Project 42: Judging Colour Temperature

The object of this project was to study the colour of natural light. Prior to this course, the colour of light was not something I ever really considered. In fact, I rarely looked up and don't recall being aware of sunsets unless they were really extreme. Part of my development as a "photographer" includes becoming much more aware & sensitive to the light, and assessing its colour is part of that journey.

I have definately become more aware of the warming colours of evening sun, and some of my photos in the "Low Sun" blogpost demonstrate that. However I have much less awareness of the blue tinge of shade, although I suppose I was aware of the grey cold feel of shade pictures. The 3 photos in this project were taken with the White Balance setting on daylight, and have not been corrected post shutter. In reality, I often tweak the temperature settings in Lightroom depending on the subject.

The first point to notice is that the picture taken in the midday sun is extremely unflattering, and it is most definately white, to the point of looking "overexposed". The picture in the shade, seconds later, is by far a better portrait, although it does have a blue grey cast to it. Although the evening sun version is a bit unflattering because of the extreme side lighting, I like the warm tones from the sun and probably would not change them post shutter.

I always shoot in RAW format for the simple reason that it is easy to correct the exposure (to a small degree) and the white balance afterwards. As suggested in the notes, I applied a warm up filter to the shade picture (in photoshop)and this was a distinct improvement. The same effect could be achieved in lightroom by changing the white balance setting on the raw file to "shade".

I do think my awareness of light colour is developing all the time, and you will see some of my blog shots (and assignment 2 on colour) where I have exploited the blues & pinks around twilight, and the strong casts are often what I set out to achieve.