Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
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