O L Prayer flags, Nepal
This was truly the cleanest, most intense lighting that I have experienced any- where in the world. Even though I was surrounded by snow-covered peaks, the golden, directional light of the sun reflecting off the prayer flags lends real warmth to this image.
A
One morning high in the Himalayas of Nepal, I climbed for an
hour in the predawn darkness and cold to catch the sunrise over the Annapurna Range. I started taking shots just as the brilliant light pierced the prayer flags in the thin mountain air. By about the fifth frame I realized that these images were all about light. The same light that illuminated the prayers on the flags so intensely and gave shape and scale to the peaks in the background also seeped softly into the nooks and cracks of the valley floor. My mind flashed back to other favourite times and places; places
that at first appeared to be very different than this one: sitting on a beach on St. Ignace Island watching a full moon rise over Lake Superior; paddling past the fall colours on Lake Temagami, Ontario; witnessing the blood-red skies long after sunset on Georgian Bay. These places were sacred in their own way. And it was the quality of light that was the common factor that unified them in my memory with the mountaintop in Nepal, which is where I finally understood that light is what I have been photographing all along. Photography is the art of “making pictures of light.” Great pho- tographers understand that. Indeed, anyone can improve their images simply by being more aware of how light shapes compositions. To develop a photographer’s awareness of light, you don’t even
need a camera. Ansel Adams, the renowned landscape photographer, would sometimes spend a whole day observing how the lighting changed on a scene before he took any photos. You can start observing light while you walk the dog in the early
morning or gaze out your office window daydreaming about your next kayak trip. Evaluate the quality of light, and pay particular atten- tion to these three basics: direction, intensity and colour.
ight has direction. Try to imagine light in a more tactile way, like flowing water that strikes your subject and flows around it. When
shooting a boater in sidelight, think less about the boat and more about how the light is striking the boat and giving it shape and depth. Strong backlighting creates dramatic dark forms with almost no detail in the shadows and also creates magical halos of rim light on delicate objects like surf spray. Strong frontal lighting that comes over your shoulder and strikes the subject enhances detail and bold, bright colours. If the paddlers in the scene are in shadow, you will learn to auto-
matically shoot from a different angle to get some light on their faces. Instead of shooting that waterfall at noon, you might choose to come back in the late afternoon when the spray is backlit against a dark and dramatic background.
lso consider the intensity of the lighting. On an overcast day, light is diffused and less intense, giving earth tones a soft,
muted quality and making the brighter colours, such as a boat, really pop in an image. Early morning sunlight, on the other hand, is focused and very intense. At its low angle, it rakes over the water’s surface and highlights every wave and ripple. This focused intensity is really useful for picking up detail on boats and water droplets com- ing off paddle blades.
ADVENTUREkayakmag.com 27
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