My serious photography as a hobbyist began in 2012 when I started fiddling with a few knobs on my Canon 400D and later with Fujifilm X-T1. My sifus and photographer friends told me to look for the light and master the light. There will be no photography without the light.
About five years later during my city photowalk, I discovered some interesting shadows on the buildings and on the streets. My interest moved from lighted objects to shadows as I was walking the street. Just look at the above photo and you shall see how the shadows on the floor enhanced the background and surround the lady(subject of the photo) with beautiful graphics. To make the photo revealing forms, I converted the colour photo to black and white.
If you walk at night in the city or in your neighbourhood, you shall see a lot of interesting shadows and a few scary ones. Every shadow tells its own story depending on what is the object and the position of the light. Even though I don’t know who are in the photos as shown in the above two photos, yet I can appreciate the elegance of the photos and their element of mystery!
From the above nine photos I shared you can see the positive effects of the shadows on the subject in many ways. Shadows have the following effects:
- Contrast and drama
- Focus
- Directing the attention
- Revealing forms
- Revealing texture.
To fellow photographers, especially senior citizens like me: Just go out and shoot. I love to do photowalk every week -either I get good photos or good exercise or both! Cheers.
