Skillfully used, sunlight can be as flexible as studio light. Here is my fourth camera and lighting technique for making that bold stroke necessary for the quantum leap from ordinary to excellent in your action shots:
Subtract Light
Sometimes more can be gained by subtracting from the light. Most photographers are familiar with extracting polarized light, haze, and other assorted light waves with filters. Nature itself provides another form of light reduction in open shade, known by many and used by few. In this image I captured from the shade of a giant boulder, rim lighting helped accentuate the climber’s leg against the shadows of the rock. In any kind of extreme sports photography, optimize dramatic lighting tricks.
Skillfully used, sunlight can be as flexible as studio light. Here is my third camera and lighting technique for making that bold stroke necessary for the quantum leap from ordinary to excellent in your action shots:
Change Your Position
As simple as it may seem, move your feet. Changing the camera’s position relative to the subject allows 360 degrees of precise natural-lighting angle. Unfortunately, many photographers don’t think of the sun with studio techniques in mind, such as the three-quarter lighting or rim lighting photography-but they should. The idea is to stay aware of the variables and change them to your advantage rather than adopting the take-what-you-get attitude.
I shot a winter sport known as ice diving. The sun’s late afternoon angle ordinarily would have been fine, but as a result of the divers’ headgear, their eyes never saw the light of day. My first inclination was to expose for the shadows to give the eyes the center of attention, but that would have washed out what little detail showed in the surrounding bright ice. What I really needed was my light moved, and the only way to accomplish that was to ask the scuba divers to surface at the opposite end of the hole. It worked. The light illuminated the translucent ice, the dark equipment, and the masked eyes in unison.
Coaching from the late, great outdoor sports photographer Robert McQuilkin
