What's Your Favorite Light

[ClaremontPhoto]

I live in a place with bright vibrant color and great texture in every street.

It simply looks drab unless it's in bright clear sunlight. There's almost always a special light which is very direct and works well with my photography.

Every year in January and February that light is replaced by a dull all over light that's no good at all for me.

Today (Saturday 24 February) the bright light has returned and will be here for the rest of the year!

What's your favorite light?

 

[robin a]

It's gotta be late afternoon,the"golden glow" time of the day.But,I'll be happy with anything..........Robin

 

[iml]

Living by the coast I get huge skies and endlessly changing light. The only time of the year I find it hard to shoot is the few weeks of the year when it's grey and overcast, i.e., around about this time of the year.

Ian

 

[Keith]

Anything that allows me to shoot at nothing more than f1.5 and 1/25 sec minimum ...I refuse to use a flash! 😀

 

[FrankS]

Different types of light for different purposes.

 

[40oz]

I think my all-time favorite is after a rain when everything is still wet. Especially after dark in an urban setting, when street lights and headlights illuminate everything, and colors take on brilliant hues. Even stop lights are brighter, more vivid. Blacks are velvety, reds are vibrant, blues and greens are jewel-like. Yellow is like the sun.

After that, it would have to be at night after a fresh snow, when the whole world seems to glow.

Sunrise has it's own attraction, bringing out the colors of brick and wood, windows and water reflecting the sky. It is such a short period that I rarely have captured it on film. I see sunsets more often, and they seem to have a different character about the light. I don't know what it is, but while it can beautifully illuminate a subject, the light from sunrise seems to have something about it that makes it better somehow.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

There's also the honey light occasionally in the ten minutes after sunrise or ten minutes before sunset.

It happens here only about once a month, and I've never managed to catch it in a photo.

 

[FrankS]

Window light is also sweet. Directional but soft due to large source.

 

[mike goldberg]

Hi... I live in a land of abundant sunshine, so I appreciate cloudy days.

Also, with the Superior 200 I use a lot, late afternoon 1/125, at f5.6 & f4
light is very pleasing. mike

 

[StuartR]

I love the light in Iceland during the summer. The weather is often changing from cloudy to sunny and back again multiple times in a day, you have fairly bright light for about 20 hours of day, and the other 4 are a sort of dim twighlight. From about 8:30 pm until midnight you have what elsewhere would be deemed "late afternoon light". And of course, you have that again from about 4 in the morning until 9 or 10. It is just an amazing light. I believe this was taken around 9:30pm in July...

 

[StuartR]

This was taken just after midnight on the solstice...

 

[jan normandale]

I think my all-time favorite is after a rain when everything is still wet. Especially after dark in an urban setting, when street lights and headlights illuminate everything, and colors take on brilliant hues. Even stop lights are brighter, more vivid. Blacks are velvety, reds are vibrant, blues and greens are jewel-like. Yellow is like the sun.

After that, it would have to be at night after a fresh snow, when the whole world seems to glow.

Sunrise has it's own attraction, bringing out the colors of brick and wood, windows and water reflecting the sky. It is such a short period that I rarely have captured it on film. I see sunsets more often, and they seem to have a different character about the light. I don't know what it is, but while it can beautifully illuminate a subject, the light from sunrise seems to have something about it that makes it better somehow.

I agree with this synopsis.

One of my favourite lights is during mid day when there is a cloud cover. I go looking for strong colours then. I shoot them with Kodak Gold or Kodak Ultra Color. This indirect overcast light seems to make the colours jump right out of the print like 3D if you get it right. Interestingly most people seem to disregard this light.

I like that light and use it when it's available.

 

[Igor.Burshteyn]

Mike, there are rare days as today - kind of sand storm, but without storm🙂 sand in the air acts as giant diffuser or natural light box. It gives very even illumination without shadows even at noon. It can be great for portraits.

 

[RML]

I wish we had a bit more clear skies here in Holland. It's been drab for months now, with an exception now and then only.

But my favourite light is the light that I have when I take a shot: available light, flash, "the blue hour", sunset or sunrise, mid-day, overcast or not... I take what I can get. 🙂

 

[Sparrow]

The Med in August, Southern Italy or Greece, when months of sunlight has burned all the moisture from the land, the first purple heat early morning, the scorching blue glare of midday bouncing from limestone pavements, or the warm soft glow of evening candlelight dining.
Can’t wait, West Yorkshire’s been overcast for ages now three months of gloom is no fun at all

 

[Kent]

Several

Several

Scottish Highlands, 1989, sunny day, late afternoon!
New York City, summer 1998, shortly after a huge tunderstorm.
Seattle, April 2004, late afternoon sun!

Those three kinds of light were simply amazing!

But one "light" is the pick of the bunch:

The window light reflected in my daughter's eyes when I looked into her eyes for the first time on the day she was born. This I will never forget!

 

[pesphoto]

For me it's summer thru fall. Late afternoon strong sunlight. Shadows all around and the warmth..ah the warmth......what month is it ....?

 

[Sparrow]

The Med in August, Southern Italy or Greece, when months of sunlight has burned all the moisture from the land, the first purple heat early morning, the scorching blue glare of midday bouncing from limestone pavements, or the warm soft glow of evening candlelight dining.
Can’t wait, West Yorkshire’s been overcast for ages now three months of gloom is no fun at all

 

[ChrisPlatt]

First Light

First Light

Who can forget seeing their first sunrise?

Chris

 

[FrankS]

Who can forget seeing their first sunrise?

Chris

Chris, I was so young, I can't remember it. 🙂