The Power of Black and White in Nature and Landscape Photography

How you use light

Watch the light on your subject. You will see places that are bright next to shadows that are dark, for example. That creates a tonal contrast. You have to watch out for our natural tendency to see the subject and not the light. We see subjects; the camera sees the light and its contrast. So it can be easy to overlook the light. A challenge we all have is that we see subjects in almost any kind of light, but the camera does not. In fact, it could care less about subjects and only cares about how bright or dark the light is. The camera will often overemphasize the brightness or darkness compared to how we see a subject, and so we often miss seeing the light on that subject!

Highlights next to shadows will create tonal contrast, ...