In 2016 we started keeping a diary of the quality of light here on Skye. The purpose is to build up a picture over a few years to see what time of year typically has the best conditions for photography.
It’s not difficult to know when the best weather of the year is, but good weather and good light for photography are rarely the same same thing. Clear blue skies and sunshine is great to be outdoors in, but pretty useless for photography, so the two are completely different. As far as we are aware, a diary of light hasn’t been done before on Skye, so this project will hopefully shed some light (see what we did there?!) on any patterns which emerge.
Read more: Building a Picture of Light
By Marcus McAdam
As a photographer, I usually spend most of my time avoiding having the Sun behind me. If it is, then the camera ends up looking at the subject from the same angle as it’s being illuminated from, and this results in a very flat light with few or no shadows. If you ever want to capture a really bland and emotionless image, then just position the Sun behind you and voila!
There is however one exception to this rule - rainbows. Rainbows only ever appear directly opposite the Sun. In fact, the centre of any rainbow is exactly 180 degrees to the Sun. This does however make them easy to predict, as we know exactly where they are going to appear (given the right conditions of course), so we can position ourselves suitably and simply wait. Although the light on our subject is now going to be flat, hopefully the rainbow will be vibrant enough to steal the show, and become the main focal point of the image.
Read more: Chasing Rainbows
