Making The Most of the Light

All photographers are familiar with the concept of shooting in the magic hours.  Sunrise and the early morning hours/the late afternoon and sunset hours.  At these times the light can be remarkable and many times, its at these hours when I’m out and about.

On other days, when I can, I take the entire day to shoot.  Sometimes this means shooting for a few hours, then taking a break to go have lunch and kill some time before the light improves.  At other times it means making the light I have work for me.

I spent the day at Eastern Neck Island here on the eastern shore this past week.  The temperature was great, so I happily wandered down trails through good light and bad.  It was overcast for much of the day, but this means less harsh light.  I find that shooting when I can, experimenting with angles and options and subjects is good practice for my overall skillset.  Also, its fun.

At midday, the light didn’t do much for the landscape in a ‘big picture’ way, but it did create some nice ‘tiny landscape’ opportunities.

InBrownsweb

WinterFlowersweb

I just so happened to have some amusing props in my camera bag (ok, so a friend suggested I use them to kill some time during the day), so I also…

Raptor2web

Since it was so nice out, there were a lot of people out on the trails.  I hope I provided some entertainment crawling around in the dirt with my raptors.

I shot simply to capture some of the mood of walking around in pre-spring foliage:

MarchTrailsweb

I lucked out with some cloud and sun play:

CloudySunbowweb

You can make out the faintest hint of color from a “sunbow” in an arch around the sun.

After a while, the skies cleared and the light changed into, well, perfection.

DockAtSunsetweb

SunsetSpotweb

For more images from the day, check out my Facebook page.


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