Friday, December 16, 2011

Winter Light, V: Shadows

Ellenville, New York

Sunday I took a day-trip to the part of New York that lies just south of the Catskills. Recently, I'd found that there are some interesting towns there. The weather forecast was for cold air, barely above freezing all day, and dead clear skies. Clear blue skies and unvarnished sunlight are my least favorite shooting conditions but I thought it would be a good way to continue my experiment, trying to find good pictures in winter light. Some pictures from the day have been turning up here, along with the remaining interesting pictures made around the edges of my recent weekend workshop in NYC.

Liberty, New York

What I found in this awful-looking light was that I suddenly became fascinated by shadows. The clear sunlight gives shadow edges with high definition, yet because even at noon the sun is very low in the sky there's a lot of atmospheric diffusion, which makes the shadows relatively "open."

Walden, New York

In mid-summer on a clear day the shadows are so dark it's hard to retain detail in a sun-and-shade picture even with negative film. On December 11th at this latitude, sun-and-shade subject brightness range is an easy catch even for a micro-4/3s sensor.

1 comment:

Martina said...

Yes, I suppose one of the few things one can do with this light right now is some "shadow photography" - but most of the times I simply find them annoying. The shadows.