subscribe 0330 333 1113 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 3 August 2019 17
© GETT Y IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO - AL AN HILL
When the sun is overhead
in the middle of the
day, the light is harsh and
shadows are shortSunsets are always popular
with photographers,
and the results can be made
even more dramatic
in post-productionJoh n Wade
Regular AP
contributor John
Wade is well known
for his books and
magazine articles
on camera history,
published in the UK
and America. His
pictures for this article are a mixture of
digital camera images and scans of
transparencies from older film cameras.
Find him at http://www.johnwade.org.conditions. But learn how to see the light,
and respond to its subtle changes, and
your pictures will improve dramatically.
Colour of light
Natural light is made up of all the colours
of the visible spectrum: red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Each
has a different wavelength – short at the
blue end of the spectrum, long at the red
end. Mix all the colours and we get what
we think of as white light. The Earth’s
atmosphere contains air molecules that
scatter light as it passes through them,
and they scatter more light at the blue end
of the spectrum than at the red end. That’s
why the sky looks blue for most of the day.
As the sun sinks lower in the sky,
its light is forced to pass through a lot
more atmosphere than when the sun is
overhead. So more of the short wavelength
blue part of the spectrum is scattered,
leaving the long wavelength red part to
dominate. That’s why the sun looks red at
sunrise and sunset.
The time shortly after sunrise and
shortly before sunset is wonderful for all
kinds of outdoor photography. These are
known as the ‘golden hours’. During this
time, sunlight is attractively softer and
warmer – warm as in its colour, not its
actual temperature. Likewise, in the
twilight hours when night recedes
but before the sun has risen, then