Cloudy Weather & Rain pt 1

  I was drawn to the first subject for this exercise by the complimentary colours of blue and orange, and the dynamism caused by the strong diagonal shadows.

Building in Sun

  As you can see it is a strong graphic image with bold colours and texture brought to life by the strong, hard light. The light is colourless because it is full sunlight during the middle part of the day.

Building Under Cloud

  This second version taken under a cloudy sky has got a definite cool tone, the texture of the building and container have almost been lost without the strong light, the whole image is a full two stops darker.Without the strong raking shadows and deep blue sky the image has lost its dynamic image, and has become much more of a deadpan style of picture.
  Next I decided to try a portrait, the light was very strong so my model had to look away from the sun.

Portrait In Sun

 As you can see even though the model has looked away from the sun, she still cannot fully open her eyes, so the portrait is unflattering.There are hard shadows across the face and deep shadows across the eyes leaving them looking dead.

Portrait Under Cloud

  Under cloud the light for portraits is much better, the model can fully open her eyes and the soft shadows are much kinder to the gentle curves of her face. The eyes are fully lit, but there is a very slight blue tone to the overall image, although I do not find it too intrusive. Once again there was a full two stops difference in exposure.

Succulents in Sun

  The colours of the succulents above are very strong, but as I did not use a polariser there is a lot of glare on the leaves. The shadows are very deep so that some parts of the plants are completely lost in darkness.

Succulents Under Cloud

  The soft light under cloud means that because of the lower contrast no detail is lost to shadow or glare. The colours are more muted and cool and there is a full five stops difference  in exposure.
  Even with these few examples it becomes obvious that you have to match the light to the subject, soft light for delicate subjects and hard light for strong graphic images.