Using a mix of hot and cold lighting

Copyright 2007, All Rights Reserved, Keith Warren

You often have to make the best use of your lighting. Sometimes, you don’t even think about it and just shoot a shot for the fun of it. On this occasion, I shot a picture of a young relative who was sitting on his grandmother’s lap. I was really just toying with him and not trying to capture a serious photo. Of course, when I saw it through the view finder, I got excited. There was a mix of bright exhibit lighting mixed with sunlight from a large opening in the building to his right and really hot, but even exhibit lighting to his left. When viewing the color photo of this, you see an atrocious mix of hot and cold lighting. Hours of Photoshop would have helped, but simply turning this shot into a black and white photo fixed things immediately.

Don’t be scared of mixed lighting. Sure you would prefer all your lights to be of similar temperature, but if not, you can always go black and white.