When many people think of light diffusion for photography it’s mainly about the foreground.
For people photography that means the people are in nice diffused lighting. Diffused light we equate to soft light. Next to a window, a flash through a big softbox, a cloudy day and in shade. (BTW I think people there is a time for harsh light)
I shot middle of the day on Saturday and needed to diffuse the light on the subject because there was no shade around so I had someone standing practically right above these two with a diffuser even when for a minute or two the brunt of the sun went behind a small cloud.
What I noticed after is how different the background looked when the clouds were diffusing the light onto the water from when it was straight sun onto the water feature in the back.
Days where the lighting is Chaotic is my favorite because then you get so many different looks without having to try to hard or wait to long. (As long as you’re prepared for it all)
The way the light is reflecting off of the water in this one has a certain appeal and I can’t really decide which one I like more and I bet the results amongst a large audience would be pretty split.
It obviously means the background is much brighter than in the previous picture.
Because the sun was so much brighter at this moment the faces do seem to be lit up better, but in the previous one it would have been easy to add a little bit of additional light to the scene (via flash or reflector)
