Beginner Flat light.

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Hi all, I want to get out with my camera to do some street photography, the question I have is how to deal with the flat, grey light we have at the moment. I love b+w shots, which I am thinking would be easier on the eye once you pp them ?? (Could be totally wrong here) but what about colour? Is it all in the pp, or is it just waiting until you get that break in the natural lighting? Thanks.
 
Flat lighting is easiest IMO for street photography because shadows will make exposures tricky - esp deep shadows caused by harsh sunlight. Lots of squinting people or sunglasses. It's another step to taking the image as you have to meter off something, and when you bring the camera to your eye, it's got to decide what to do about shadows & highlights. Often you only have moments before the scene is gone. Flat light is much easier because you can meter off your hand at the start of your outing, then just set your camera to manual, plug the settings in and all you then need to figure out is focus.

Colour vs B&W is a personal thing I think. I prefer B&W because for me - it's about people and not things. Colourful things can distract or draw attention away from what I'm trying to show. However there are many successful colour street photographers out there so YMMMV :) The benefit of digital is the ability to do both!

I'm sure there will be other people who do things differently, but that's my tuppence. There's no right answer to this one.
 
Thanks Ian I understand that, it makes perfect sense.
 
If you love black and white then flat light can be your friend. It helps with detail as the contrast from harsh sunlight is gone. BW is all about light and shape and form. Personally I find a soft grey light the perfect companion for street photography especially if the weather is bad too! But basically, if you look long enough you can find something of photographic interest everywhere and at anytime whatever the weather. Here is a shot taken on a particularly crappy day...

Into the RainA by Peter Davidson, on Flickr
 
You see I like that, I love the darkness of it. I think I am spending too much time thinking about it, instead of getting out and experimenting.
 
Whack a TTL speedlight on a hotshoe cable and get nice and close to your subject before striking a threatening pose with both arms raised as you pretend to be Bruce Gilden. There are two likely outcomes; 1) You capture the decisive moment a frail old lady suffers a cardiac arrest or, 2) you spend the following 5 days in a coma, and require extensive gastroenterological surgery to recover your camera equipment.

As an alternative, might I suggest going out, ignoring the weather and taking as many pictures as you can. Sometimes the light will be good. Sometimes it won't. Sometimes you'll realise that you could have done something different to affect the outcome. Sometimes you'll realise that you were in the right place at the wrong time. Sometimes you'll convince yourself that you you can fix things in post (which is a lie). The important thing, might I suggest, is not to think it through too much. Go out. Have fun. Who knows? You might enjoy yourself.

Please take this with a pinch of salt - I might be, slightly, slightly, drunk.
 
Nice shot Peter - but that's not flat lit, its highly contrasty backlit as if lit by a huge softbox from behind only - it would only be truly flat outside of the tunnel

Flat lighting, as in overcast grey clouds even raining, is like having a massive wide softbox lighting everything, and even in such skies moving between buildings can create pockets of more contrasty & directional lighting as in the shot above. Just learn to walk around 'seeing' everything in terms of the light and especially as if its softboxes of various sizes & shapes/bare speedlights (harsh directional light) and you'll soon get the idea :)

This is a 'street' shot of a couple kissing at the Pickering War Weekend, it was peeing it down (flat light) just outside of the train station so I went inside and found my spot as a compromise of the light now coming from the tunnel entrance - so creating a huge softbox but with direction too and then just waited, there was also some top light from a slit in the roof; the train coming in and blowing steam was a bonus of being in the right spot right time :)

And yes there were hundreds of other people there too, I just isolated these two using a 50mm lens at f2 and shot as people passed me - I will admit to telling them to kiss again though as I missed the first one lol

Natural light 030 TP.jpg

Dave
 
Lovely shot that Dave, the train and steam really give it that ww2 look.
 
Hi all, I want to get out with my camera to do some street photography, the question I have is how to deal with the flat, grey light we have at the moment. I love b+w shots, which I am thinking would be easier on the eye once you pp them ?? (Could be totally wrong here) but what about colour? Is it all in the pp, or is it just waiting until you get that break in the natural lighting? Thanks.

I wouldn't worry about flat light too much, just go out and take photos. If you're shot the right person and/or the right situation, then lighting doesn't matter to much.

Having said that, if you want to experiment with extreme contrast in lighting, shoot at night. One of the advantages of the UK winter is that it get's dark very early - go and shoot commuters going home walking in and out of light pools.
 
I'm a lover of strong sunlight and crips shadows as that suits the type of street I link to shoot most, so I tend to have to work a lot harder of flat light days - generally on a flat day I'll work more towards shooting into buildings (cafes etc) and use the artificial light.
 
Flat gray light is pretty great if you don't want shadowy/contrasty shots.
 
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