Photography is fundamentally the art of using light. Whether or not you are creating the light yourself, artificially, or using natural available light, lighting is everything to a photog. And if you can expose or “paint” with the light just right…well, then you have yourself a pretty fantastic image.
Contrary to popular opinion, having blue skies and clear sunshine is not always the best recipe, or lighting, for photographs. The sun can provide harsh, sharp shadows and is unflattering when people are looking into the sun because most of the time they are squinting like crazy. Well I don’t have to tell you friends that know Phoenix well, that we are using and incorporating this type of light (the blazing direct sun) 95% of the time if we are shooting outdoors. So when we were graced with a beautiful stormy and overcast day a few weeks ago when we shot the Tan family, we were more than ecstatic at the change of pace and the incredible light that the day offered up.
You see, clouds act as huge diffusers of the direct sunlight. They soften shadows and spread the light evenly across everything. Especially on a completely overcast day…
We met Dan and his wife Tanya and their son Titus for the first time on our shoot, but quickly realized we had a lot of connections! Dan has a history in youth ministry and I found out that our paths had crossed several times at various youth camps and events that I had helped lead worship at. Meeting up at one of our favorite locations, an old scrapyard where there are a bevy of different textures and colors, we took advantage of the gorgeous soft light the day offered up. When we arrived it was even sprinkling slightly and we were worried that we may need to postpone! But the weather broke just enough for us to spend a great hour and a half with this fun family.
Dan has actually been a photographer himself for the past twenty or so years, and even shared with us that he had never hired another photographer before to take pictures of him! He had just always taken them himself. Needless to say we were super honored and humbled that he enjoyed our art and aesthetic enough to break tradition and contact us to shoot his family. He was tremendously creative and even had some great ideas for composition and poses, haha!
In the short time that we had to spend with the Tans, we were able to learn a lot about them and their love for each other, youth and ministry, art, and life in general. Oh yeah, and we laughed a ton under a fabulously gray sky…one that I think, upon seeing the images, you’ll agree with me in saying was one of the more beautiful skies we’ve worked with in a long time.
Introducing the Tans….
