This document provides an outline for a leisure photography course that meets weekly. The course will cover basics of practical photography as well as more advanced topics like photo manipulation. Week one focuses on light, including sources of light, intensity, quality, and direction. Students are asked to bring their own cameras and charged equipment. Homework involves reading online resources about lighting and taking photos that demonstrate different lighting types.

1. Leisure Photography
Course outline
• Every Thursday 6-8pm, with Gareth Hill
• Students to bring own camera and equipment
• Don’t forget to charge batteries, USB leads etc
• Areas of study include:
Lighting
Composition
Portraits
Black and White
Montage
Aperture, Shutter Speeds, ISO

2. Course content overview
• Try to create a democratic content which suits
all learners – not easy!
• We will cover basics of practical photography
plus some more advanced areas such as photo
manipulation.
• Art and Science combine in Photography!
• Your input is valued both by bringing in
material for review and in your comments.

3. Leisure Photography
Photography 1
Painting with Light

4. Week one - Light

5. Sources of Light
• Photography is all about light, the amount and
the direction.
• Main light sources are:
• The Sun
• Artificial light such as lamps, household lighting
etc.
• You need to manipulate the scene to create the
effect you want, this might mean moving a light
on a stand or moving your subject relative to the
sun, or waiting for a better time of day to get the
effect you want.

6. Intensity of light
• The first property of light to deal with is intensity or
brightness. The light meter in our cameras measures this and
converts it into f-stops and shutter speeds.
• F-stops are aperture settings
• Shutter speed is how fast the shutter opens and for how long.
(More on this later...)
• The only key to intensity is making sure that there is enough to
make an image on the film. The light that enters our camera lens is
either direct light from a light source such as the sun or light bulb
OR it is reflected light that has come from light that has bounced off
of people or things.
• What happens to our images without enough light?

7. Quality of Light
• Light Quality is the most important characteristic of light for the
photographer for it sets the mood of a shot. Quality of light breaks
down into two types -- hard or soft light.
• Hard light
• distinct shadows
• It comes from a point light source
• It is a harsh light.
• Soft light is the opposite
• from a reflected source or a broad source.
• indirect light
• frequently found in the shade
• Light quality is affected mostly by change in subject or camera
position or the use of reflectors or fill flash.

8. Sunlight
• For us the most common light source.
• What do you notice about the light in these images?

9. Time of Day
• If you are able to choose the time of day to
shoot your pictures, try to pick a time when
the sun is low in the sky, either shoot in the
early morning or late afternoon.
• A nice side effect of shooting in the early
morning or late afternoon is that the colour of
the light is 'warmer', reds and yellows are
stronger which generally gives a more pleasing
effect.

10. Direction of light
• Front light eliminates shadows but also flattens a
subject, losing depth and texture.
• Side light makes the subject stand out from the
background, giving it a more 3D appearance.
• Backlight softens the quality of the light as the
subject gets mostly reflected light on its surface.
• The direction of the light falling on your subject -
you need to look at your subject carefully and
watch how the shadows fall.

11. Front light example

12. Side light example

13. Backlight example

14. Homework!
• Read the resources on lighting from today by
visiting the online blog
• http://kecdrparts.blogspot.com
• Try to take some examples of different types of
lighting that we have looked at this evening.
• Next week we will begin by having a short
slideshow of your images.
• Next weeks topic is Composition.