Space and Light

For this exercise I was asked to return a number of times to the same location and take a series of photographs showing different lighting.  Similarly to the image in the course book I chose to concentrate on my back door and the light that comes through it at different times of the day.  It is not a greatly interesting composition but it does demonstrate the way that light affects a space.  For all the images I made the middle chair my focal point.

10:49

The light here is low inside which makes the outside light appear overexposed.  It is very bright outside and though it casts a nice light on the wooden chair the rest of the image is bathed in light and fairly uninteresting.

13:01

Taken a couple of hours later there is quite a difference in the light and shadows on the floor.  The chair is still nicely lit with much of it in shadow but we are starting to see some sharper shadows on the floor as the sun has changed position in the sky.  The light outside is still very overexposed compared to the darkness inside but its already a more interesting image than the earlier one.

14:26

An hour and a half later at 14:26 we can see that the colour of the light is beginning to change and take on a more yellow hue as the sun is high in the sky and filling the garden with light.

17:30

By 17:30 the light is, in my opinion, at its best, golden in colour and creating sharp shadows on the floor.  The chair, however, is less interestingly lit as I preferred it when it was more in shadow.  With the sun lower in the sky the garden is no longer over exposed as in the earlier photographs.

17:53

At this time of the day the light changes very quickly as the sun begins to drop below the line of the houses behind.  Already it has lost its golden hue and the shadows on the floor are becoming softer.

Lastly I decided to take some photographs after dark to experiment with the artificial light available to me.

22:13
Interior lights on

In this image the indoor lights were on and they brightly light the room.  The garden outside is in darkness but there are some shadows from the dining room being cast onto the paving outside.  The light is very yellow and artificial looking and though you can see all the detail it is a far less interesting image than any of the ones taken earlier in the day.

22:13 Interior light off, exterior light on, ambient light from other rooms

For this image I turned the interior light on and the outside garden lights on.  The house is fairly open plan and so there is ambient light from the other rooms spilling onto the table but no direct light above it.  The room is much more pleasingly lit than with the overhead lights on but the light on the paving in the garden is very harsh and does not compliment the light indoors at all.

22:14 No lights on in room or garden, ambient light from other rooms

In this photograph there are no lights on inside or outside, just ambient light from the other rooms in the house. The interior of the room is nicely lit but with the garden being dark, the curtain blends in somewhat with outside and there are no interesting shadows anywhere.

 

In conclusion I feel that the photographs taken in the afternoon were the best.  This is a very dull composition and so the lighting is the only thing that really adds interest to the image.  The images taken with artificial lighting show how mundane the scene is, highlighting everything and hiding nothing.  Of the three taken latest at night I prefer the one taken with the garden light on as it leaves the interior nicely but not harshly lit and there are some interesting shadows on the fence in the far background.

For the natural light photographs I am torn between the one taken at 13:01 and the one at 17:30.  In the first I find the way the chair is lit interesting, most of it is in shadow but the light picks up enough of the edge details that you know what you are looking at.  In the later image I love the strong shadows and the golden light spilling across the floor.  I think that if I had taken the later photograph at exactly the same angle as the earlier one then the lighting on the chair would have been more interesting and the composition a little more dynamic.  The diagonals on the earlier image make it appear a little less static although the lighting is not as good.