Midday EnLIGHTenment

Dear Bubbles,
As a landscape photographer, what do you do in the middle of the day?
~Carolyn

Dear Carolyn,
It has long been believed that landscape photographers only photograph at sunrise, sunset, and night. When I first started photography in 2001, I, like so many other landscape photographers, “chased the light.” I initially bought into the notion that the optimal light existed and only happened in the two hours around sunrise and the two hours around sunset. The soft contrast, the vivid detail in the highlights and shadows, the warmth of the low sunlight on the horizon, well, it was all so delicious for rendering broad scenic landscapes on film. If I had any energy left, occasionally I’d stay up a bit past bedtime to photograph star trails or the Milky Way. But under no circumstance would I ever dare lift a camera to my eye in the middle of the day. Because midday was when the (supposedly) “bad” light happened…(cue dramatic music).

What has caused midday to get such a bad rap? When the sun appears overhead, it produces top light. Top light illuminates the subject from above. The surface of the subject appears illuminated, but the shadows fall underneath the subject and most often into the ground, making it difficult for the camera to “see” the shadow. In the absence of seeing a shadow, our cameras only “see” light. This even illumination appears flat and renders visual elements as shapeless in a two-dimensional media like a photograph.

In landscape photography, the general rule is to steer clear of top light (and front light, too, which illuminates the subject from the front and renders the shadows behind the subject, which our camera also can’t “see”). Landscape photographers tend to leverage side light and back lighting conditions to give the illusion of depth by recording highlights and shadows—i.e. contrast—in our frame.

When it came to the quantity of contrast, we followed the Goldilocks principle. We didn’t want too much contrast; we wanted just enough. Midday sun tends to yield contrasty and harsh natural light. During the day when the sun is high in the sky, highlights tend to appear even brighter, shadows even darker. Details in the highlights and shadows are harder to discern and preserve within this contrast.

In the film days (which I what I used to make my images from 2001-2007), this contrast was difficult to render on a single slide or negative, which had extremely limited dynamic range. For example, Velvia and Kodachrome slide film possessed about a four- or five-stop dynamic range. Getting the right exposure, even at sunrise or sunset in lower lighting conditions, was nothing short of a miracle.

Even today, with extensive progress in digital technology, digital cameras still have challenges recording bright skies and shadowed landscapes. My Olympus mirrorless camera now has around 13 stops of dynamic range—and I still need to use a graduated neutral density filter or blending to ensure my entire frame appears properly exposed at sunrise and sunset.

Truthfully, when I first started photographing, I didn’t possess the appropriate technical understanding of how to handle lighting conditions in the middle of the day. Rumors on the street suggested you’d turn into a gremlin if you showed your camera in midday light. And no one wanted that to happen…in the absence of the confidence that comes with proficiency and of embracing my own autonomy, I just followed what everybody else was doing. Like other landscape photographers, I used the midday hours to scout, nap, eat, or drive to the next location.

Twelve years after picking up a camera and endlessly chasing “good light”, in 2013, I got stuck with photography. I grew frustrated when “good” light didn’t happen (because then I wouldn’t make a photograph). I also grew bored with taking pretty images of pretty skies at sunrise and sunset. While the images I made were salable and enabled me to leave my corporate job to pursue photography full time, I didn’t really like many of the photographs I made. Which is a remarkably awful position to be in when you’ve left your corporate job to purse photography full time…(cue more dramatic music).

To help find a new direction with my photography, I started learning about the creative process and how it could influence my work. I learned that photography could be used for more than just documenting pretty scenes of pretty skies at sunrise and sunset. It could be used to express the meaning of my own life experiences. All two marbles in my brain exploded when I came to realize that life experiences that meant something to me were happening all the time, everywhere I went—not just at sunrise and sunset in pretty places. Boom!

So, I changed how I approached my work—and I still approach my work this way today. I switched to an autotelic approach which means I enjoy the experience for the sake of experience without expecting results. I no longer go on dedicated photo shoots carrying expectations of making images. I go for a drive, a hike, a paddle. My sole purpose for my outings is not to create images. Instead, it’s to learn about myself, my art, my tools and technique, and the natural world. It’s to engage and connect through my own perceptions and stories. It’s to feel and create in the moment, one I’ll never repeat in my lifetime.

My camera just comes along for the ride in the case I wish to say something about my discoveries and relationships. If I happen to make a photograph, awesome. If I come home with no photographs on my memory card, awesome. I’ve enjoyed the experience nonetheless, and my life is better for it. So are my photographs! I love the images I make now! Photographing is so much more fun!

So to answer your question directly about what I do during the middle of the day: why, I keep wandering, driving, hiking paddling, discovering, and playing—and maybe even photographing, just as I do at sunrise and sunset and night and any time of day in between.

Since shifting and prioritizing my inner experiences over external conditions as the foundation for my image making, my relationship with light has changed. I treat all lighting situations—sunrise, sunset, night, and midday—in the same way. Natural light just exists. There is no “good” light or “bad” light. Only humans apply these labels and judgments. When we release these unnecessary labels and judgments, we open opportunities for ourselves. As renowned photographer Alfred Steiglitz said, “Wherever there is light, one can photograph.”

Light (and shadow) absolutely can—and does—influence visual design in compositions. Light grabs attention in the sense that the viewer’s eye will travel to the brightest part of the frame more quickly than darker parts of the frame. Light can also create mood, especially through tones, saturation, quantity, and color. Light (and shadow) reveals form and textures. It creates contrast and dimension.

I incorporate light (and shadow) into my visual expressions to help my convey meaning, but I am no longer constrained by external sources. I don’t chase the light. I observe the light Mother Nature has delivered to me and decide how best to leverage it to create a meaningful photograph in that moment.

That’s not to say I don’t experiment with compositions in different lighting conditions. I sometimes revisit the same location on multiple occasions to see how the light transforms the scene throughout the entire day. Some visual elements feel more conducive to softer light while others may call for even illumination or high contrast. I won’t know what the “best” light is to support my visual message until I see it for myself and decide how to best utilize the light in my photograph.

In other situations, I can’t and don’t control what time of day I’m experiencing something. Sometimes you’ve just got to seize the moment and make the best photograph you can at that time.

Which is exactly what I did when I made the photograph at the top of this post. I made it at 9:42 am on September 1, 2024 as we motored on our raft through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. Sunrise on that day was at 6:05 am. There was no turning the boat around to go back or sit on the shoreline waiting for “better” light. And I’m not sure I would have done either even if given the chance. The stark midday contrast between the gorge and the illuminated butte is precisely the reason I made the image (i.e., “seeing hope and light through at the end of the tunnel of darkness”).

The key to approaching midday light is to pay close attention to how the highlights and shadows work together—and how they are working to help you deliver your visual message.

Oftentimes, I’m looking for more intimate compositions like macro or close-up scenes under midday light. This emphasis on details helps me round out my storytelling and portfolio of broader scenes in area. I seek out situations where I can emphasize a lit subject against a dark background or vice versa. I especially love graphic shadows rich with gesture, character, and personality. I also love discovering softer reflected and bounced light. If it’s overcast during the middle of the day, when lower contrast appears naturally, then I’ll shift my attention to rendering softer scenes with greater color saturation.

More importantly, first and foremost, I’m just observing the scene and figuring out what I’m responding to in that moment. Only after I figure out my visual message do I decide how I’m going to put it together from a technical standpoint, including lighting.

That means I’m also noticing broader scenes just the same during the middle of the day. From a technical perspective, I’ll tap into the high dynamic range (HDR) imaging technique to tame the high contrast. In both cases, photographers can extend the apparent dynamic range of a single frame by making multiple exposures at different exposure levels and then blend them together in the camera or in processing software. (Hopefully, manufacturers will continue to expand the dynamic range perceptible to cameras.)

Other photographic approaches that benefit from high contrast include infrared photography as well as black and white renditions of scenes. Color and tone contrasts can also add much needed structure to the abstracts resulting from intentional camera movement (ICM). ICM where you move your camera during a slower exposure. In addition, I might utilize high key lighting and intentionally overexposed my frame to emphasize the structure of a visual element thereby eliminating the high contrast. (Ignore those blinkies when you overexpose! You know what you’re doing!)

To convey more emotional expressions, I’ll challenge myself to use clear blue skies as a clean background and contrast to the color of my other visual elements. On partly cloudy or stormy days, I’ll look for ways to incorporate cloud shadows and light dancing across scenes, big and small. As philosopher Francis Bacon said, ““A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”

Here’s the thing—and I want to make this point abundantly clear: your creativity does not fire up at sunrise and then turn off until sunset. Your ability to connect with the world around you and create an expression about it does not ever turn off. You carry this capability with you all the time, everywhere you go—no matter the lighting conditions.

So don’t limit yourself arbitrarily with made-up and unnecessary rules or rumors or what you’ve read on the internet. Follow your own creativity and intuitions. Celebrate what you experience in your life all the time and anywhere you go. Make images anytime of the day you wish.

Be well, be brave, be wild at all times of the day,
~Bubbles

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