Ahh, natural light…  This is a well-loved term, often used sneeringly by a certain section of the photographic community when suggesting that anything else is beneath contempt.  I have usually found that those suggesting this don’t know how to use anything else, but we will tackle ‘anything else’ later on in the series ;o)

Apologies to those of you who are now in mid-winter, but for those of you in the northern hemisphere currently enjoying summer, this should be a relatively easy challenge for you (I hope those in the southern hemisphere can at least capitalise on a little weekend light, whilst enjoying the fact that the ends of the day are closer to each other!)

Photography has no end of unwritten rules and suggestions, many of which are around the use of light, and if you were to follow them all I think there would be about a 5 minute window during 6 days of the year when you could actually take a photo!  This challenge is all about exploring the available light and the effect it has on your photos.

I’m sure you will have noticed that the sun doesn’t leap up over the horizon and immediately shine brightly, so your challenge is to choose an object to photograph at different points throughout a sunny day from not long after sunrise (if possible) through to just after sunset.  Try and get a photo at least at the height of the ‘midday’ sun (although if you’re on some kind of summertime/daylight savings time that might not actually be at 12!) and at either end of the day, but if you can squeeze in one or two more on either side of midday that would be good.  Leave your white balance on auto for this challenge.

Challenge number 2 is for a cloudy day, if you happen to have one (although preferably not raining!), where you should repeat the challenge.  Note that if you don’t have cloudy summer days, feel free to come and visit me, we have plenty ;o)

I look forward to seeing your results!