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Digital Photography of Lights
This whole section is dedicated to taking freelance digital pictures of lights and everything light related. If that doesn't say enough, this section will show you how to focus difficult holiday lights or how to steady your hand when taking those artistic urban pictures. Also learn some tricks with your digital camera (which every digital camera should have), such as exposure time and adjusting the ISO. Which is really handy for getting the look to fit your picture taking necessities. Freelance digital photography careers are open to anyone who can take really well done urban pictures, and casual night light settings.
Remember taking lights digital photographs usual takes large amounts of creativity to capture a truly original shot. So go wild and do crazy things with your camera just as experiments.
-Using a Stand- -Lighting-
-ISO- -Exposure-
-Using ISO, Exposure and Aperture- -Creative Tips-
Use Three Legs or Two?
Can standing on your own two feet take good photos of lights?
Well I have say that it is hard, but it can be done. Still if freelance digital photographs of lights is your cup of tea then your going to need a tripod to take the best light pictures. With that being said there are still ways to take good lights pictures without blurring. 
Setting the camera on a solid surface will work just fine, although inconvenient, and you might have set a timer.
If taking the lights photo with your hands steady your stance by sitting down on a solid object and resting your elbows on your knees. Also a handy trick is to lean up against a wall or tree, this prevents any unwanted body movement. Remember you're the photographer, so if you want blurring pictures of lights then go for it, blurring lights look great and very stylistic. These rules only apply at a low/fast exposure time.
Using Lighting to capture Lighting
Well believe it or not, but sometimes you do need lighting to capture lighting, and it is usually a rule not to use flash when taking lighting pictures. Flash makes it hard to see the natural glow of the light bulbs themselves, which most of the time defeats the purpose. Natural light works well so you can open a window, but you can also turn a normal light on because sometimes that irredesent glow of a light bulb works well with your digital photo, and is easy to edit into a timely photo look in photoshop. If you are taking pictures of lights in your house such as holiday lights then a simple fireplace glow will give it a warm look but will require a higher exposure time.
Using ISO
The ISO measures the sensitivity to light, making it easier for you to take photographs in darker or lighter places. The higher the ISO is the more sensitive it is to light, which means it will be able to sense more light in darker places making your photos lighter in general. Conversely subjects with too much light can easily be adapted by turning down the ISO, simple enough huh?So if you're out on the city at night trying to get some good urban photograph settings to start out your freelance photography career, you need to learn the tricks to get the best looking digital photos. You want to turn up the ISO and really trial and error some of your photos. Most digital cameras these days have auto ISO, but it still doesn't work as well as it should at times. Knowing your ISO settings is pretty important when owning a digital camera. Also remember when adjusting the ISO this also could effect the picture quality usual the higher or (faster) the ISO is the more pixelation and unsightly qualities you will get, and it effects your LCD screen making it hard to view what you're trying to shoot.
Digital Camera Exposure and Shutter Speed
If you're going to be taking pictures at dark settings such as night time, dawn, dusk, evening, or any other dark times I missed then you probably should know about shutter speeds. The shutter speed is how long the shutter stays open or exposes light to your picture. The speed is measured in seconds and the longer the time the lighter or more exposed it is. Since digital cameras don't necessarily have the same parts as a normal camera this might be called exposure time in your digital camera picture settings. Hopefully you have some pretty good choices like 1/4000 to 15 seconds exposure time. Trust me even 3 or 4 seconds is a long time to expose a picture, if you took a 3 or 4 second exposure time photo out in the day then you would get a photograph of bright white. Although 15 seconds is a long time, some cameras can go up to a half a minute.
So now your pictures will come out great at night time because the camera is emitting much more light through the lens. But if your going to change the exposure time you definitely need a stand or tripod, because it will cause your pictures to be so blurry without one. Exposure time isn't just for lighting effects it is also for any abstract effect your mind can think of, but we will talk about that later.
Another factor in freelance digital photography and all photography for that matter is Aperture, now not all digital cameras have this but that's okay, you don't always need it is just nice to have. Aperture is how narrow or wide the passage is in which light is emitted, so a wider aperture means more light to get through and vice versa.
One more thing, if using a high exposure and blurriness is not wanted, set a timer on your photos just for a second or two so your pressing of the buttons does not blur your pictures.
Exposure, ISO, and Aperture altogether now!
Okay so here are the formulas for the different kinds of lighting, remember sometimes you might only need one setting change such as ISO, but other times you might need all three. Remember you're the one on your way to getting a photography job, so it takes trial and error and lots of practice.Dawn and Dusk - would go well with a wide aperture, low ISO and maybe about 1 to 2 seconds exposure time (depending on how dark and what season).Nighttime Dwellers - photographing people in the night time with moderate night time lighting, maybe from a street lamp or a building light. would be a low ISO, wide or narrow aperture (trial and error), and 1 to 3 seconds with a possible flash (but be careful).City - In a fairly dark area don't worry about ISO and keep your aperture normal but try anything from 1 to 6 seconds exposure time.Walking Around at Night - If you don't want anything appear to be blurry then turn off exposure (or just keep it under a second) and keep a high ISO and a wide aperture, but it would be best to set your camera on a flat surface and shoot it with exposure on.Shooting by Hand - If you're shooting your digital photos by hand DON"T use any exposure **unless you want your pictures to have an artistic blur** but other wise if your trying to take a still it will come out very blurry, mess with the light settings on your camera and put the ISO high
Getting Creative with Your Freelance Photography
Now that we got through all that technical stuff, you should now go explore what you can do with exposure and ISO, and we will give you a few ideas to start with. Reflections are a great way to get an artistic look, here are some ideas of what we mean:
- A close up of a woman holding a pocket mirror as it reflects the street light above
- A parked car showing the city lights in the reflection of the window
- A puddle showing a pale white moon
Black and white is a great way to show contrast or convey to someone that it is dark out even if it is daytime, or if something has too distracting of colors, flip it to black and white and people will focus on the subject meaning and not obtrusive coloring.
- An old diner with too many colors in its neon sign, just switch to black and white and it still shows a contrasty dark-light picture
- Two people walking under a street lamp holding hands gives it a timely look in black and white and people won't pay attention to what they're wearing but what they're doing
Okay we said how to use exposure properly but now we will learn to use it creatively, because exposure can give a great sense of motion or blurriness. Just by slightly moving the camera or changing what lies in front of the camera will cause a blurry or transparent look.
- Take a night time photo of cars going by with a long exposure time and the cars will appear in motion
- Full cityscape photos still look great and artistic if you slightly move the camera on a higher exposure time.
- Adjust your camera to a high exposure time, place an object on a surface, snap the picture after three seconds (or about half the exposure time) quickly take away the object and it will appear to be a transparent object.