Hi. Is there a word or a set of words for describing when sun rays appear like this in a photo? I have a character who is a photographer, and she loves it when these sun rays appear in her photos. Jane strolled down the Kings Road, heading for the underground. The sun glared in the clear June sky, wrapping the city in a golden haze. It all looked so irresistible. She reached into her bag and fished out her camera and took a few snaps. She viewed the photos later when she was on the Underground, loving how sun rays....
I don't think those are the sun's rays. I;m not quite sure what they are, they look like some kind of photographic artifact rather than something that was actually there and showed up in the picture. They might be what's called chromatic abberation, because they have the color fringing along the upper edge, almost like a rainbow. The sun's rays look like this in a photo: And are sometimes referred to as Jacob's Ladder. It's a Biblical term—here's an explanation: Jacob's Ladder The reason the rays are visible, with or without a camera, is because dust or fog or mist in the air catches the strong beams of light. You can see it against the sky, not down against the ground, which is why I don't think the picture you showed is actually sun rays.
So how do you think I can finish this sentence? Jane strolled down the Kings Road, heading for the underground. The sun glared in the clear June sky, wrapping the city in a golden haze. It all looked so irresistible. She reached into her bag and fished out her camera and took a few snaps. She viewed the photos later when she was on the Underground, loving how..... There is a rainbow-ish effect here as well:
I'm not sure what those are. They could be lens flares or smears on a lens that needs to be cleaned? Look into lens flares. You tend to get them with older lenses, made before the 80's, because they didn't have good modern coatings to prevent it.
I pretended to be a photographer many years ago. Xoic is correct, the term is flare. It's curious that your photographer character likes it because, as it appears in your two examples, most photographers would reject the photos if they had flare like that. It's just photographic interference, not an aesthetic effect like the rays in the image Xoic posted. Xoic is also correct that lens makes have expended considerable effort and expense in developing better coatings precisely to prevent this sort of anomaly. It occurs when the direct light of the sun strokes the surface of the lens at a very shallow angle, even though the sun itself isn't anywhere near being in the photo. The old-school tool to avoid this problem was a lens shade, to ensure that direct sunlight does not fall on the lens itself. I have a rather old but (for the time) high-end Minolta digital camera that came with a lens shade.
I do like the look of lens flares sometimes. I bought a bunch of lenses from the 60's and 70's in order to get some lens flares (real ones) for that retro 60's movie effect, like the hippie movies shot on 8 or 16mm film with beautiful blonde women lying in fields that would cause hay fever flare-ups as the sun shimmers and there are tall weeds silhouetted against the golden sky. I have a soft spot for those kinds of films, as long as they're very short. But I can understand somebody loving those effects and pursuing them in their work.
What about this? Jane strolled down the Kings Road, heading for the underground. The sun glared in the clear June sky, wrapping the city in a golden haze. It all looked so irresistible. She reached into her bag and fished out her camera and took a few snaps. She hit the review button on her camera later when she was on the Underground, loving how flares streaked the images. She loved those bright shimmers of light that gave the photos a cinematic feel.
I like the cinematic feel, but maybe needs another adjective for the time period? Certainly not modern cinema.
Maybe something like artistic but as mentioned a lot of photographers may prefer a more realistic feel. I think a lot of photographers use flash unless absolutely necessary for a similar reason. But I don't know, with instagram filters so commonplace, maybe a lot of newer photographers have a different view.
Sorry I had to go all pedantic for a while there! I needed to first figure out what it was you were writing about, and it does seem to be lens flares. Now I can get on with actually looking at what you've written. Keeping in mind English is your second language and you're looking for help with wording and grammar etc. That's pretty good. Parts of it sound a little formal and repetitive though. She reached into her bag, and fished out her camera, and took a few snaps. (Added commas and took out the extra "and", which is unnecessary and makes it a little awkward.) She hit the review button on her camera later when she was on the Underground, loving how flares streaked the images. (I would somewhat restructure this as follows): On the train later she hit the review button and checked the thumbnails in the big screen on the back of the camera. What caught her eye in particular were the lens flares, the way they streaked the images with golden light. They added a sparkle, a beauty, almost a sense of shimmering movement. I would still try to find a way to lose that repetition of the word camera. It stands out if you use it more than once in a few paragraphs.
