الماء والنـور .. الطبيعة الصامتة .. كيف تلتقط أجمل الصور .. كتاب التصوير الضوئي

Water and light .. Still life .. How to take the most beautiful pictures .. Photography book

Water and light

Whenever the sky changes, the light also changes in its strength and direction. These changes are often subtle: you must therefore constantly monitor the exposure conditions
and adjust your point of view.

When light hits water, the reflections it creates dominate the entire composition and greatly affect the exposure. Watch the angle at which the light hits the liquid surface to give it either a coal-black color or a dazzling blue color or even a brown-red shine. The quality of the light can therefore give the same scene a dense and pale quality or, on the contrary, a bright and vivid quality. The light reflected on the surface of water - which is like a mirror - constitutes an additional source of illumination: by working against the light - the example of the sailboat on this page - we translate the bright surface of the moving water illuminated by the bright sun, but towards the light, on the contrary, we obtain calmer and less brilliant images.

You have to move around to find the most suitable angle, especially if you do not have time to wait for a gap in the clouds or a groove on the water surface or, on the contrary, for the water surface to become calm. There is always a point of view that best explains the special qualities that you want to emphasize. It often happens that a spot of light formed by the reflective surface of a lake or river is what makes an almost ordinary image stand out. Unwanted reflections, if present, can be eliminated and eliminated by using a polarizing filter, while some colored filters increase the contrast in a black and white image. Remember that sunlight reflected by the water surface can form a curtain similar to the one formed when the sun directly hits the objective lens. You must therefore take into account the exposure metering by observing successively the values ​​of the highlights and then the values ​​of the shadows to finally choose an average exposure value.

Light in the Fog:

In the early morning I was able to capture this timeless atmosphere that is imprinted on this arm of the Thames, the diffusion of light caused by the fog limits the range of colors in blue and green. The location of the machine plays an important role: I wanted to show the boat and the rower in shadow so that the ripples of the water caused by the oars can be seen. Finally, the position of the boat in the middle of the distance leads the eye to read the image, giving a sense of depth. The exposure determined by the shadows gives details in the illuminated areas. Pentax wide angle lens 1/250 T11 Ectachrom EX

Reflected light on reflected light

This image taken from the top of a rocky cliff shows the effect of the enormous light produced by the sun’s reflection on the sea. At sea level and illuminated by the reflection I would have obtained only a silhouette of the sailboat, but with the high position of the viewpoint I was able to include the largest possible area of ​​water and a strong spot of reflected light.

Leicaflex 1/250 sec 11 Ectachrome HS

Light on the Raging Water - Crashing Waves

For this image, excellent exposure and a fast shutter speed were required to capture the effects of the light on the crashing wave while retaining the aesthetic values ​​of the sky tones. For this type of image, the point of view must be chosen very carefully after trying different angles to achieve a beautiful effect.
Leicaflex 1/500 sec 8 Ectachrome HS