July 2021 • Nebraskaland 37
be advantageous.
Photography while facing the sun is tricky, but can be
worth experimenting with because of the potential for
spectacular results. Sunlight hitting the face of your lens can
cause "lens fl are," which creates spots or patterns that can be
distracting and unsightly (but sometimes attractive). Those
can be minimized by making sure the lens is clean, varying
the angle of your shot, and/or shading the lens surface with
your hand or a lens hood. There are lots of ways backlit
scenes can fail, but if you're shooting with a digital camera, it
doesn't cost you anything to experiment.
If you learn to recognize the intensity and quality of
light, it's relatively easy to fi gure out how to use that light
eff ectively. It's not impossible to create striking images
in bright mid-day light, but it can be a real challenge to
fi nd appropriate subject matter and deal with problematic
contrast issues. Alternately, when golden sunlight courses
across a landscape from a low angle, creating soft shadows
and warm highlights, making beautiful photographs is a lot
easier. Any photographer can get lucky and take a spectacular
photo now and then, but a technically savvy photographer
who understands light can do it consistently.
N
You and your camera see the world diff erently, but if you
understand those diff erences, you can take control of how your
photographs turn out. No matter what kind of camera you have,
the basics of focal length, aperture, shutter speed, depth of fi eld,
and light are the same. It's ok to let your camera automatically
control some of those factors, as long as you understand what
it's doing and when/how you might want to override it. Your
camera can't get you up early to photograph the sunset or help
you sneak up on a bobolink, but once you're in the right place
at the right time, your camera can help you make spectacular
images.
The backlighting on this image provides both interesting color and texture. Having the tree partially block the
sun cut down on lens fl are.
