This month's blog loop is all about artificial light. Eeek! I am very much a natural light photographer. Give me a flash and I'm pretty clueless in all honesty. I adore so many kinds of natural light (window light, backlit, golden light, sun flares...) and will always aim to find my specific "favourite light" in anyone's home or even outdoors, however, I will work with artificial light when I need to or sometimes just for fun, to be creative.
Sometimes it's necessary, as a documentary photographer, I'd rather capture a moment in less than perfect light than miss it altogether. If my kids are being sweet, funny or crazy and I want to record that I will, even if it's on a dark evening under our less than flattering overhead lights. I often convert these ones to black & white. That being said, I've managed to create some beautiful photographs using artificial light, one actually ended up winning me an award in the Documentary Family Awards last year!
So, for this challenge I had to push myself to think of something to do. I thought I'd just take photos of my kids for this one rather than attempt a self portrait again but events conspired and I was inspired in the end to capture my son and I snuggling after his bath. We were getting wrapped up in "the cosy" and the bedside lamp was on and I realised this could be it! I ran to get my camera, he was in a great mood and totally up for a photo (NOT always the case!) so I set up my camera (see the bottom of this post for a behind the scenes shot of him then photographing his sister in the bed) and jumped under the duvet with him. They're by no means perfect, getting the focus right when I'm running to be in the shot is tricky but as I said, the moment is what matters!
Here are my favourites...
I'm SO glad I had this project in my head to force me to capture these moments. We had fun and I LOVE these photos of us together! Priya soon joined in too and they had fun taking photos of each other too, we could have kept going but it was getting late and a school night ;)
Next up in the loop is the talented Iana, go and see what she has created with artificial light this month... https://www.chtefan-photography.com/post/our-portrait-loop-challenge