One photo a day challenge: Day 119.

Today I did something I don’t do very often. I used artificial light while photographing outside.

We had been talking about lighting and using flash the other day in my photography class I am teaching. I talked about all the different ways that you can use flash and other types of lights to create great photographs. And I stated that I primarily use flash and artificial lighting when I am inside.

For me flash and artificial lighting hasn’t really fit into my style of photography because I like to be constantly on the move and not setting up lighting for one specific shoot. But during this challenge I have used artificial lighting more because I have done more indoor photography.

Today it was a downpour outside. I knew I would not be going anywhere to take photos. I have a bunch of flowers out on our porch to photograph.

The idea occurred to me to do something a little different and use my Lume Cube Panel Mini light to illuminate the flowers. This turned out to be a great idea. For one the storm made it so dark that it was going to be difficult to have enough light to hand hold my camera without using only natural light.

The external light source allowed me to capture some cool effects due to how being able to control the light changes the exposure of the image.

Having these small easily portable lights might give me some ideas for using them more when I am out and about.

Being able to direct the light onto the subject in the angle I want creates the effect that the subject is well lit and the background is dark. This makes the subject stand out more.