In contrast to using studio lighting to produce the light for a photograph, natural lighting can also be used to provide lighting for a photograph. Natural lighting is often used in scenarios where using artificial lighting would be impractical, or would ruin the effect of the image. Natural light can provide a soft alternative to the harsh lighting of studio lighting, and can often blend with the environment much more subtly.

Below are a range of professional photographs taken using natural lighting:

Using natural light can present challenges that are not present when using studio/artificial lighting. one such challenge is the inability to manipulate or alter the lighting. Natural lighting changes in intensity and direction depending on the time of day or the location of the photograph. The fact that natural lighting cannot be as easily manipulated means photographers can often struggle with producing an image with the striking effect they are looking for. These problems can be reduced using a variety of different techniques:

Reflectors:

Reflectors can be used when working with both studio and natural lighting, yet when working with natural lighting, they can be more useful in helping to direct light to specific places where it would otherwise not reach. Reflectors are useful when attempting to direct light into an area that it would not reach, or to bounce light back towards the subject to create more illumination:

The color of the reflector also changes the color of the light that is reflected back onto the subject. Gold reflectors are often used to reflect light back so that it casts a warm light back onto the subject, whereas silver reflectors may be used in low light, as it is often able to cast light a further distance than a white reflector.

what is photo-montage?

Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that a final image may appear as a seamless photographic print.

History:

• From 1930-1938, John Heartfield used photomontage to create 240 “Photomontages of The Nazi Period” to use art as a weapon against fascism and The Third Reich.
•  photo-montages were called “combination printing” and started in the 18th century.
• In late Victorian North America, William Notman of Montreal used photomontage to commemorate large social events which could not otherwise be captured on film.

examples of early photomontage:

Examples of photo montage that I like:

A Photo-Montage is a collage constructed from photographs.

In history photo-montage has often been used as a means of expressing a political agenda and used as propaganda.  It was first used as a technique by the dadaists in 1915 in their protests against WW1.  It was later adopted by the surrealists who exploited the possibilities photo-montage offered.

In 1923 the Russian constructivist Aleksander Rodchenko began experimenting with photo-montage as a way of creating striking socially engage imagery.

Other key components of the medium are John Heartfield, the German artist who reconstructed images from the media to protest against Germany’s Fascist regime and Peter Kennard, whose photo-montages explored issues such as economic inequality, police brutality and the nuclear arms race between the 1970’s and the 1990’s.

Pop Art developments (USA and UK 1950s-)

Photo-montage was also used by various pop-artists in the mid 20th century.  Pop Art was a reaction to abstract expressionism and was similar to Dada in some ways.

Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning in the 1940s and 1950s.

Many Pop Art images and constructions tackled popular consumerism, advertising, branding and marketing techniques.  Pop art also explored political concerns such as gender roles and war.