Light is everything when it comes to my photography; so much so that I coined the phrase “Be a master of consistency and a student of light.” And I believe my obsession with light has come from being restricted to only photographing wildlife in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador. After visiting locations time and time again, I’ve realized that to push my photography to the next level, I needed to understand light and how I can use it.

Not only beautiful last-minute golden light like in this Atlantic Puffin portrait

or shooting into the light (sun behind our subject) for this backlit silhouette of a Woodland Caribou at sunrise.

but focusing on how light reacts off of or passes through various surfaces and objects, like this encounter I had photographing a Ruddy Turnstone along a rock shoreline not far from my home.

As I approached my subject and got into position, there was a subtle ridge of rocks between us, and then the shoreline sloped off into the water. As the waves crashed over the rocks and receded, the setting sun would illuminate the wet rocks, creating this mesmerizing bokeh. By pushing my lens as low into the rocks as I could, I added some interesting foreground blur as well.

Water can be such an asset when it comes to creating unique images with beautiful light. The way light seems to dance over the surface of the water can be so peaceful to watch and, when incorporated into your compositions, can yield gorgeous results.

Each year during spring migration, I visit a handful of places to photograph songbirds. Over the years, I’ve gained an intimate knowledge of how the light filters through the trees to help create some very interesting bokeh textures and patterns. At the same time, I’ve learned where specific birds like to hang out and where they tend to call from.

Here I captured this Black-and-white Warbler as the first hints of light pushed through the Black Spruce forest. Because the light is being filtered through the trees, you get some textures of the branches in the bokeh, and you can also evenly expose your subject and the background without having to underexpose to protect the highlights, which would in turn underexpose your subject.

Shooting through layers of trees into the light helped create this fading off pattern of bokeh in the image above of a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.

The less I’ve focused my attention on the subject in front of me, the more connected I feel I’ve become to the light happening around me. My concentration shifts more to how light is bouncing off surfaces and whether I can in some way incorporate it into my composition. Until we’ve trained ourselves to see and understand light, it can be difficult to know what might be compelling with the naked eye — until we point our camera at the light, especially when using a telephoto lens.

For example, in this Bridled Murre image, the bokeh in the background is actually a group of Northern Gannets in the distance on the edge of their colony being lit by the evening light, while my subject was in shade (which has become one of my favourite lighting scenarios).

Playing around with light can be so much fun, and you can often create some interesting effects, like in this Savannah Sparrow image, where at first glance one might think the sun is showcased in the background, yet the subject was perfectly lit by the golden light. How could this be? Well, the bokeh ball in the background was actually a distant rock on the edge of a pond being lit by the golden light. Also, by shifting my position ever so slightly, I was able to block the light hitting most of the perch but allow the light to spotlight my subject.

As my love of light has grown, I’ve begun to branch out into other sources of light. These being urban lights: street lights, Christmas lights, really any man-made light source. Especially during those long winter days when, here in Newfoundland and Labrador, there can be weeks of no sun. Too often I found myself frustrated during the wintertime with very few opportunities to work with light, so a few years ago I decided to head over to a local duck pond where, for a two-week period, they would string Christmas lights in all the trees surrounding the pond. During the blue hour before sunrise and after sunset, all the lights would be reflected in the pond, and by pushing my camera settings, I was able to capture some unique waterfowl images:

I’ve also started playing around with specialty lenses like my TTArtisan 250mm reflex donut bokeh lens, which transforms any bokeh in your composition into a donut shape, along with some nice painterly textures. As you can see in the examples below, in both cases I was shooting into the light.

So I encourage you to look beyond your subject and take a moment to pause and see the light. Look for the way the light is hitting surfaces or objects in your background, and try to incorporate them into your compositions. Shoot through foliage to see what interesting textures you can get if you shoot into the light. And have fun with it, be creative and free with your ideas, and don’t get locked into the norm.