When we first arrived at the giant Merlion on Singapore's Sentosa Island it was early evening and the setting sun had lit the giant statue up lovely and golden. The light was certainly lovely but the statue lacked a certain zing.
So I decided to go and take a look inside the lion. There's a lovely view out over Singapore from between those lovely fangs.
By the time we looked around, bought a couple of souvenirs and just generally enjoyed ourselves 45 minutes had passed. The sun had well and truly gone down and this is what we found.
Same statue, totally different light.
We often think of light in terms of contrasty, not contrasty, soft, harsh, golden, blue.
But often we don't realise how such a short period of time can have such a huge impact on the look of our subjects. With the mouth and eyes lit up it is a much more dramatic image and all it required was killing 45 minutes.
Don't just assume that because something looks really nice in the light that you see when you first arrive that it's not going to look even better at a different time of day - even the same time of day on a different day!
Whenever possible try and explore photographic subjects that enthrall you again and again, in all different types of light. There's no way of knowing which light you'll prefer unless you try and experience as many different varieties as possible. Oh and I'd love to admit that I totally planned to photograph the Merlion when it was lit up at night, but to be honest I was on holiday and just happened to be there at the right time! Nothing like a bit of Merlion serendipity. :)
