Every. single. day. -Your eye exposes, processes, and otherwise allows you to see a spectrum of colors with around 7,000,000 variations. I’ll let that marinate. Thats 7,000,000 new colors to see on your way to work, or at your child's fall birthday party, or even your iphone screensaver. The combinations of color are truly endless giving us the sensation of a new day each morning and each night without question. Here lies the art of photography.

Photography - The study of Light

Now that we’ve relearned the dazzling facts about our eye, vision, and ability to see color we can focus on the actionable items of this post! How to light photos in new creative ways - good news it’s easy when you have 7,000,000 colors to play with! So here we go, 5 ways to creatively light your photos!!

1st. The most obvious, yet often under-utilized is... Natural Light!

You may be thinking “wth“ but truth is this is where to start when practicing creative lighting. From sunset silhouettes, to subtle lights in long exposures you can explore endless forms of natural light. Mindset and imagination are your best friends here.

2nd. This creative lighting method may be a bit less obvious, but just as underutilized... City light!

Now we’re talking about man made lighting from Neon lights up at the bars to Cool fluorescents stringed along your local roads. These lighting sources are great as stand alone eye candy in your night scenes or as beautiful backgrounds for your next portrait shoot. The best route of action here is to scout your spots before you shoot, find out where those interesting lights are!

3rd. Use on-flash Filters $$$. From heart cutouts to stunning soft light fliters give you control and creative leverage with your subjects. Practice with your flash-kit finding out what filters work for your style.

4th. Go to Walmart. Yes. you read that right. Have $20 bucks and a creative itch to scratch? Go to your local wally world and have a blast, they have tons of decorative lights, LEDs, and tons of interesting props in their floral section. I promise it'll be the best $20 you ever spent.

5th Saving my personal favorite for last... Lightpainting!Haven’t heard of it? Look it up! Lightpainting is your pre-production light editor.. letting you paint wherever and whatever within your scene. This can get a bit complicated but start studying the art and practice with a flashlight in your long exposure settings. You can light your subject while your shutter remains open capturing the light trails you paint.

These are all great ways of lighting your photography but don’t forget to look for your own creative ways to work with the light spectrum in your work!! Now get to work and create something amazing!

best,

MF