The sun blazes in the sky. Light blinds your eye. And yet, there is this beautiful bit of something in that moment that you'd love to hold onto, forever : you want to freeze-frame it into a photograph.
So, you try, and try, and try. Then you find out that you just cannot do it.
Too. Much. Light.
While light is almost always your best-friend, when it comes to photography, there are those rare occasions, when you can do with less of it. One evening, in March, was one such time for me.
4PM. Lakeside. The sun was still up in the sky; still very bright. Every once in a while, I'd catch a silvery ripple of light, over the waves. It would glisten gently for just a few seconds, and then it would be gone. Only to reappear, gleaming again, in some other part of the lake.
That sparkle on the water was what I wanted to capture. So, with the Av shooting-mode, and f-stop set to 4.0, I clicked my camera.
A splash of bright-white was all I got.
"Can't do it." I thought.
Too. Much. Light.
I was about to turn away, to look at other interesting subjects to photograph. But that rippling sheen would just keep coming back, at the corners of my eyes. It was almost like it was calling for a second-look.
So I looked once more. And I started thinking - 'If decreasing the f-stop increases light coming onto the sensor, then to decrease the light coming in, I should start...'
f4.0 to f4.5 to f5.0 to f5.6 to f6.3...I kept increasing the f-stop. And I kept clicking away.
The sky started to get darker. The waves began showing up slowly. And then...with the aperture set to it's smallest opening - f32, the lake shimmered with starshine!
And as a hidden bonus, with this high of an f-stop, everything from the near-end of the lake, to the trees in the distance, all the way to the sun above, all of it came out in focus (zero background-blur!).
So the next time you look around, and you see a slice of magic in the moment that you have to take with you, but you find yourself awash with light, know that you have a trick to turn day to night - a trick to disappear bright light.
Happy Photographing!