Chasing The Sun: Albufeira and Lisbon

Spending this past week overseas, I was excited to test my photography skills throughout stunning Portuguese cities. With the exception of a few hours in each stop, my trip was overshadowed by rain. I took it as inspiration, to not only observe how the light moves, but to find it in little pockets. I noted the tears the sun made in the clouds, the tiles it reflected itself upon, and the windows it peeked through.

I was especially focused on trying to capture the ways in which the sun was tucked away behind the breathtaking landscape and architecture of the country. Whether intertwined with a shingled roof or a swooping storm cloud, I wanted to keep the light and time of day as an obvious influence, but not the focus of my photos.

The biggest challenge of this assignment was experimenting with different settings of my camera. I was trying my hand at manipulating aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. In many of my photos in this series, I feel as if a better understanding of the exposure triangle would have drastically improved some of my work and fulfilled the vision I had for them at the time. In the future, I also want to take careful note of composition while in the moment, since I looked back to find telephone poles and pedestrian reflections to distract from the moment I hoped to capture. Regardless, I feel like this was a good experience to get myself more comfortable with a camera and with understanding how greatly the light effects shadows and color.