There is a quiet kind of enchantment that comes with capturing a moment lit entirely by the sun. In a digital world saturated with artificial lighting setups and sophisticated editing software, embracing natural light feels almost sacred return to photography’s most organic roots. This elemental light source holds boundless depth and dimension. It doesn't shout for attention but whispers to those who are willing to wait, watch, and feel their way through the evolving dance of day and shadow.
The soul of natural light photography begins long before the shutter clicks. It starts with learning to observe how light behaves in your everyday environment. Before adjusting ISO or framing your shot, it is the trained eye that notices the way morning light brushes across dewy grass, or how the amber rays of evening transform a mundane sidewalk into a cinematic scene. Early morning light carries a silvery stillness, offering a cool, almost melancholic mood that feels like the start of something new. Then there’s the golden hour, those few fleeting minutes after sunrise and just before sunset, when the entire world seems to glow from within. The light becomes honey-toned, gentle, and deeply flattering to both landscapes and skin.
This warm, directional light sculpts your subject, softens shadows, and saturates colors, offering depth and richness without the need for filters or enhancements. For portraits, this can mean smoother skin tones, luminous eyes, and a gentle fall-off that flatters every face. For landscapes, it adds drama, mood, and a timeless quality that digital editing can only attempt to replicate. Understanding the time of day, the direction of light, and how clouds or haze filter it is essential. These subtle shifts are what turn an ordinary scene into a soulful visual experience.
Among the many gifts that natural light offers, bokeh stands out as one of the most beloved by photographers. These dreamy, out-of-focus orbs of light can turn a shallow depth-of-field image into something painterly and magical. Bokeh is typically created by using a wide aperturethink f/2.8 or widerwhere the background dissolves into creamy softness while the subject remains tack-sharp. But even if you're working with a standard kit lens that opens only to f/3.5 or f/4, the secret lies in positioning. Set your subject against a distant light source, such as the sun streaming through leaves or windows, and use backlighting to create separation. Focus on something close, like petals, fabric, or facial features, and let the background melt away into glistening spheres.
Sculpting with Shadows: Embracing Contrast and Imperfection
As the day progresses, the light hardens and softens in an ongoing cycle. Midday light, often dismissed for being harsh and unflattering, still holds potential if you know how to shape it. When the sun is at its highest, seek refuge in shade beneath trees, beside buildings, or even behind your own body to diffuse the brightness and create even, bounced light. This can result in beautifully balanced exposures that maintain detail without sacrificing the vibrancy that direct sunlight brings.
However, sometimes leaning into the drama of harsh light can be equally powerful. Use deep shadows and strong contrast to your advantage. Overexpose slightly, shoot from lower angles, and compose with intent. Hard edges, high contrast, and blown highlights can create bold, modern compositions with a graphic sensibility. This style can be particularly striking in architectural photography or editorial-style portraits, where emotion is evoked through tension and structure rather than softness.
Backlighting becomes a deeply expressive technique as the sun dips lower in the sky. Whether shooting outdoors or through a windowpane, positioning your subject between you and the sun introduces a natural glow that outlines hair, shoulders, and edges in warm light. This rim light effect can transform a casual portrait into a frame-worthy image that pulses with emotion and atmosphere. When paired with a slightly underexposed background, the subject is bathed in a halo that seems to hold time still.
Backlit images also open the door to subtle flares and leaks. These visual artifactslight spilling across the frame or prism-like distortions a tactile, almost analog character to digital photography. Flares can be intensified by removing your lens hood, slightly tilting your camera toward the light source, or even using simple tools like copper pipes or reflective materials. When placed at the edge of your lens, a curved metal tube or small mirror can catch the light and redirect it into unexpected rainbows or bursts. These spontaneous effects are unrepeatable and deeply personal, making each photo feel like a visual fingerprint.
The indoor environment is equally ripe with opportunities for natural light creativity. Older homes, in particular, often contain a rich interplay of architecture and light. Aged windows filter daylight through imperfect glass, casting delicate shadows across wooden floors and textured walls. These moments become opportunities to create quietly powerful images. A sleeping pet on a sunlit rug, a bowl of fruit catching golden light, or a child bathed in a soft window glow scene tells a story made richer by the honesty of natural light.
Late afternoon light indoors behaves differently than it does outdoors. It arrives in long, slanted streaks, painting rooms in amber tones. These moments are perfect for emotional storytelling. You might find that your subject doesn’t even need to movejust stepping into a glowing shaft of light can transform a candid moment into a luminous portrait. Let shadows fall across part of the frame to create depth and mood. Play with partial exposureilluminate only one side of the face, or let light graze just the hands or hair.
Crafting Atmosphere: Emotion, Patience, and the Poetic Power of Presence
One of the most emotional tools in the natural light photographer’s kit is the silhouette. This effect is especially potent during sunset, when the contrast between sky and subject is at its most dramatic. To create a silhouette, position your subject against a vibrant sky and expose for the highlights in the background. The result is a figure in darkness, but what emerges is not a lack of detail’s a richness of form. A turn of the head, a raised hand, or the curve of a shoulder becomes the focus. These photos convey feeling over form, story over detail, offering a nostalgic, almost mythical quality.
The halo effect, often seen at the golden hour, is another poetic technique. As the sun nears the horizon and the air thickens with warmth, the light begins to wrap delicately around your subject. Hair, in particular, becomes a canvas for light, glowing with movement and life. This effect thrives when the background is darker, as it enhances the outline and contrast. Even the subtlest gestures become elevated breeze lifting strands of hair or the tilt of a chin glowing in gold.
For photographers chasing these effects, gear matters less than timing, patience, and presence. It is about being attuned to the story the light is telling. You don’t need a professional setup to create meaningful, high-impact images. What you need is an openness to observe, to feel, and to respond in real time. Light is fleeting. It drifts and shifts, offering you seconds to act before it disappears. The discipline lies in returning again and again, learning its patterns, and finding joy in the subtle variations.
Indoor scenes can be just as emotionally evocative. Try shooting in hallways where light falls in uneven patterns or let your subject stand near a doorway where soft transitions occur between interior and exterior brightness. Use windows not only as light sources but as framing elements. They create layers, reflections, and dimensionality. Allow curtains or blinds to partially obscure the light, adding visual interest through pattern and repetition.
Natural light photography is about emotional truth. It captures what artificial light often struggles to replicate: the soul of a moment. It is raw and unpredictable, requiring you to slow down and really look. It teaches you to appreciate imperfection, to adapt, and to embrace a certain vulnerability. And in doing so, it delivers photographs that feel real, resonant, and enduring.
To begin this journey, put your gear aside and simply observe. Step outside during sunrise, notice the light in your kitchen at midday, or sit near a west-facing window in the evening. See how light touches the surfaces of your world, how it warms faces, scatters across fabric, and fades into twilight. These are not just lighting conditionsthey are moments of connection between you, your subject, and the world around you.
The essence of natural light photography is not rooted in technical mastery, but in presence. It’s about tuning into the rhythm of the day, about honoring the way sunlight reveals the beauty already around us. Whether you're shooting in a wide field of wildflowers, within the quiet corners of your home, or beneath the vastness of an evening sky, natural light has the power to transform the ordinary into the unforgettable. When we learn to see it truly see we don’t just take photographs. We capture the feeling of life as it unfolds, bathed in the most honest light of all.
The Soul of Portraiture: Painting with Natural Light
Natural light portrait photography transcends mere technical execution. At its heart, it is an act of storytelling, one that draws on atmosphere, authenticity, and emotion. Unlike the polished perfection of artificial setups, natural light is wild and poetic. It cannot be commanded, only observed and embraced. This vulnerability is its gift. It turns the mundane into the magical and imbues each image with a sense of place and time that artificial lighting often erases.
At its best, portraiture with natural light becomes a form of visual poetry. A glimmer of afternoon sun slipping across a cheek, the soft blur of clouds casting a gentle veil over skin, the golden warmth of sunset wrapping around a smile are the stories you tell when you shoot not with light, but through it.
A foundational element in this kind of portraiture is subject placement. Where someone stands in relation to the source of light profoundly impacts the narrative of the photograph. A subject facing a window at a slight angle, for instance, transforms a flat scene into a deeply dimensional one. The light falls across the face, illuminating one side while allowing the other to retreat into gentle shadow. This is a technique borrowed from classical painters, whose works depended on chiaroscuro to add emotional weight and visual intrigue.
A sheer curtain can act as a silent partner in this dance, softening direct light and turning it into a glow that smooths textures and flatters the skin. When used creatively, even a small window can become a portal to something timeless. The goal is not to overpower with light, but to shape it, to let it fall just so. Every shaft, beam, or pool of brightness is an opportunity to create mood and meaning.
It’s not only about technical control; it’s about emotional readiness. Natural light has a rhythm, and portrait photographers must learn to tune into it. There are moments when the light kisses the subject’s face at just the right angle, moments that are fleeting and unscripted. Those who can see them, who can feel when the story is waiting to be captured, become not just photographers but visual storytellers.
Golden Hour Dreams and Cloudy Day Intimacy
Some of the most memorable portraits come to life during golden hour, that magical window just after sunrise or before sunset when the light is low, soft, and rich with warmth. This time of day transforms skin tones, turning them luminous. It bathes hair in honey tones and brings eyes to life with golden reflections. More than just a flattering light source, golden hour is a mood all its own. It carries a sense of longing, of fleeting beauty, and evokes a nostalgia that often lingers in the image long after the moment has passed.
To fully harness golden hour’s potential, invite your subject to move. Ask them to spin, walk, or interact with the space around them. In motion, the subject becomes less self-conscious and more authentic. A twirl in the golden light becomes a cinematic moment. A glance over the shoulder as the sun dips lower turns into a quiet revelation. These movements encourage the light to dance, to catch in unexpected ways along the edges of a face, a silhouette, or a strand of hair. The result is imagery that feels raw and deeply human.
Another technique that shines during golden hour is backlighting. When the sun is placed behind the subject, it creates a radiant rim of light around their form, as if they are lit from within. This rim light adds dimension and can be adjusted to be soft and angelic or bold and dramatic, depending on exposure and composition. There is no strict rule that says the sun must be directly behind. Sometimes, keeping it just outside the frame, slightly to the side, creates a more nuanced glow while avoiding harsh flare.
But flare itself, when embraced intentionally, can be a powerful tool. Shooting into the sun, allowing the light to wrap around the lens and create halos, adds an ethereal quality that digital perfection often lacks. A bit of haze, a soft bloom, or even a lens artifact can bring a soulful imperfection that enhances the emotional honesty of the image.
Then there are cloudy days, often avoided by new photographers but secretly loved by those who understand light’s subtleties. Overcast skies diffuse sunlight, creating an enormous natural softbox that evenly lights the entire scene. The shadows are soft, the contrast is low, and the emotional range is wide open. These conditions are ideal for portraits that aim to be introspective, contemplative, or quietly dramatic.
Think of a child tracing raindrops on a window, their reflection mingling with the clouds outside. Or an elder sitting in the hush of a grey afternoon, their expression softened by the gentle light. There is no need for extras in such moments. The simplicity is what makes them powerful. On these days, focus on gesture, expression, and stillness. Let the quiet tones and moody light wrap around the story you’re telling.
The Art of Observing Light Indoors and Within Details
Even indoors, natural light reveals unexpected opportunities for powerful portraits. Here, photographers must become hunters of lightwatching for pockets of brightness, angles of sunbeams, and reflections off surfaces. A shaft of sunlight falling through blinds can create graphic patterns across a face or body. A beam landing on a wooden table can isolate a subject’s hands, turning them into a study of time, labor, or tenderness.
This is where minimalism meets narrative. When you find a single source of light within a dim space, it invites precision and restraint. Metering becomes crucial. Expose for the brightest part of the frame and allow the shadows to remain rich and dark. The contrast introduces tension and cinematic impact. It draws the viewer’s eye exactly where you want it to go, and the rest fades into mystery.
The direction of light indoors becomes your brushstroke. Side light introduces depth. Top light adds drama. Light from below can feel unsettling or surreal. These elements can be combined with intention, allowing you to sculpt emotion as much as you shape form.
In creative sessions, don't be afraid to experiment. Place your subject behind a backlit curtain, and you’ll find the shape of their body outlined in light, softened by the fabric. The effect is evocative, suggestive rather than descriptive. It allows room for interpretation, giving the portrait a more universal resonance. Alternatively, play with shooting directly into strong light sources, allowing them to wash out parts of the frame and reduce the image to essential tones and gestures. What might seem like a technical imperfection becomes emotional clarity.
Color temperature plays a crucial role in how natural light is felt in the final image. Morning light is often cool, casting blueish shadows and evoking a sense of awakening or contemplation. Midday is bold and unfiltered, with crisp whites and sharp shadows that make colors pop with unapologetic vibrance. In contrast, evening light leans warm and golden, softening every hue and enveloping scenes in emotional warmth.
Clothing and setting should interact harmoniously with these shifts. A red sweater might feel overpowering under the sharp intensity of noon, but it glows beautifully in the gentle warmth of sunset. A pale blue dress may blend serenely into morning light but become cold in the wrong shadow. These nuances may seem subtle, but when they align with your subject and setting, they elevate the portrait from beautiful to unforgettable.
Ultimately, natural light is not just about illumination. It is about resonance. It brings a sense of realness, of lived-in moments, to your work. It whispers instead of shouting. It captures not just the likeness of a subject, but their inner world. Every beam, every glint, every delicate fall of light becomes part of the language you speak as a visual artist.
Embracing the Unexpected: Creative Experiments with Natural Light
Once you’ve grown comfortable with the basics of natural light photographyunderstanding golden hour, mastering backlighting, and recognizing the mood shifts of light throughout the dayyou’re ready to push beyond convention. This is the moment creativity truly blooms. Natural light, when treated not as a limitation but as an artistic partner, becomes an endless playground for invention. Some of the most magical effects aren’t achieved with filters or Photoshop, but rather with curiosity, patience, and a willingness to improvise with everyday objects.
One of the most bewitching techniques involves using a copper pipe, not typically found in a camera kit but capable of producing otherworldly visuals. A small 2.5-inch piece of copper tubing held just in front of your lens, angled precisely toward the sun, transforms light into something cinematic. The sun's rays bounce within the cylindrical interior and emerge as golden orbs, prismatic streaks, or shimmering, ghost-like reflections that dance across your image. The results are surreal, adding a poetic, dreamlike quality that can’t be replicated with software. While it takes finesse to avoid catching your fingers in the frame and to angle it just right, the reward is often breathtaking. Each adjustment reveals a new variation shot becomes a unique dialogue between light and lens.
Deliberate lens flare is another often overlooked tool that can turn an ordinary photo into something filled with mood and energy. Instead of blocking flare with your lens hood, remove it and allow light to scatter inside the lens barrel. This diffusion creates soft hazes or radiant bursts, giving your image a feeling of warmth and spontaneity. By carefully cupping your hand beside the lens, you can influence how the light enters, shaping the flare’s direction. Each shift of the hand alters the effect, making you feel as though you're painting with light itself. This tactile interaction with the sun lends itself beautifully to portraits, especially when shot during golden hour. The resulting hazes wrap your subject in a soft, ethereal glow that evokes nostalgia and memory.
Reflections, too, offer a quiet but powerful way to elevate natural light photography. Think beyond mirrors and embrace unexpected reflective surfaces like your smartphone screen, a shard of glass, or even a clear sheet of plastic. These objects catch and redirect ambient light back onto your subject, creating secondary highlights, subtle glows, or unusual shapes that add visual interest to your composition. Hold them just outside your frame and experiment with angling until the light bends in a way that enhances the mood. The effect can be unpredictable, but that very unpredictability invites a sense of wonder and storytelling. What you capture may be partially planned, but often, it feels like a gift from the light itself.
Painting with Shadows and Sunbeams
While it’s easy to fall in love with the drama of direct sunlight, there is an equal magic in the quiet conversation between light and shadow. One of the most evocative approaches in natural light photography is to work with contrastletting areas of darkness define the spotlight. Shooting in rooms with limited light, especially in corners where only a slant of daylight cuts through, can mimic the evocative chiaroscuro style of Renaissance paintings. The interplay of brightness and shadow becomes a narrative tool. A half-lit face suggests emotion, mystery, and depth. Hands emerging from the dark draw attention to gesture and texture. Eyes lit by a single beam seem to hold entire stories within them.
In these moments, your subject doesn’t need to be fully seen to be fully felt. The light carves out shape and dimension while the darkness adds tension and intrigue. There is power in restraint, in allowing your viewer to imagine what lies just beyond the visible. This technique is especially effective in portraiture, where subtle shifts in light can completely alter the mood. Instead of filling every corner with illumination, let the light fall sparingly, allowing certain elements to emerge while others remain obscured. This minimalist approach creates intimacy and emotion, letting suggestion carry as much weight as clarity.
Natural patterns created by the sun also offer surprising opportunities to inject rhythm and texture into your images. When the sun is low in the sky and filters through trees or blinds, it produces dappled light that flickers across skin, clothing, or surfaces. These shifting spots of brightness and shadow animate a scene, turning it into something kinetic and alive. You can use these organic shapes to frame a face, highlight a detail, or create abstract backgrounds that infuse your photo with energy. Simply timing your shoot to coincide with the angle of the sun filtering through foliage or windowpanes allows you to access nature’s version of a custom go-kart studio gear required.
Color, Movement, and the Art of Surrender
One of the most beautiful aspects of working with natural light is how effortlessly it can be shaped into something emotional. With just a few creative adjustments, you can infuse your scenes with color, mood, and storytelling depth. Try shooting through colored materials such as cellophane, tinted sunglasses, sheer scarves, or transparent fabrics. These simple additions bend the light and cast subtle hues across your subject or the entire scene. A warm red tint can evoke feelings of passion or energy, while cool blues can create a sense of melancholy or introspection. Because the color comes from the light itself rather than post-processing, the results feel organic and immersive.
Experimenting with these filters can be both intuitive and expressive. Hold them close to your lens or drape them over part of the frame. As the sun shifts or your subject moves, the colors will evolve in real time. This allows you to respond to the light’s language as it speaks, giving your photography a lyrical, almost musical rhythm. You’re not just documenting what’s in front of you’re collaborating with the moment.
Motion can also become a compositional tool when working with light. Allowing intentional blur, whether through a slow shutter or gentle camera movement, can amplify the sensation of light flowing through your image. Leaves trembling in the wind, fabric fluttering, or even a subject turning their head slightly mid-exposurethese small gestures, lit properly, transform still photos into visual poetry. The blur becomes part of the story, expressing emotion that sharp detail might miss.
Ultimately, the most compelling natural light photographs don’t arise from rigid control. They are born in the space where skill meets surrender. When you let go of perfection and follow the cues of the light, you invite moments that are rich with authenticity. You may have planned a shot, chosen the setting, and guided your subjectbut the light will always have the final word. Let it guide you into unexpected places. Trust it to reveal something you might not have seen otherwise.
The Golden Fade: Where Emotion Meets the Final Light
As the day wanes and the sun begins its descent, a distinct magic takes hold of the landscape. It is a fleeting moment when light becomes memory, and the world is bathed in a golden softness that seems to hold its breath. This is the last light, a time when nature gently transitions into rest, and the emotional power of natural light reaches its most profound peak.
Photographers often refer to this final hour as golden, but its power lies not only in its color. The emotional resonance of this time cannot be overstated. The shadows stretch long across fields and pavements, and the light becomes thinner, almost whispering rather than shining. This softness is not something that artificial lighting can duplicate. It’s a delicate wrapping of warmth around everything it touches, a visual lullaby.
Capturing this moment is about more than technique. It’s about sensing atmosphere. Portraits taken at this time become naturally infused with tenderness. A child coasting home on a bicycle, a couple sharing a quiet moment on a park bench, or a lone traveler silhouetted on a distant path are the stories written in the final light. These scenes stir emotion because they echo the passage of time and the beauty of fleetingness.
Natural light at dusk becomes a partner in storytelling. Its shifting presence adds layers of meaning, particularly in backlit portraits. Positioning your subject between the sun and your lens at this hour produces a radiant halo that feels less like a photographic trick and more like a visual poem. Light weaves itself through hair, outlines clothing in gold, and introduces lens flares that feel nostalgic rather than distracting. What’s captured isn’t just a face or figure, but an atmospheric sense, a mood, a story half-whispered and half-remembered.
There’s a cinematic romance to this time of day, and tapping into it requires more than proper exposure settings. It requires stillness, attention, and emotional availability. Let the light show you where it wants to fall. Let your subject be at ease within that softness. Let the story emerge not from posed perfection, but from honesty and mood. When the light grows gentler, your photos should too. It’s not about sharpness anymore; it’s about sensation.
The Quiet Interior: Dusk Indoors and the Language of Atmosphere
As the sun continues its descent and natural light slips indoors, new opportunities arise. Windows become softboxes, halls become corridors of fading gold, and everyday objects glow with unexpected poetry. Inside a home, the dwindling light frames moments of solitude and stillness with poignant clarity. A sleeping cat in the last rays of afternoon, shadows stretching along baseboards, or a forgotten toy resting in a pool of light are quiet scenes that speak volumes.
Photographing indoors during the final light of day teaches you to see differently. You begin to appreciate how subtle light transforms a room, how it recasts the familiar into something deeply atmospheric. Opening up your aperture becomes essential. Allow in as much light as possible, even if it means embracing a bit of grain. Soft focus can be part of the story here, adding dreamlike texture to images. These aren’t meant to be technically flawless photographs; they’re meant to feel alive with emotion.
Rooms tell stories during this time. A chair positioned near a west-facing window may seem unremarkable at noon but becomes a centerpiece at dusk. Photographing the same corner across different hours unveils a hidden narrative. The changing light doesn’t just shift exposure alters the emotional register of the scene. A series of images taken from a single location at various times can form a layered, evocative story not just about light, but about the passage of time itself.
This method of shooting can be especially powerful for personal storytelling or documentary-style photography. The light becomes a silent narrator, revealing moods that words often struggle to express. It creates a reflective visual tone, perfect for portraying rituals, routines, or moments of gentle solitude. There’s something deeply human about watching the light fade indoors. It reminds us of home, of endings, of safety, of time moving forward.
Photographers who shoot during this hour indoors often report a heightened sense of presence. Every small detail becomes more noticeable. The way the light falls across the rim of a coffee mug, the quiet geometry of shadow and form, the glow of skin caught in the last flicker of these things make the ordinary extraordinary. And capturing them is less about the camera you use, and more about your willingness to see with feeling.
After the Sun: The Mystery and Mood of Blue Hour
Just because the sun has vanished below the horizon does not mean the story ends. On the contrary, a new chapter begins, one that is subtle, haunting, and utterly magnetic. As twilight sets in and the sky deepens into tones of indigo, lavender, and navy, the so-called "blue hour" arrives. It’s a time of mystery, when light no longer dominates but lingers like an afterthought. And it holds immense potential for natural light photographers who are patient enough to wait.
This time of day is a gift for those willing to embrace mood over clarity. Blue hour light is diffuse and cool, wrapping the world in a cinematic melancholy. Shadows melt into the landscape, details soften, and the remaining ambient glow gives portraits an almost painterly quality. Whether you're shooting an empty street, a reflective subject, or a moody landscape, this light lends emotional gravity to the frame.
Unlike the golden hour that invites warmth and nostalgia, the blue hour invites introspection. It's quiet hush brings a new emotional vocabulary to photography that speaks of endings, quietude, and transition. There’s drama here, yes, but it is subtle and poetic. It’s the kind of light that turns streetlamps into halos, that makes the edges of buildings shimmer slightly, that brings a softness to even the hardest corners of a city or a face.
Photographing in the blue hour requires an openness to imperfection. Your images may not be tack-sharp. You may need to increase ISO, slow down your shutter, or brace your camera carefully. But what you gain in mood and storytelling outweighs the technical compromises. These images feel alive in a different way, like visual echoes rather than declarations.
This is also a powerful time to photograph landscapes. A field under a darkening sky, a mountain silhouetted against an ocean of dusk, a tree line blurred in the misty light are scenes that evoke solitude and scale. They ask the viewer to feel rather than simply look. And as a photographer, your job is not to overpower that emotion, but to channel it through composition, timing, and intention.
Ultimately, natural light photography is about more than understanding exposure or mastering gear. It is about paying attention to light, to mood, to fleetingness. It asks you to be present with what is, rather than forcing an image to become what you planned. The true beauty of natural light lies in its impermanence. You cannot control it, only respond to it. And within that dance lies the soul of storytelling.
Conclusion
Natural light is more than illumination’s the heartbeat of honest photography. It transforms everyday moments into soulful stories, shaping images with mood, movement, and memory. From the golden glow of dawn to the haunting hush of blue hour, it invites us to slow down and feel. In embracing its unpredictability, we trade control for connection, crafting portraits and landscapes that pulse with life. This journey isn't about chasing perfection's about presence. When you learn to see with your heart as much as your eyes, every ray of sunlight becomes a brushstroke in the art of storytelling.