{"id":3004,"date":"2013-07-28T06:22:19","date_gmt":"2013-07-28T14:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=3004"},"modified":"2013-07-28T06:28:58","modified_gmt":"2013-07-28T14:28:58","slug":"mastering-light-warm-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2013\/07\/28\/mastering-light-warm-cool\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastering Light – Warm and Cool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Light has several properties that are important to landscape photographers including quality, direction and color.<\/p>\n

It is important to understand that different times of day and weather conditions will produce light of different colors.\u00a0 Also, when you add artificial light sources the range of colors expands.<\/p>\n

Our brains play tricks on us when it comes to color.\u00a0 During twilight we don\u2019t see that the light is a soft, delicate blue.\u00a0 In fact, we don\u2019t perceive any color cast at all.\u00a0 But the camera is not fooled.\u00a0 It sees what is actually there.\u00a0 Take this image that I call \u2018Breakfast\u2019 as an example.<\/p>\n

\"light-warm_and_cool\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When drastically different light sources are set next to each other than our eyes can clearly see the difference in the colors.\u00a0 In this photograph the interior of our home is illuminated by tungsten lights which give off a very warm color.\u00a0 That\u2019s why our homes feel so warm and cozy at night \u2013 because of the warm light emitted by tungsten lights.\u00a0 (That will change as we replace the tungsten lights with CFLs or LED lights.)\u00a0 Outside we have a foggy morning at twilight.\u00a0 The sun is about 10 minutes away from rising.\u00a0 And it\u2019s clear the color of the outside light is blue.<\/p>\n

If I was standing outside away from the warm tungsten light, my mind would trick me into thinking the light was not blue, just a neutral gray.\u00a0 But the camera is not fooled.<\/p>\n

So then why are we so easily fooled?\u00a0 Because of perception.\u00a0 Our brains receive input from all of our senses including our eyes.\u00a0 And without us even being aware of it, this input is translated into something we are familiar with, concepts and generalizations we have learned from all the accumulated experiences of our lives.\u00a0 And our brain overrides (manipulates if you will) the actual blue color of the outdoor light and we perceive it as neutral.<\/p>\n

Our perceptions help us with everyday living.\u00a0 They help to bring order to our lives from the endless bombardment of stimuli.\u00a0 But perception interferes with the photographic process of seeing.\u00a0 As far as day-to-day life is concerned we don\u2019t need to see that the outdoor light is blue.\u00a0 But as photographers, cultivating the ability to see beyond our perceptions opens up the world to us in ways we normally can\u2019t even imagine.\u00a0 And isn\u2019t this what photography is all about?<\/p>\n

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Join the conversation, share your experiences, leave a comment.\u00a0 We love to hear from you.\u00a0 And if you know of someone else who might enjoy this article, please share it.<\/p>\n

We do photography workshops.\u00a0 Come on out and join us.\u00a0 Click here to check us out.<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also check out our photography.\u00a0 Click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

(1636)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In which we explore the color of light coming from different sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,333],"tags":[509,1206,1202,183,1199,128,475,708,1205,543,1200,214,1201,1208,1198,26,457,533,1203,1204,1197,1207,43,1172,191,474,1196],"class_list":["post-3004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-light-how-to-articles","tag-blue","tag-brain","tag-brains","tag-camera","tag-cfl","tag-color","tag-cool","tag-direction","tag-eyes","tag-image","tag-led","tag-light","tag-neutral","tag-outdoor","tag-perception","tag-photograph","tag-photographers","tag-quality","tag-senses","tag-sight","tag-sources","tag-stimuli","tag-sunrise","tag-tungsten","tag-twilight","tag-warm","tag-weather"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-Ms","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3004"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3006,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3004\/revisions\/3006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}