Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

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Amending or mixing light So what do we do if the light isn’t just the way we want it? In the photo of the boy on the previous page, no help was needed to get a nice shot, even though it was a shaded area. But how can we fix the lighting when we are outside and the light isn’t what we want? In the upper photo here the flower was in the shade. We sense the delicacy of the flower, but it’s all rather drab. We tried the in-camera flash (bottom photo), but because the light came from directly in front of the flower (and therefore fills those informative shadows), we lose the texture of the petals. In the subsequent photo on the next page, we held a reflector angled so it reflected back the sunlight onto the flower. (Now we either need a friend to hold the reflector or, if we’re by ourselves, we need to mount the camera on a tripod.) We retain the delicacy but add a little brightness to the flower. We can apply this same technique when shooting photographs of people in open shade. We could certainly use a reflector (bigger than the one we would use for shooting a small flower), use the Sunlight 97
uilt-in flash for fill (maybe with some neutral density material), or just switch to the Shade mode. With a little experimentation, all photographers will find what works best for them. Sometimes the light is almost just right, but we need a little kiss of additional light. The photo on page 99 is actually a self-portrait of the photographer facing away from the camera. The sky was a bit gray, so the photographer added a screw-on polarizer, which held onto the cloud detail. The exposure was set so that the sky and clouds looked right. The photographer could have stopped there, but the lower body was blending into the background shadows. Adding one flash was the way to provide some definition. The light on the lower left arm in this photograph did not 98 Try different camera angles and heights. The first placement may not be the right one. <strong>Focus</strong> <strong>On</strong> <strong>Lighting</strong> <strong>Photos</strong> come from the sun but rather from a flash on a low light stand and angled so it mimicked the sun’s lighting—just enough to provide separation from the background. To get the focus for the photo, the photographer put the tripod where he eventually planned to stand. He noted where the tripod was so he could eventually stand in that spot. He then stood back and framed the photo in the camera. He focused on the tripod. He then brought the tripod back to where the camera was, put the camera on the tripod, and reframed the shot. He placed the off-camera flash where he thought it should go. He used the camera’s self-timer to take the picture and had a wireless radio control attached to the camera to fire the flash. Wireless radio controls are neat gizmos that allow us to trigger a flash without the flash being connected to the camera. They’re nice because no cables are needed. If they’re good, they also don’t need a line of sight to the flash and the sunlight won’t confuse them. (Think about your home radio. It gets its signal right through the walls that light can’t
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Focus On</
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Focus On</
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Dedication To Polly Frye, who tirel
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Contents 127 The wrinkle 128 Eyegla
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oating publications including Chesa
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Robin Reid: Trained as a classical
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learn to work with simple, dumb lig
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Chapter 1: There’s More Than <str
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Built-in flash Shot with built-in f
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Modifier 1: A mirror Having the fla
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Modifier 2: A big white reflector I
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Other modifiers: Fill light, hair l
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Same principle: We can control the
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how many pictures shouLd i shoot? G
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Later, turn on all the automation y
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can also get anything in between: a
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24 Focus O
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We all want the most intelligent ca
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28 the sake of rapid, accurate move
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30 can be to buy one expensive trig
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The size of the light The size of t
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We need to know about this defect t
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36 Focus O
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needs to consider buying one of wha
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Softbox Softboxes are boxes with di
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Diffusion The other way to make a l
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For this book, the translucent whit
Page 61 and 62: gobo to block some of that light. (
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Page 65 and 66: A commercially produced wooden cook
Page 67 and 68: any glue—all of which we already
Page 69 and 70: 54 We can use the grid for many pur
Page 71 and 72: 56 A grid solves the problem: We ha
Page 73 and 74: Lens filters Most lens filters chan
Page 76 and 77: in Our daily lives, we go through v
Page 78 and 79: The colors of sunrise and sunset ca
Page 80 and 81: Early evening. The sun is lower in
Page 82 and 83: space. The sunlit side will be both
Page 84 and 85: What happens when we go in the oppo
Page 86 and 87: setting in this open shade lighting
Page 88 and 89: Using gels for dramatic color In th
Page 90 and 91: The photo above was done by placing
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Page 95 and 96: Small lights make hard shadows. Fur
Page 97 and 98: Compare the gourd on page 81 with t
Page 99 and 100: We could solve the exposure problem
Page 101 and 102: Why does the same light look so dif
Page 103 and 104: We had to shoot the cover shot of t
Page 106 and 107: sunlight is great, and not just bec
Page 108 and 109: looks like a painting. We were too
Page 110 and 111: convert the image to black and whit
Page 114 and 115: penetrate.) But what if we don’t
Page 116 and 117: The sky was gray. In this case, the
Page 118 and 119: Distance and haze Haze happens for
Page 120: The photo above was taken in early
Page 123 and 124: Regardless of which lighting style
Page 125 and 126: postproduction work to deepen the s
Page 127 and 128: Broad lighting Broad lighting is pr
Page 129 and 130: like to place it so that it lights
Page 131 and 132: Rim lighting/kicker Rim lighting is
Page 133 and 134: Butterfly/Beauty lighting Butterfly
Page 135 and 136: Low key versus high key lighting Bo
Page 137 and 138: We blocked the popup flash so none
Page 139 and 140: 124 Focus
Page 141 and 142: 126 Light meters Do we need light m
Page 143 and 144: Eyeglasses and lighting: Can they g
Page 145 and 146: In the photo on page 128, we’ve g
Page 149 and 150: When photographing large groups, wh
Page 151 and 152: way they can get an image of the da
Page 153 and 154: est-behaved pets rarely sit as stil
Page 157 and 158: Direct reflection means that the li
Page 159 and 160: Flat metal The image below was lit
Page 161 and 162: we went ahead and put back the refl
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148 Focus
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glass is generally considered hard
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Position the camera so the viewfind
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we could have hung them with string
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A glass half full Interesting thing
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Bottle lit with off-camera flash th
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it reflected in the bottle. In this
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166 Focus
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A homemade flash trigger. We make o
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These photos are of a pianist known
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This picture uses two external flas
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the principles Of light remain the
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it is silly to spend hours to perfe
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all likelihood do some selective re
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Glossary this is an introductory bo
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photographer’s perspective from b
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Dodge: To lighten a portion of an i
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Had we had camera histogram display
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mirror reflector, often attached to
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minds, return to the original file,
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Index Page numbers followed by f in
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Lens hood, 99 Light amending or mix
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Sun light, (Continued) sunrise and
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