Ideally, we would all like to shoot with perfect light. Golden hour or blue hour, soft even lighting but that is not always the case. Sometimes, circumstances dictate that you work with what you have regarding light. This is the challenge and fun of photography for me. Granted, there are sometimes when you just know right away that the only option is to not try to force something and you just don’t take the picture. At times, this might be the most valid option.

However, what do you do when you know there might be a picture to be made, but the light is harsh. Such was the case with this image. I happened to be on a mini getaway with my family and we stopped at a stretch of shoreline to take in the view and rest. As is the case with me, camera in hand, I was looking for something to make into a click when I looked down the shoreline a ways and saw this lone Willow tree isolated on the shoreline.

As I started too make my way towards the tree, the light was harsh, it was about 12:30 in the afternoon, and I began to wonder if the walk to the tree was for naught. I made some clicks in color with various compositions and they were average, nothing that excited me. As I took a step back and waited for my wife to make some clicks, it dawned on me, black and white. I had all the necessary components. Dark black shadows and bright areas from the sunlight.

I changed my Nikon Z8 to dark monochrome and started to work the scene. I check the back LCD for sharpness and clarity and liked the black and white images far better than the color one. This is a strategy that I love to use when the light is harsh producing both bright and dark areas and this really helps me determine whether the key ingredient for making a photograph, the light, is friend or foe