Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs

Natural and artificial light

The connotations of colour

For other examples:

Luca Campigotto p. 38

Denis Darzacq p. 53

Maciej Dakowicz p. 116

Another way to categorize light is by natural or artificial.

Natural light comes, in one form or another, from the sun. Artificial light comes from manmade sources – anything from household bulbs to street lights to flash.

Natural and artificial light are unequivocally distinct. They convey different moods and are very different in colour.

Here Nadav Kander photographs an anonymous house overshadowed by a monolithic overpass. See how the sodium glow of the street lights has drowned out the natural light and cast a yellowish hue over the image. This creates a sense of unease. It makes the scene feel so unnatural, ...