Using texture in photographs
May/16/10 13:59 Filed in: Photo
shoots
How the texture of materials impacts a photograph.
Texture relates us to the feeling of a surface. Usually we explore a texture by vision and by touch. However, in a photograph, we don't have the luxury of experiencing the texture by touching it. The viewer of a photograph needs to be convinced by vision on how that photographed surface actually feels like.
Capturing texture in a photograph can be fairly easy. Texture is usually a by-product of side lighting. When sunlight shines across the surface of a subject, it shines light on one side and shadows on the other. A good time to capture this type of light is early morning or mid to late afternoon. It is a big help if the sky is partially overcast. Otherwise the shadows might become just a little bit too harsh and the highlights a bit too intense. This would be destroying the subtleties created by indirect side lighting.
When a flat surface or a small cut out of a large object is captured at this time of the day, most textured surfaces will show their deep nature. Working at this time of the day with larger scenes is a lot harder. Working a large scene usually throws in shadows created by large objects in or around the scene. Specially there overcast is a wonderful help - most certainly though if you are not planning on implementing the sky in your composition.
The textured images I captured are indeed small cutouts of the bigger picture. The first photograph shows the bottom part of a rusty door of a water tower. Captured on a sunny, partially overcast day during mid-afternoon:
The second image shows a wooden door inside a wooden wall. I was just walking by when the sun was just partially hiding behind the clouds which made this wall just jump at me - or into my lens for that matter. Again, it was mid afternoon:
The third image is my neighbours roof. The time of capturing the image was again mid afternoon, but the overcast was significantly thicker than with the other shots. Once the sun broke through the clouds, it was impossible to capture this scene (or not worth it for that matter) due to the glare on the roof, the reflections in the window and the harsh shadows under the roof edge.
This was a good lesson to learn and certainly helped me pointing my finger on things that I worked with but for the longest time did not quite understand how all those elements come together…..
