantage of this strength, because overcast light-

in

g’s weakness is that it lacks drama:

overcast lighting

is lighting without an obvious direction. Shadows are

weak and subdued, if they exist at all.

Indoors, non-directional lighting (the analog to out-

door overcast lighting) can be implemented fairly eas-

i

ly using a light tent, either purchased or put together

on a home-made basis (see pages 146–149). This kind

of lighting setup is often used when there’s a need to

shoot a lot of products for a catalog or web site. Each

product needs to be shown distinctly, but there isn’t

the time or inclination to introduce distinctive or emo

-

t

ional lighting for each object that needs to be shot.

So in the studio, non-directional lighting is often used

for the most generic kinds of photography. In contrast,

outdoors overcast lighting can lead to strikingly beau

-

t

iful and distinctive landscape photos—provided that a

white sky is not an issue.

This implies that on overcast days you should concen ...