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Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

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A glass half full<br />

Interesting things happen when<br />

you add liquid to a glass. By<br />

adding liquid, <strong>the</strong> glass takes <strong>on</strong><br />

qualities of a lens. It starts to see<br />

things around it and <strong>the</strong> liquid<br />

allows <strong>the</strong>se things to become<br />

visible. In <strong>the</strong> photo below, we<br />

have a small white board behind<br />

<strong>the</strong> glass. It is far enough away<br />

that we can have <strong>the</strong> off-camera<br />

flash light <strong>the</strong> board. We used<br />

barn doors to block <strong>the</strong> light from<br />

<strong>the</strong> flash from lighting <strong>the</strong> glass.<br />

The liquid is acting as a lens and<br />

showing us <strong>the</strong> surroundings even<br />

though <strong>the</strong>re is a white board behind<br />

<strong>the</strong> glass that is big enough to fill <strong>the</strong><br />

viewfinder with white from edge to edge.<br />

The board is just big enough<br />

that when we look through <strong>the</strong><br />

viewfinder, we see white all<br />

around <strong>the</strong> glass, but just barely.<br />

Even though we have a board<br />

that fills <strong>the</strong> viewfinder, <strong>the</strong> liquid<br />

is seeing <strong>the</strong> room around it.<br />

<strong>the</strong> fix<br />

We might be inclined to simply<br />

use a bigger white board.<br />

That will certainly do, but <strong>the</strong><br />

edges of <strong>the</strong> glass will be not<br />

as well defined as we’d like.<br />

The better soluti<strong>on</strong> is to keep<br />

<strong>the</strong> small board but move <strong>the</strong><br />

camera closer and, if necessary,<br />

change to a shorter lens to get<br />

a comparably sized image. This<br />

way <strong>the</strong> background fills <strong>the</strong><br />

liquid porti<strong>on</strong> of <strong>the</strong> glass more<br />

pleasingly and retains good<br />

edge definiti<strong>on</strong>. In <strong>the</strong> photo<br />

<strong>on</strong> page 158, we switched to<br />

a shorter lens and moved <strong>the</strong><br />

camera to get a similar positi<strong>on</strong><br />

as in <strong>the</strong> photo <strong>on</strong> this page.<br />

So, Where Do We Put This Light for Glass? 157

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