It’s when you understand why things work that you can excel in your images.
It is so important to understand the basic logistics of photography. From lighting to shutter speed to ISO to aperture. All of those factors change your image. The timing of the day even changes it. The clouds, your environment, and the weather even have influence.
The key is to understand what are the factors of influence and embrace how you can or can’t control them. You can control the sunlight. That is a fact, but you can’t control every factor, so you must improvise.
The shot above was done completely with daylight and no assistance from any lighting gear, just the right angle, camera settings, and composition.
It was shot with a Rokinon 35mm at F/2.8 , 1/8000 shutter speed, and ISO 100.
The reason it looks the way it does is mostly because of the time of day and the angle I shot from at the scene.
The lighting is bright and beautiful and their is a great shadow at the lower right of the image from the buildings across the street. It creates a natural vignette there for more emphasis on the subject.
The only edits I did on this image were in Lightroom 5 and I tweaked the RGB channels a bit for more of a “film” look.
I am getting much more comfortable using the Rokinon 35mm 1.4 and it’s been a blast to warm up to it.
