Surrounding light and how to use it surrounding light, whether it be natural light from the sun or
simply a street lamp, can be your best friend or your worst enemy depending on your direction.
This seems kind of obvious, but most people don't realize it.
Shooting in the same direction that the light is traveling can brighten up your entire subject and the
scene.
So if everything is too dark, you should try changing your shooting direction to match the direction
of the light source.
On the contrary, shooting into the light can create a really nice silhouette if positioned properly
and exposed properly.
Exposure is the amount of light per unit area.
This is just a fancy way of saying how bright or how dark a picture is.
Whenever you take it.
The best time to shoot in almost any setting is at Golden Hour, which is the hour right before sunset
or the hour right after sunrise.
This is because the light is softer and coming from one single direction closer to the horizon.
Here's some examples.
This was shot facing into the light, which creates a really nice silhouette.
A silhouette is when your subject is completely dark against a bright background.
This shot was taken more facing into the same direction that the light was casting.
The subject is well lit and so is the background.
Here's a diagram of the difference between the two different shooting directions relative to the light
source.
Neither option is wrong.
It just depends on what style that you want to achieve.