Amber Wilkie Photography » Wedding and Portrait Photographer - Arlington, VA and Washington, DC

Category Archives: Photo Tips

My favorite kind of light

feet on window sill, backlitI’m going to have the most beautiful wedding to show you tomorrow, but wanted to elaborate on a scene from yesterday.  I had my feet up on the window sill in my hotel room here in Seattle (editing said wedding) and noticed the lovely light.

This is my absolute favorite kind of light to shoot in: backlighting.  Now if you’re not a photographer, you probably think it’s kinda silly to have a favorite light.  But I bet your photographer friends (and mine) have a favorite light, too.

What I love about backlighting is that it creates this wonderful bright rim around the subject (here, my feet) that makes it stand out from the background.  This is especially effective if the subject is in front of something dark, like in the first photo below of Sarah and Scott.

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Photo Tip | Fixed Lenses – pick one and go

Most digital SLRs nowadays are purchased as part of a “kit.”  With Nikon, you’ll most often see the entry-level SLRs (D90 and below) sold with an 18-50mm “kit lens.”  That’s where I started, anyway.  But in my opinion, using a zoom lens gets you accustomed to zooming in and out, and not with your feet.  It doesn’t force you to frame your world in a particular way, nor does it force you to see your world in terms of a frame.  With a zoom lens, there are too many options.

This is the one of two or three images in my “50 most popular” on Flickr taken with my 18-55:

big summer storm in DC

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