Artificial light has one large advantage—you have it entirely under your control, and there’s nothing to hold you back from your creative goals. So learn to master flashes and continuous lights, and you’ll take your portrait photographs to the next level.

For many photographers, taking portraits under natural light is the simplest and most common option of all. That way you don’t have to worry about equipment costs. However, you do have to take into account the characteristics of natural light and subordinate your subject’s placement and your exposure settings to these.

Just about every photographer has tried portrait photography at some point. But many of them run into trouble when it comes to portrait lighting. There are several ways to go here. But for all of them, you have to keep in mind basic parameters such as the light’s intensity, quality, and color. Take a look at how to master these.

Macro photography is one of those genres where equipment really matters. Even in ordinary photography, it’s all about light, and in macro photography that goes double, especially when it comes to light diffusion.

Glass—a photographer’s worst enemy. It’s usually best to just avoid it. But what if you want to immortalize your favorite fish in an aquarium? Or photograph your brother with a tiger behind glass at the zoo? There are loads of situations like this.

Winter’s here, and it’s brought early sunsets that handicap outdoor photography. But there’s plenty of opportunities indoors. Candles are a natural here. They’re easy to get, and around Christmas they’re often right at hand. Read on to learn how to handle the technical aspect of a shoot like this, plus some ideas for arranging the candles.

By mastering work with artificial light sources, and especially flashes, you break free of several exposure limitations that hold you back when you’re taking pictures in natural light. Using flashes also gives you much sharper pictures, because the flash is so short that it eliminates motion blur.

The major advantage of artificial light sources over natural light is that you have them fully under your control. There are many tools for changing their characteristics. Artificial light lets you photograph topics that would be impossible to handle under natural light.

Work with natural light has simpler equipment demands than work with artificial light, but on the other hand, you don’t have the light fully under your control. But you can still direct and enhance the light, using reflectors and diffusion panels.

Your basic light for photography—available to you free of charge—is natural light. But when you’re using that light, you usually don’t have many ways to fully control it, and so you’ll often have to adapt your exposure and your scene to the light. You’ll learn to perceive light and take advantage of its characteristics with some practice…