Effect of Sunlight on Photography

What makes a photograph appealing? There are quite a number of factors:

1. The Composition
2. The background - How pleasing the background is
3. The details in the image
4. Of course, the subject
5. And, equally important is the time of the day when the photograph is taken.

Here I would like to demonstrate the last point using two pictures, of the same subject, taken at two different times of the day. The best of the images taken have been presented here for the illustration.

Place: Magadi Tank, Magadi village, Gadaga District, Karnataka
Equipments used: Digiscoping using Swarovski ATS-65 HD and Nikon Coolpix 8400
Date: 05-January-2008

The following picture was taken at 10:00 AM. The day was very bright. The picture is quite harsh as the Sun was already high up in the sky.


The birds leave the tank as early as 6AM in the morning to feed in the surrounding groundnut fields, to return only by 9AM. It is difficult to find out the field where they feed. Therefore, it is not possible to photograph the birds in the morning.

I thought I should get the golden hues of the incident sunlight if I photograph in the late afternoon. The result is below. This image was taken at 04:35 PM in the evening. One can see the soft light that makes the image more aesthetic.


Therefore, if you want to get a good image, you have just few hours in the morning and in the evening (atleast in a tropical country like India).