Ready for your reading material? Here we go…

Let start with discussing what we are doing – we are capturing light – or to put it another way, capturing the range of light we see, which includes highlights and shadows. You don’t need to take your shots in bright light or in full daylight. In fact, night times can give you some stunning lighting effects!

How can we hunt down those features for maximum effect? This short article in Feature Shoot canvases the opinions of 8 different photographers regarding shadows. You’ll see that many are black and white, but colour works too.

Portrait photography is another area that appears to demand controlled light, but in fact there is a surfeit of light in our cities at night. I like to shoot at night when I travel, and hadn’t really thought about using the light from shops for portraiture – street lights are above your subjects – like harsh midday sun if you think about it. But if your subject looks up, there is an abundance of light. Or how about shop lights? These can add a lot of highlight and shadow features like a painting – it’s just a matter of seeing it. An article I came across in Imaging Resource send me to a Youtube video by Jordan Matter that shows you how to use those city lights like giant softboxes!

While we are on low light, how about concert photography. Some of you may recall my images from the last peer review of the bass guitarist. Well here are some more ideas on how to capture live music events that I found by music photographer Matty Vogel that takes you through settings, lenses, ISO etc – it is quite comprehensive and worth a read. He includes tips on lens selection (only for Canon – but it’s translatable)

Many of us want to push our creativity – and I found this video from Peter McKinnon that discusses challenges for yourself that will help you push those boundaries. It’s worth a look.

Since we are on videos, how about another from Ted Forbes? This time on why gear doesn’t matter. This made me think a lot as I need to replace a broken lens at present and have agonised over which lens – the expensive one? a good second hand one? the value for money one? or just forget it. It is an important point – we are the ones taking the photo – the camera (whatever you have) is just a tool. We shouldn’t obsess with our hardware, but think more about using it. Yes – good equipment may help, but it needs to be about your vision and creating good images first.

My final link for you – a visit to the abandoned drive-ins of America. We don’t have many here (and the last live one in Adelaide had a near miss a few weeks ago – but it has re-opened)

Tomorrow is of course ANZAC day – so please spare a moment to remember those who have served our country in conflict