Changing Light with the Seasons

Photo by Jamie Schultz

Winter, in particular, is a prime time to practice natural light photography because the light is often soft and you can be creative with how shadows fall on your subject. The low-angled winter sun will give you long sweeping shadows. This holds true even when you're shooting indoors near a window, so if you live in a colder area, you can still take advantage of the wonderful light winter offers. As fall turns to winter, the sun rises and sets more slowly than in the spring and summer. This means that the ideal "sunrise/sunset" light -- which offers a dramatic warm glow -- is available for one to two hours at a time.